New Jersey · Nonprofit
Free Ebook Foundation
Free Ebook Foundation (New Jersey) receives grants from 1 organization whose IRS filings report $40 to it, the largest being AMAZONSMILE FOUNDATION ($40). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 100% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $44k
- Funders on record
- 1
- Grants received
- $40
- Net assets
- $24k
What Free Ebook Foundation does
Mission
The Free Ebook Foundation envisions a world where ebooks will be funded, distributed and maintained for the benefit of all, by coordinating the efforts and resources of many. We are working towards sustainable ecosystem for free ebooks by making them easier to produce, more available, widely discoverable and by building systems that preserve them.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Program
In 2025, the Free Ebook Foundation, launched an initiative to provide accessible descriptions for 400,000 images in Project Gutenberg books, highlighted by production of the first accessible, public-domain ebook version of "Winnie-the-Pooh". We continued to improve Project Gutenberg's Ebookmaker software, improving the formatting, presentation, and accessibility of over 77,000 public domain ebooks. Starting in October the foundation began providing management services to Project Gutenberg. The Foundation's Free-Programming-Books repository is the fifth most popular repo on all of GitHub, reaching 10,000 commits by 3381 contributors. Unglue.it, the Foundation's ebook distribution site, distributed 4.7 million ebooks from its catalog of over 260,000 free-licenced ebooks.
$37,584 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $37,584.
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 2021 to 2022, from $5k to $18k (+250%).
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.
12% of Free Ebook Foundation’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (65% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
Leadership and staff
Chief executive
Eric Hellman
President & CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2023: the base held at 1 funder, grant income rose $5 → $16.
1 of 1 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 100% 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 Free Ebook Foundation’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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.
Where its funders are
100% of Free Ebook Foundation's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Too little is directly attributable to place on a map.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $40 arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
Free Ebook Foundation runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 17,277 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,277 education nonprofits under $100k, FY2025
Organizations like Free Ebook Foundation
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 New Jersey
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Free Ebook Foundation: 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 Free Ebook Foundation?
- Free Ebook Foundation (New Jersey) receives grants from 1 organization whose IRS filings report $40 to it, the largest being AMAZONSMILE FOUNDATION ($40). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 100% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Free Ebook Foundation have?
- IRS filings report 1 organization giving $40 in grants to Free Ebook Foundation, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Free Ebook Foundation?
- AMAZONSMILE FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $40 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Free Ebook Foundation find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New Jersey. 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 Free Ebook →
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 1 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing