Illinois · Nonprofit
TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION
TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION (Illinois) receives grants from 54 organizations whose IRS filings report $10,567,320 to it, the largest being THREE CORDS FOUNDATION ($5,175,000). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $33M
- Funders on record
- 54
- Grants received
- $11M
- Net assets
- $19M
What Trinity Christian College Association does
Mission
Provide a biblically informed liberal arts education to undergraduate and graduate college students. We strive to offer the highest quality of instruction to prepare students for excellence in further study and careers beyond trinity. All programs are grounded on a core of foundational studies that address the enduring issues and questions of human experience and teach students to explore and apply the implications of a reformed world-and-life view to all areas of learning, living, and working.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Traditional undergraduate, adult studies and graduate programs: trinity offers classroom instruction, field experience and internships, service-learning, and other activities to provide a four-year, liberal arts education in 70+ programs of study, including, art, business, communications, education, mathematics, nursing, theology, and science. Several pre-professional programs are also offered, including pre-law and pre-med. Trinity offers both domestic and international off campus programs. Trinity's proximity to downtown chicago provides access to internships, cultural experiences, and career and service opportunities. The chicago semester program enables students to gain real-world experience through living and working in the city for an entire semester. Students gain hands-on learning through the global opportunities to study abroad for a semester in countries worldwide. Trinity's adult studies program is a non traditional program serving adults age 23 and older and offering accelerated degree completion programs in business and education as well as certification and endorsement programs. Graduate studies offers master's degrees in select programs. Audio-visual aids to…
$29,662,578 spentof which $9,517,854 as grants$22,740,040 earned by the program87% of program spendingDining service that provides daily meals, residence halls that provide on campus housing, and the bookstore which offers textbooks, academic supplies, and various sundries.
$4,238,446 spent$2,070,788 earned by the program13% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $33,901,024.
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 2024 to 2025, from $72M to $46M (−37%).
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% · 2019 1% · 2020 3% · 2021 15% · 2022 7% · 2023 3% · 2024 1% · 2025 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
21% of TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (23% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 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
Ken Dryfhout
Board chair & treasurer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 15 funders to 23 funders, grant income rose $803k → $1.2M.
15 of 54 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 20% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $431k from 5 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Associated Colleges of Illinois Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION raised.
From the IRS filings of TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 54 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
TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 49% of grant income and the top three 71%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 82% · 2018 55% · 2019 55% · 2020 56% · 2021 63% · 2022 72% · 2023 69% — diversifying over time.
“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
41% of TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 54% 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
TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION draws 79% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 15 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.1M arriving through sponsors registered in 12 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
TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION's funding base is broadening — from 15 funders to 23 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,794 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $6.3M on record.
- Department of Education$6.1M
- National Science Foundation$179k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION
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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
89% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION: 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 TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION?
- TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION (Illinois) receives grants from 54 organizations whose IRS filings report $10,567,320 to it, the largest being THREE CORDS FOUNDATION ($5,175,000). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION have?
- IRS filings report 54 organizations giving $10,567,320 in grants to TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION?
- THREE CORDS FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $5,175,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 Trinity Christian College Association →
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 54 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