Florida · Nonprofit
THE DICTIONARY PROJECT
THE DICTIONARY PROJECT (Florida) receives grants from 38 organizations whose IRS filings report $723,218 to it, the largest being COLUMBUS ROTARY FOUNDATION INC ($102,774). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.7M
- Funders on record
- 38
- Grants received
- $723k
- Net assets
- $105k
What The Dictionary Project does
Mission
The mission of The Dictionary Project is to ensure that everyone will be able to enjoy the benefits of owning a dictionary. This program assists people in becoming good writers, active readers, creative thinkers and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary. The dictionaries are a gift. Educators see third grade as the dividing line between learning to read and reading to learn. We strive to include every student each year. A dictionary is an essential tool for a quality education. A child cannot do his or her best work without one.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The Dictionary Project functions and strives to ensure that people throughout the united states and around the world are able to enjoy the benefits of owning a dictionary. Program efforts are focused primarily on assisting all people in becoming good writers, active readers, creative thinkers, and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary. As an organization, we believe that a dictionary is an essential tool for a quality education, and that one cannot do their best work without a dictionary. The Dictionary Project makes people self-reliant by providing them with a resource that serves to help them better understand how to approach a problem by sounding out a word and using critical thinking skills to find it in a dictionary; this exercise gives them a feeling of satisfaction and self confidence that an online dictionary doesn't offer and helps further develop an appreciation of the connections that are formed with words. During 2025, approximately 683,000 dictionaries were given to students in the united states and around the world. With this resource, people can become more self-reliant and be better able to communicate their unique thoughts and…
$2,736,168 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $2,736,168.
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 2019 to 2020, from $1.3M to $788k (−39%).
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 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of THE DICTIONARY PROJECT’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (48% 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 10 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $53k → $142k.
7 of 38 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 17% 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 THE DICTIONARY PROJECT’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 38 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
THE DICTIONARY PROJECT has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 14% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left
80% 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 THE DICTIONARY PROJECT.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 26% · 2018 28% · 2019 29% · 2020 24% · 2021 29% · 2022 49% · 2023 32% — growing more concentrated.
“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
29% of THE DICTIONARY PROJECT's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 66% 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
THE DICTIONARY PROJECT draws 93% of its grant income from funders outside Florida, across 15 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $125k arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
THE DICTIONARY PROJECT's funding base is broadening — from 10 funders to 15 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like THE DICTIONARY PROJECT
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 Florida
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
94% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 36 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- The Dictionary Project Inc · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for THE DICTIONARY PROJECT: 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 THE DICTIONARY PROJECT?
- THE DICTIONARY PROJECT (Florida) receives grants from 38 organizations whose IRS filings report $723,218 to it, the largest being COLUMBUS ROTARY FOUNDATION INC ($102,774). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THE DICTIONARY PROJECT have?
- IRS filings report 38 organizations giving $723,218 in grants to THE DICTIONARY PROJECT, 25 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE DICTIONARY PROJECT?
- COLUMBUS ROTARY FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $102,774 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE DICTIONARY PROJECT find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Florida. 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 Dictionary Project →
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 38 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