New York · Nonprofit
THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC
THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC (New York) receives grants from 371 organizations whose IRS filings report $88,189,023 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($22,283,734). 220 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 50% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $33M
- Funders on record
- 371
- Grants received
- $88M
- Net assets
- $156M
What The Posse Foundation Inc does
Mission
The posse foundation, founded in 1989, identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. The foundation extends to these students the opportunity to pursue personal and academic excellence by placing them in supportive, multicultural teams ("posses") of 10 students. The foundation's partner universities award posse scholars four-year, full-tuition leadership scholarships.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
The recruitment and training programs include the following sub-programs: recruitment, pre-collegiate training, campus and career and alumni. For the recruitment program, from september through december each year, posse conducts the dynamic assessment process (dap), a unique evaluation method designed to identify young leaders who might be missed by traditional admissions criteria, but who can excel at selective colleges and universities. For the pre-collegiate training program from january to august of their senior year in high school posse scholars meet weekly with staff trainers and their posse peers for two-hour workshops. The training program consists of workshops that address four areas: team building and group support, cross-cultural communication, leadership and becoming an active agent of change on campus, and academic excellence. For the campus program, posse staff members visit each university four times a year for meetings with posse scholars, campus liaisons and mentors. Each mentor meets weekly with the posse as a team and with each scholar individually every two weeks during the first two years in college. In addition, posse facilitates an annual weekend-long…
$24,336,267 spentof which $2,877,608 as grants$3,912,657 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $24,336,267.
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 $90M to $121M (+34%).
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 0% · 2018 0% · 2022 7% · 2023 0% · 2024 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
60% of THE POSSE FOUNDATION 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. 2 of the last 8 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.
Board chair
Henry Ellenbogen
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 94 funders to 154 funders, grant income rose $2.8M → $14M.
56 of 371 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 50% 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 POSSE FOUNDATION INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 371 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 POSSE FOUNDATION INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 25% 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
64% 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 POSSE FOUNDATION INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 16% · 2018 25% · 2019 15% · 2020 29% · 2021 62% · 2022 19% · 2023 20% — 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
42% of THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% 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
50% of THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC'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 $44M that is directly attributable, 79% of it comes from funders outside New York, across 28 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $44M arriving through sponsors registered in 22 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 POSSE FOUNDATION INC is better cushioned than half of the 4,065 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,065 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Organizations like THE POSSE FOUNDATION 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 New York
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
67%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 9 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for THE POSSE FOUNDATION 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 THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC?
- THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC (New York) receives grants from 371 organizations whose IRS filings report $88,189,023 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($22,283,734). 220 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 50% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC have?
- IRS filings report 371 organizations giving $88,189,023 in grants to THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC, 220 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC?
- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $22,283,734 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 371 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