Virginia · Nonprofit
PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES
PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES (Virginia) receives grants from 278 organizations whose IRS filings report $83,688,526 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($18,827,919). 189 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 64% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $70M
- Funders on record
- 278
- Grants received
- $84M
- Net assets
- $28M
What Prison Fellowship Ministries does
Mission
Prison fellowship works to restore america's criminal justice system and those it affects. We help men and women replace the cycle of brokenness that landed them in prison. (continued on schedule o)we advocate for justice reform and activate grassroots networks to do the same. We equip wardens to bring restorative change to their facilities. We care for prisoners' families and help strengthen the bond between children and their parents who are behind bars. We call the church to lead the way in caring for those impacted by the criminal justice system. And we do it all from a biblical worldview.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Program ministry:prison fellowship staff and volunteers are in prisons each day building communities of good citizens through the prison fellowship academy and prison fellowship grow, which use targeted curriculum, compassionate coaches, and restorative community to replace participants' criminal thinking and behaviors with renewed purpose and biblically based life principles. During fiscal year 2025, men and women in 229 academy and grow sites in 44 states participated in the year long, evidence-based programs as change agents inside and outside of prison. As a result, we are seeing incarcerated people use their sentences as time to find new, positive life paths with prison fellowship staff and volunteers as their guides.prison fellowship lead helped to cultivate prison fellowship academy and grow graduates into mature christian leaders who completed 70 different service projects that made an impact on their community.with the help of 7,389 in-prison volunteers who served with prison fellowship during fiscal year 2025, 5,640 incarcerated men and women were impacted by prison fellowship classes, seminars, or intensive programs. Throughout the fiscal year, 186,173 bibles and other…
$40,849,737 spentof which $2,901,511 as grants$49,650 earned by the program88% of program spendingPublic education:prison fellowship's advocacy team communicates to churches, volunteers, and the general public the policy and legislative issues prison fellowship supports on state and federal levels. This work is performed via direct mail, news and information outlets, web postings, online webinars, live events, conferences, and other various media. Prison fellowship's criminal justice reform advocacy team educates our supporters about the need for fairer sentencing, a more constructive correctional culture, and second chances for those who have paid their debt to society.
$5,563,668 spent12% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $46,413,405.
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 $25M to $33M (+33%).
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 6% · 2025 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
97% of PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (95% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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
Heather M Rice-Minus
President and CEO
Board chair
Paul S Cauwels
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2023 and FY2024 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 64 funders to 133 funders, grant income rose $5.4M → $11M.
75 of 278 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 64% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $6.5M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Prison Fellowship Ministries Foundation); $500 from one payer (the payer's own filing calls it a related party, largest Amin Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES raised.
From the IRS filings of PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 278 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
PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% 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
74% 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 PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 44% · 2018 48% · 2019 49% · 2020 23% · 2021 18% · 2022 14% · 2023 21% — 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
56% of PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% 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
64% of PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES'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 $30M that is directly attributable, 94% of it comes from funders outside Virginia, across 38 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $54M arriving through sponsors registered in 34 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
PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 165 crime & legal nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 165 crime & legal nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $219 on record.
- TRUST FUND$219
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 PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES
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 Virginia
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
69% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 21 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Prison Fellowship Ministries Foundation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES: 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 PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES?
- PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES (Virginia) receives grants from 278 organizations whose IRS filings report $83,688,526 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($18,827,919). 189 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 64% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES have?
- IRS filings report 278 organizations giving $83,688,526 in grants to PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES, 189 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES?
- NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC is the largest funder on record, with $18,827,919 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Virginia. 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 278 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