Illinois · Nonprofit
KNOX COLLEGE
KNOX COLLEGE (Illinois) receives grants from 128 organizations whose IRS filings report $29,094,284 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($3,818,707). 81 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $104M
- Funders on record
- 128
- Grants received
- $29M
- Net assets
- $216M
What Knox College does
Mission
Knox College is dedicated to providing a liberal arts education to students from diverse backgrounds. Our mission is carried out through: our curriculum, the character of our learning environment, our residential campus culture, and our community.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Higher education: our mission is carried out through our curriculum, the character of our learning environment, our residential campus culture, and our community. Knox College has a tradition of free inquiry, independent thought, and diverse perspectives. Our students choose their own path towards a degree, guided by scholar teachers who encourage them to explore ideas and places, stretch their intellect and their talents, blend thought with action, and fuse imagination with initiative. Founded in 1837 by social reformers strongly opposed to slavery, knox was one of the first colleges in the united states open to both women and people of color. It was on our campus where abraham lincoln chose to denounce slavery on moral terms for the first time during the 1858 lincoln-douglas debate. With a campus population that includes students from 42 states and 56 countries, 38% u.s. Students of color, and individuals from every imaginable religious and socioeconomic background. Members of the knox community are actively challenged to broaden their points of view. Knox College is a college that changes lives (1,127 students)
$94,570,914 spentof which $45,883,731 as grants$74,501,351 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $94,570,914.
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 $258M to $294M (+14%).
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 2% · 2021 4% · 2022 5% · 2023 1% · 2024 0% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
18% of KNOX COLLEGE’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (14% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2021 and FY2022, and between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 28 funders to 59 funders, grant income rose $1.5M → $3.5M.
26 of 128 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 28% 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 KNOX COLLEGE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 128 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
KNOX COLLEGE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 13% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
37% 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 KNOX COLLEGE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 47% · 2018 24% · 2019 64% · 2020 21% · 2021 19% · 2022 22% · 2023 26% — diversifying over time.
“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
59% of KNOX COLLEGE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
KNOX COLLEGE draws 74% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 25 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $8.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 19 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
KNOX COLLEGE's funding base is broadening — from 28 funders to 59 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 684 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding KNOX COLLEGE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $14.2M on record.
- Department of Education$12.7M
- National Science Foundation$1.1M
- National Endowment for the Humanities$375k
- National Endowment for the Arts$40k
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 KNOX 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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for KNOX 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 KNOX COLLEGE?
- KNOX COLLEGE (Illinois) receives grants from 128 organizations whose IRS filings report $29,094,284 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($3,818,707). 81 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does KNOX COLLEGE have?
- IRS filings report 128 organizations giving $29,094,284 in grants to KNOX COLLEGE, 81 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of KNOX COLLEGE?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $3,818,707 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like KNOX COLLEGE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 Knox 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 128 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