Virginia · Nonprofit
FERRUM COLLEGE
FERRUM COLLEGE (Virginia) receives grants from 64 organizations whose IRS filings report $8,849,776 to it, the largest being R STUART MOORE CHARITABLE TRUST FOR THE ($3,382,879). 44 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $40M
- Funders on record
- 64
- Grants received
- $8.8M
- Net assets
- $103M
What Ferrum College does
Mission
Our students enter with promise and leave with purpose. We foster personal growth, academic excellence, career-ready skills, and a compassion for service grounded in faith. We empower individuals to lead purposeful lives, guided by Ferrum College values and a commitment to impact their communities and the world.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Instruction - ferrum maintains a tradition of offering a comprehensive academic program in accord with a liberal arts core. We strive to provide education and to maximize students' chances for success by providing one-on-one support, individual attention and positive reinforcement. The curriculum includes opportunities for career preparation as well as personal development in order to help each student fulfill his or her personal educational goals. Ferrum College offers 32 majors and 41 minors, as well as a student-faculty ratio of 11:1. The college strives to provide pre-professional learning opportunities by offering a wide array of internships in its majors. The college also offers several graduate programs. Ferrum College provides one-on-one support through tutoring, academic advising and academic counseling through the carter center for academic success. The college also operates a fitness center that provides opportunities for students to put into practice what they are learning in the classroom.
$19,689,971 spentof which $13,172,106 as grants$20,700,841 earned by the program56% of program spendingAcademic support stanley library consists of the 21st century learning area which houses our learning engagement and practice (leap) studio for library instruction, our digital media center, our digital audio lab, and our "green screen" room. The library also has a sufficient print collection, a learning commons study area, full range of resource sharing services, and other quiet study areas. The michael christian '63 for first-year experience is designed to help students adjust to Ferrum College and obtain the necessary skills to become a successful college student. The program engages new students to cultivate a better understanding of the learning process, and to take advantage of the campus resources and community available to them. The state center for blue ridge folklore, Ferrum College's blue ridge institute and museum (brim) has documented the folkways of the people living in and around the blue ridge mountains. The brim adds a unique element to Ferrum College's modern academic programs. These services are provided free of charge to students. The blue ridge institute farm museum is available to the general public for a small fee.
$1,770,276 spent5% of program spendingStudent services - student leadership and engagement facilitates a diverse calendar of events that enhances and compliments the curriculum and co-curriculum; supports clubs and organizations that not only involve, but engages students, and promotes service learning. Athletics - Ferrum College considers intercollegiate athletics to be an integral part of the college experience and seeks to provide positive and enriching programs that complement and reinforce the educational pursuits, academic success, and athletic excellence of student athletes. Admissions promotes Ferrum College through various marketing programs including mailings, attendance at various high school college fairs, and personal tours of the campus in order to enroll students. Financial aid complements the admissions process by working with families to secure financial resources required for attendance. Registrar assists as well by verifying the academic credentials of potential students and then follows the student through their academic progress to graduation. Tri-area community health center (3rd party partner) and Ferrum College counseling services provide health services to our students.
$6,620,456 spent19% of program spendingAuxiliaries - the two major areas of auxiliaries are residence life and dining services. Residence life includes residential facilities and staff that support the on campus student housing experience. Dining services includes cost of meal plans and equipment replacement or repairs. Other auxiliary items include the campus spirit store, summer programs, and faculty/staff rental housing.
$7,134,268 spent$8,128,909 earned by the program20% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $35,214,971.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $126M to $138M (+10%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 1% · 2018 1% · 2019 1% · 2020 3% · 2021 10% · 2022 14% · 2023 2% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
22% of FERRUM COLLEGE’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (23% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
D Scott Showalter
Chair of the board of trus
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 16 funders to 26 funders, grant income rose $317k → $1.3M.
10 of 64 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 11% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of FERRUM COLLEGE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 64 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
FERRUM COLLEGE leans on a few funders — its largest provides 38% of grant income and the top three 70%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
47% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund FERRUM COLLEGE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 53% · 2018 88% · 2019 51% · 2020 37% · 2021 45% · 2022 54% · 2023 51% — broadly stable.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
55% of FERRUM COLLEGE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 69% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
FERRUM COLLEGE draws 75% of its grant income from funders outside Virginia, across 22 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $936k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
FERRUM COLLEGE's funding base is broadening — from 16 funders to 26 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,794 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding FERRUM COLLEGE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $9.7M on record.
- Department of Education$9.6M
- National Endowment for the Arts$30k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like FERRUM COLLEGE
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Virginia
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
85% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- Roberts-Beckham LLC · disregarded
- Blue Ridge Foundation Inc · exempt
- R-B LP · partnership
- Rs Moore Testamentary Trust FBO Ferrum College · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for FERRUM COLLEGE: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds FERRUM COLLEGE?
- FERRUM COLLEGE (Virginia) receives grants from 64 organizations whose IRS filings report $8,849,776 to it, the largest being R STUART MOORE CHARITABLE TRUST FOR THE ($3,382,879). 44 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does FERRUM COLLEGE have?
- IRS filings report 64 organizations giving $8,849,776 in grants to FERRUM COLLEGE, 44 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FERRUM COLLEGE?
- R STUART MOORE CHARITABLE TRUST FOR THE is the largest funder on record, with $3,382,879 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FERRUM COLLEGE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Virginia. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Ferrum College →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 64 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing