Tennessee · Nonprofit
THISTLE FARMS INC
THISTLE FARMS INC (Tennessee) receives grants from 214 organizations whose IRS filings report $25,199,636 to it, the largest being CHAMPIONS OF LOVE FOUNDATION INC ($5,321,694). 119 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $15M
- Funders on record
- 214
- Grants received
- $25M
- Net assets
- $11M
What Thistle Farms Inc does
Mission
Helping women survivors recover & heal from prostitution, trafficking, & addiction. We do this by providing a safe and supportive place to live, a meaningful job, and a lifelong sisterhood of support.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Residential services - our 2-year residential program is based in nashville, tennessee. We are able to house up to 28 residents at a time in a therapeutic setting that offers women survivors a peaceful place where they can experience transformative, sustainable recovery through two years of rent-free housing, healthcare, counseling, employment, and community building. When entering the program, our residents help create their own personalized plan for their healthcare and therapeutic needs. For the first 4-6 months, residents focus on recovery, attending group meetings, medical appointments, individual therapy, and other educational courses. While in the program, women are also eligible for our savings program that provides a 1 for 1 match of resident's savings per year. After two years in the residential program, women become candidates for graduation, a celebratory event that takes place each spring. And after graduation, many women continue working in thistle farms' social enterprises and often move into full-time and supervisory positions. Others take the skills they have acquired and find work in the community. We also offer a program within the tennessee prison for women…
$1,762,076 spent$64,900 earned by the program17% of program spendingSocial enterprises - residents and graduates of our residential program are employed in one of our social enterprises. Here the women can learn new job skills and make a living wage to support themselves. Body & home, thistle farms' largest nonprofit social enterprise, creates natural bath and body products that are as healing for our customers as they are for the women who create them. What started with just a few volunteers in a church kitchen has grown into a national brand that produces more than 20 different product lines. Everything we produce is hand poured in small batches by women survivors, using pure essential oils to promote wellness and healing. Our products are free of synthetic fragrances, parabens, or petroleum based ingredients. The cafe at thistle farms is a restaurant and special event space located at the heart of the thistle farms campus. With a produce-driven, full- service menu, the cafe serves locally-sourced breakfast, lunch, and nashville's only daily tea service. In addition, the cafe at thistle farms offers an array of options and services for special events. Thistle farms global creates economic freedom for women survivors worldwide by helping to…
$8,766,292 spentof which $43,322 as grants$4,781,904 earned by the program82% of program spendingNational network - the thistle farms national network is comprised of like-minded organizations committed to connecting survivors of prostitution, trafficking, and addiction to hope, healing, and empowerment. To date, over 90 organizations throughout the country have programs based on thistle farms' model of recovery; 57 of these organizations have residential programs to house women survivors, while the other half are in the early stages of development.
$120,947 spent1% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $10,649,315.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $12M to $15M (+29%).
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 6% · 2019 2% · 2021 11% · 2022 7% · 2023 3% · 2024 5% · 2025 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
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.
Chief executive
Tasha Kennard
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 48 funders to 88 funders, grant income rose $1.1M → $3.8M.
35 of 214 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 41% 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 THISTLE FARMS INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 214 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
THISTLE FARMS INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 21% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
47% 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 THISTLE FARMS INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 11% · 2018 17% · 2019 11% · 2020 10% · 2021 15% · 2022 26% · 2023 53% — 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
50% of THISTLE FARMS INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
THISTLE FARMS INC draws 66% of its grant income from funders outside Tennessee, across 32 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10M 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.
Organizations like THISTLE FARMS 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 Tennessee
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
83%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Magdalene Homes LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for THISTLE FARMS 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 THISTLE FARMS INC?
- THISTLE FARMS INC (Tennessee) receives grants from 214 organizations whose IRS filings report $25,199,636 to it, the largest being CHAMPIONS OF LOVE FOUNDATION INC ($5,321,694). 119 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THISTLE FARMS INC have?
- IRS filings report 214 organizations giving $25,199,636 in grants to THISTLE FARMS INC, 119 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THISTLE FARMS INC?
- CHAMPIONS OF LOVE FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $5,321,694 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THISTLE FARMS INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Tennessee. 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 214 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