Illinois · Nonprofit
LEADING EDUCATORS INC
LEADING EDUCATORS INC (Illinois) receives grants from 43 organizations whose IRS filings report $50,620,692 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($10,000,000). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $22M
- Funders on record
- 43
- Grants received
- $51M
- Net assets
- $32M
What Leading Educators Inc does
Mission
Leading educators partners with school systems to build and sustain the conditions, teaching, and leadership to ensure that the students furthest from opportunity succeed in school and in life.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Leading educators provides unmatched support to transform instruction, develop dynamic teaching teams and accelerate learning for all students. Our customized approaches to instructional improvements offer direct support for teachers that strengthens the conditions and learning infrastructure around them. National research initiative: scaling what worksleading educators completed a multi-year national research study examining the professional learning practices most strongly associated with improved student outcomes across school systems. In partnership with national research organizations, the study analyzed more than forty district partnerships and found that schools implementing leading educators' professional learning approach achieved meaningful improvements in student learning. Participating schools saw gains equivalent to approximately nine months of additional learning, with math performance improving between 8 and 34 percent and english language arts improving between 12 and 18 percent relative to comparable schools. Ai/mathematic innovation initiativeleading educators expanded its innovation work through a national partnership supporting school teams exploring…
$15,320,554 spent$7,186,904 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $15,320,554.
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 $10M to $29M (+187%).
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 4% · 2018 6% · 2019 6% · 2020 6% · 2021 6% · 2022 4%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
66% of LEADING EDUCATORS INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (23% for the typical peer).
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.
Chief executive
Chong-Hao Fu
Chief executive officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 7 funders to 19 funders, grant income rose $2.8M → $6.5M.
12 of 43 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 26% 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 LEADING EDUCATORS INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 43 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
LEADING EDUCATORS INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% 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 LEADING EDUCATORS INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 69% · 2018 39% · 2019 41% · 2020 34% · 2021 21% · 2022 64% · 2023 17% — 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
47% of LEADING EDUCATORS INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 60% 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
LEADING EDUCATORS INC draws 93% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 10 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $13M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
LEADING EDUCATORS INC runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 3,758 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,758 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding LEADING EDUCATORS INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $658k on record.
- MD$658k
- FL$119
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 LEADING EDUCATORS INC
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
73% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
57%
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 LEADING EDUCATORS INC: 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 LEADING EDUCATORS INC?
- LEADING EDUCATORS INC (Illinois) receives grants from 43 organizations whose IRS filings report $50,620,692 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($10,000,000). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does LEADING EDUCATORS INC have?
- IRS filings report 43 organizations giving $50,620,692 in grants to LEADING EDUCATORS INC, 26 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LEADING EDUCATORS INC?
- The Chicago Community Trust is the largest funder on record, with $10,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LEADING EDUCATORS INC 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 Leading Educators →
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 43 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