Pennsylvania · Nonprofit
HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,234,684 to it, the largest being HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE ($2,340,723). 9 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.5M
- Funders on record
- 21
- Grants received
- $5.2M
- Net assets
- $5.5M
What Hillel the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life at the Penn State University does
Mission
To enrich the lives of jewish and undergraduate students so that they may enrich the jewish people and the world. Penn state hillel's student leaders, professionals, and lay leaders are dedicated to creating a pluralistic, welcoming, and inclusive environment for jewish college students, where they are encouraged to grow intellectually, spiritually, and socially. Penn state hillel helps students find a balance in being distinctively jewish and universally human by encouraging them to pursue tzdek (social justice), tikkun olam (repairing the world) and jewish learning, and to support israel and global jewish peoplehood. Penn state hillel is committed to excellence, innovation, accountability, and results.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Engagement and immersive experiences: penn state hillel provides a wide range of engagement opportunities that connect jewish students with one another and with jewish life on campus. Through social programs, leadership opportunities, wellness initiatives, cultural events, and peer-led gatherings, students are invited to build relationships and explore their jewish identity in ways that feel meaningful and accessible. Student leaders play a central role in shaping programming and fostering an inclusive, pluralistic community that welcomes students from diverse backgrounds and levels of jewish experience. These initiatives help create a strong sense of belonging and community among jewish students at penn state while supporting their personal growth, leadership development, and connection to jewish life. In addition, penn state hillel facilitates immersive educational travel experiences to israel and other locations abroad. Through organized trips, students engage with historical sites, meet with peers and community leaders, and participate in guided discussions about identity, culture, and global jewish peoplehood. These experiences are designed to deepen students' understanding…
$171,283 spent17% of program spendingPenn state hillel provides regular shabbat and jewish holiday celebrations that serve as central pillars of jewish student life on campus. Each week during the academic year, students come together for shabbat services and dinners. These experiences are welcoming and pluralistic, enabling students from diverse jewish backgrounds and levels of observance to participate meaningfully in jewish ritual and community. In addition to weekly shabbat programming, penn state hillel hosts celebrations for jewish holidays including rosh hashanah, yom kippur, sukkot, hanukkah, passover, and purim. These programs provide students with access to jewish tradition, learning, and community, often incorporating student-led services, educational components, and festive meals. Through these gatherings, penn state hillel fosters a vibrant and inclusive jewish community, helping students strengthen their jewish identity, build relationships, and develop leadership skills.
$51,640 spent5% of program spendingPenn state hillel's jewish learning initiatives including jewish learning fellowship, shabbat hosting lab, men to mensches, the israel learning fellowship and more, are designed as dynamic and personalized learning experiences for students. We prioritize creating a suite of jewish learning programming throughout the entire school year. Through classes, discussion groups, guest speakers, and peer-led learning experiences, students are invited to deepen their understanding of jewish texts, ethics, history, and culture in ways that are accessible and relevant to their lives. Learning opportunities take place in both formal and informal settings and are designed to welcome students with varying levels of prior knowledge and jewish educational background. By creating spaces for inquiry, dialogue, and reflection, penn state hillel helps students connect jewish learning to their personal growth, leadership development, and engagement with the broader campus community.
$39,227 spent4% of program spendingTo enrich the lives of jewish and undergraduate students so that they may enrich the jewish people and the world. Penn state hillel's student leaders, professionals, and lay leaders are dedicated to creating a pluralistic, welcoming, and inclusive environment for jewish college students, where they are encouraged to grow intellectually, spiritually, and socially. Penn state hillel helps students find a balance in being distinctively jewish and universally human by encouraging them to pursue tzdek (social justice), tikkun olam (repairing the world) and jewish learning, and to support israel and global jewish peoplehood. Penn state hillel is committed to excellence, innovation, accountability, and results.
$775,276 spent$23,530 earned by the program75% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,037,426.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $4.4M to $5.6M (+29%).
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: 2021 8% · 2022 16% · 2023 2% · 2024 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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
Cindy Ruben
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 7 funders, grant income rose $108k → $481k.
17 of 21 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 49% 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 HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY’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.
How concentrated its funding is
HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 45% of grant income and the top three 74%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
99% 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 HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 43% · 2018 64% · 2019 62% · 2020 66% · 2021 66% · 2022 49% · 2023 55% — growing more concentrated.
“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
67% of HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 43% 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
HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY draws 99% of its grant income from funders outside Pennsylvania, across 4 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.6M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 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.
Organizations like HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
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 Pennsylvania
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
60% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
69%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY: 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 HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY?
- HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,234,684 to it, the largest being HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE ($2,340,723). 9 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY have?
- IRS filings report 21 organizations giving $5,234,684 in grants to HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY, 9 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY?
- HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE is the largest funder on record, with $2,340,723 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE AT THE PENN STATE UNIVERSITY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Pennsylvania. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
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 21 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