North Carolina · Nonprofit
SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE
SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE (North Carolina) receives grants from 1 organization whose IRS filings report $15,214 to it, the largest being PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND ($15,214). 1 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 FY2023
- $4k
- Funders on record
- 1
- Grants received
- $15k
- Net assets
- $23k
What School of the Alternative does
Mission
School of the Alternative is an experiment in education and community. We aim to provide a passion-driven model of education that encourages greater possibilities for thought, creation and collective action. Instead of a traditional classroom environment, our campus supports a collectively built, self-directed approach to learning, which gives opportunity for all participants to learn and teach.
As stated on its FY2023 Form 990-EZ.
Program
In the face of unaffordable, corporatized learning, and the one size fits all curriculums that often define public and private higher education, we are presenting an alternative. School of the Alternative is a socially integrated experience, with intimate classes, communal living, and emphasis on shared labor. Through a system of co-education, learners and educators cooperate in actively producing knowledge and forming new aesthetic experiences. Faculty are free to plan their class according to their own instruction, and are encouraged to join other classes as students. Students are expected to design their own curriculum but are also given the opportunity to teach. All members will participate in the schools physical maintenance through gardening, cooking, cleaning and will contribute to the gradual and continual transformation of the educational objectives, essential values, and political concerns, bracing School of the Alternative. We value experimentation as both an aesthetic drive, and as a way to push new ideas and old traditions to their limits. This radical power is one that allows for significant change within us, our respective fields, our society, and and our…
$5,667 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2022 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $5,667.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 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 at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $27k to $23k (−17%).
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.
0% of SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (65% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 5 reported years ran a deficit.
Who funds it, year by year
Grant support over time, funder by funder — shade shows the grant size each year.
1 of 1 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 SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE’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.
Where its funders are
100% of SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE'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. $15k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE's revenue fell 90% between 2019 and 2023.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 21,386 education nonprofits under $100k, FY2023
Organizations like SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE
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 North Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Public support
92%
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 SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE: 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 SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE?
- SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE (North Carolina) receives grants from 1 organization whose IRS filings report $15,214 to it, the largest being PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND ($15,214). 1 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 SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE have?
- IRS filings report 1 organization giving $15,214 in grants to SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE?
- PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND is the largest funder on record, with $15,214 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SCHOOL OF THE ALTERNATIVE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in North Carolina. 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 School of the Alternative →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2023 (financials across 2019–2023), and the filings of 1 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