Texas · Nonprofit
Houston Zen Community
Houston Zen Community (Texas) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $144,077 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($134,975). 2 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 FY2024
- $396k
- Funders on record
- 3
- Grants received
- $144k
- Net assets
- $2.1M
What Houston Zen Community does
Mission
Houston Zen CommunityStatement of FaithHouston Zen Community (HZC) exists to support and enhance the teachings of compassion and wisdom that were articulated by the Buddha 2,500 years ago. Buddha awoke to the true nature of life and to the true nature of interconnectedness. For Buddhists, no individual can achieve separate freedom from delusion, or salvation, unless everyone achieves freedom, or salvation. Therefore, Buddhists understand that our efforts must be aimed toward freeing all beings from suffering. There can be no separate, isolated, freedom, because we are connected; we are all blessed with Buddha Nature.The primary hindrance to compassion is delusion, that is, the inability to see or understand our total interconnectedness. Therefore, meditation and compassionate action aim to relieve beings from fear and delusion, allowing them to experience the sacredness of their own lives. On this basis, Buddhists become more skillful at seeing the sacredness of everyone's life; we bec
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
The programs and services of the Houston Zen Community were detailed at length in a separately filed Schedule A, Form 1023 through which the community's status as a church was established with the Internal Revenue Service.
$491,913 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $491,913.
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 2022 to 2023, from $2.0M to $2.3M (+12%).
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.
80% of Houston Zen Community’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (100% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 7 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base held at 1 funder, grant income fell $13k → $9k.
3 of 3 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 Houston Zen Community’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
Houston Zen Community leans on a few funders — its largest provides 94% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
100% 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 Houston Zen Community.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 100% · 2019 100% · 2020 98% · 2021 98% · 2022 100% · 2023 100% — 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.
Where its funders are
100% of Houston Zen Community'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. $144k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
Houston Zen Community's revenue grew 51% between 2017 and 2024.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 12,816 religion nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like Houston Zen Community
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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
95% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Houston Zen Community: 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 Houston Zen Community?
- Houston Zen Community (Texas) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $144,077 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($134,975). 2 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 Houston Zen Community have?
- IRS filings report 3 organizations giving $144,077 in grants to Houston Zen Community, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Houston Zen Community?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $134,975 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Houston Zen Community find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 Houston Zen →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 3 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