Massachusetts · Nonprofit
LESLEY UNIVERSITY
LESLEY UNIVERSITY (Massachusetts) receives grants from 105 organizations whose IRS filings report $32,117,778 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($9,978,231). 64 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depressionshared funders
- Milton Carpenter Foundationportfolio match
- Dune Foundation a Nj Nonprofit Corporationportfolio match
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.
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 14% · 2022 8% · 2023 1% · 2024 2% · 2025 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
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 28 funders to 36 funders, grant income rose $1.0M → $3.4M.
20 of 105 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 71% 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 LESLEY UNIVERSITY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 105 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
LESLEY UNIVERSITY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 31% of grant income and the top three 70%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
75% 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 LESLEY UNIVERSITY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 61% · 2018 25% · 2019 39% · 2020 50% · 2021 47% · 2022 45% · 2023 51% — 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
30% of LESLEY UNIVERSITY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 61% 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
71% of LESLEY UNIVERSITY'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. Of the $9.3M that is directly attributable, 72% of it comes from funders outside Massachusetts, across 24 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $23M arriving through sponsors registered in 13 statesis 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 105 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depressionshared fundersNY · backs 62 organizations that share your funders
- Milton Carpenter Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Dune Foundation a Nj Nonprofit Corporationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Miriam Sutro Price Scholarship Fundportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Baker-Adams Scholarship Fundportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- George Gardner & Fanny Whitingportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Mental Research Instituteportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Hispanic Scholarship Fundshared fundersCA · backs 86 organizations that share your funders
- Ernest Wentcher Educational Fundshared fundersIL · backs 60 organizations that share your funders
- Northeastern Universityshared fundersMA · backs 65 organizations that share your funders
- Brown Universityshared fundersRI · backs 74 organizations that share your funders
- American Council of Learned Societiesshared fundersNY · backs 93 organizations that share your funders
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Government funding LESLEY UNIVERSITY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $17.4M on record — $15.1M federal, $2.3M state.
- Department of Education$14.5M
- Department of Health and Human Services$482k
- Department of the Interior$91k
- MA$2.2M
- NJ$71k
- VT$6k
- DE$5k
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 LESLEY UNIVERSITY
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
76% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
69%
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 LESLEY 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds LESLEY UNIVERSITY?
- LESLEY UNIVERSITY (Massachusetts) receives grants from 105 organizations whose IRS filings report $32,117,778 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($9,978,231). 64 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does LESLEY UNIVERSITY have?
- IRS filings report 105 organizations giving $32,117,778 in grants to LESLEY UNIVERSITY, 64 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LESLEY UNIVERSITY?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $9,978,231 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LESLEY UNIVERSITY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 105funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing