Texas · Nonprofit
The Post Oak School
The Post Oak School (Texas) receives grants from 24 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,165,052 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($461,930). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 80% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $17M
- Funders on record
- 24
- Grants received
- $1.2M
- Net assets
- $23M
What The Post Oak School does
Mission
See Schedule OThe mission of The Post Oak School is to prepare an outstanding Montessori environment that fosters collaboration, cooperation and peace and to provide experiences that promote curiosity, inquiry and engagement. Designed according to the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual characteristics and needs of the learner, our methods guide and nurture each individual from infancy to adulthood. The School's approach is grounded in the principles of AMI Montessori education.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The Post Oak School provides a comprehensive Montessori education, based on the principles and practices of Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) and accredited by the International Schools of the Southwest (ISAS), to a diverse population of approximately 500 students from infancy to high school. In keeping with Dr. Montessori's ideals, children work in multi-age classrooms with a high level of freedom in choosing their own foundations in language, math, geography, science, music, and other disciplines. The Middle School and High School are located on a second campus in the museum district of Houston which incorporates the principles of Dr. Montessori as well as the International Baccalaureate.
$13,833,345 spentof which $1,354,821 as grants$15,628,670 earned by the program100% of program spendingThe Post Oak School offers an extensive program of parent education. A free series of four classes, repeated throughout the year, offers general information about Montessori education to both prospective parents and interested visitors. The infant-parent program helps parents of toddlers raise happy, confident children. A variety of other classes, lectures, and other presentations during the school year, some free and open to the public and others by reservation, afford a variety of perspectives on the School's primary purpose of raising intelligent, confident, caring, and self-motivated lifelong learners.
Community service is deeply ingrained in the Montessori curriculum, from infancy through adolescence. By the time of Middle School, the entire class spends a half day each week working in small groups at various service agencies around Houston. Elementary students have ongoing relationships with other agencies, whether through regular site visits for volunteer work or by working on projects to benefit needy people in more distant places. Older children routinely learn the benefits and blessing of aiding others in the school's multi-age classrooms. Even the infants, living in a small tight-knit community, discover early on that other people have feelings.
Faculty and Staff regularly present at national Montessori conferences and attend both national and international Montessori congresses. The School's administration has led the formation of a national Montessori administrators association. Multiple organizations, whether devoted to Montessori or traditional education, like the North American Montessori Teachers Association (NAMTA) or Independent School Management (ISM) recommend Post Oak materials, policies, and procedures as models of best practices for similar schools.
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $13,833,345.
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 $28M to $33M (+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.
Government-grant reliance: 2021 13%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
5% of The Post Oak School’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (23% 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.
Board chair
Whitney Walsh
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 10 funders to 12 funders, grant income rose $94k → $168k.
10 of 24 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 80% 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 Post Oak School’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.
How concentrated its funding is
The Post Oak School has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 40% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
81% 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 Post Oak School.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 28% · 2018 42% · 2019 42% · 2020 29% · 2021 42% · 2022 19% · 2023 31% — 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
54% of The Post Oak School's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
80% of The Post Oak School'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 $229k that is directly attributable, 66% of it comes from funders outside Texas, across 6 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $936k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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 Post Oak School holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 3,758 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,758 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Organizations like The Post Oak School
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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
76%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for The Post Oak School: 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 Post Oak School?
- The Post Oak School (Texas) receives grants from 24 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,165,052 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($461,930). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 80% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does The Post Oak School have?
- IRS filings report 24 organizations giving $1,165,052 in grants to The Post Oak School, 16 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Post Oak School?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $461,930 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Post Oak School find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 Post Oak School →
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 24 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