North Carolina · Nonprofit
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY (North Carolina) receives grants from 607 organizations whose IRS filings report $356,404,379 to it, the largest being LILLY ENDOWMENT INC ($85,069,849). 377 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $843M
- Funders on record
- 607
- Grants received
- $356M
- Net assets
- $2.1B
What Wake Forest University does
Mission
Wake Forest University, a 501(c)(3) institution of higher education, is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the liberal arts and in graduate and professional education. The organization is comprised of seven constituent parts: Wake Forest College; the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; the School of Law; the School of Medicine; the School of Business; the School of Divinity; and the School of Professional Studies. It seeks to honor the ideals of liberal learning, which entail commitment to transmission of cultural heritages; teaching the modes of learning in the basic disciplines of human knowledge; developing critical appreciation of moral, aesthetic and religious values; advancing the frontiers of knowledge through in-depth study and research; and applying knowledge in the service of humanity.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Founded in 1834, Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational collegiate university based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. One of the leading institutions of its kind, Wake Forest blends the intimacy of a liberal arts college with the academic vitality of a research university. At the heart of Wake Forest is the teacher-scholar ideal. Professors are committed to personalized teaching and to their students' individual development. Guided by the motto Pro Humanitate (For Humanity), Wake Forest is dedicated to an ethically informed education in a climate that values personal growth, community interaction, and individual honor. It is committed to being a community of students, faculty, staff and alumni from varied backgrounds, lived experiences and perspectives. It seeks to sustain an equitable, inclusive environment in which all can live, learn, belong and thrive. The University consists of Wake Forest College, the undergraduate arts and sciences division that honors the full institution's former name; the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; the School of Law; the School of Medicine; the School of Business, which provides undergraduate and graduate study; the School of…
$436,455,868 spentof which $126,343,485 as grants$459,569,927 earned by the program65% of program spendingResidence Halls & Dining:In the interest of building community, Wake Forest requires all undergraduates to live on campus for at least three years. Only 10 of the 189 research institutions with data in a November 2024 survey by collegetransitions.com required three or four years of on-campus residency. The University has done its part in this endeavor by acquiring, building or substantially renovating all residence halls in the past decade. The Division of Residence Life and Housing (RLH) maintains 27 facilities. They are equipped with high-speed internet service and include common areas suited to group study. The Division of Dining Services includes 17 locations. The main dining hall, affectionately known as The Pit, serves cafeteria-style food with several distinct areas, including vegan, gluten-free and other diet-specific options. Athletics:Wake Forest fields 18 intercollegiate athletics teams nine for men and nine for women in the NCAA's Division I and the Atlantic Coast Conference, of which it is a charter member. The University's undergraduate enrollment is the smallest of any school in the four most financially and athletically potent Division I conferences, but that size…
$108,638,963 spentof which $18,034,646 as grants$111,739,621 earned by the program16% of program spendingCampus Life:Wake Forest is committed to putting the spirit of its motto, Pro Humanitate, in action. Student Organizations: Approximately 200 student organizations are active at Wake Forest, providing extracurricular learning and service opportunities for their members and ancillary benefit to the campus and local communities. They are centered around academic and professional development; business development; recreational-sports participation; fraternity and sorority life; cultural interests; media; fine-arts performance and exhibition; student governance; and other focal points. Community Outreach: In addition to student-run organizations, the Office of Civic and Community Engagement (OCCE) partners with approximately 120 projects and institutions across policy areas including aging; poverty; health; food access; various children's matters; education; and environmental sustainability. In the 2024-25 academic year, Wake Forest was one of only two North Carolina colleges to receive funds for an important initiative, Public Health AmeriCorps. Over the year, 14 students partnered with seven unique community organizations to help meet various public-health needs. In 2024-25,…
$73,897,470 spent$3,155,864 earned by the program11% of program spendingResearch: Wake Forest is classified as a Research 2: High-Research Spending and Doctorate Production, the second-highest level, by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Wake Forest University has grants and internally funded research pursuant to basic science and technology. Wake Forest University manages research projects in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Health & Exercise Science, Divinity and Business. The Z. Smith Reynolds Library and the professional school libraries together house nearly 1 million physical books and nearly 1 million eBooks, as well as access to a multitude of other web-based resources. The campus libraries provide resources for both student and faculty researchers. Every fall, the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Center sponsors Undergraduate Research Day, in which students display and explain the results of their faculty-mentored research, which often takes place the previous summer. In 2024, nearly 140 students presented their work, achieved under the guidance of faculty in 25 unique academic disciplines. In the Class of 2025, approximately one of every 12 graduates had participated in at least…
$51,752,789 spentof which $17,223,449 as grants$11,195,242 earned by the program8% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $670,745,090.
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 2020 to 2021, from $2.1B to $2.6B (+20%).
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 2% · 2018 2% · 2019 1% · 2020 1% · 2021 3% · 2022 2% · 2023 2% · 2024 2% · 2025 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
19% of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (14% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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
Jeanne Whitman Bobbitt
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 162 funders to 257 funders, grant income rose $14M → $56M.
89 of 607 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 47% 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: $321M from one payer (an institutional transfer, not a grant programme, largest Atlantic Coast Conference); $15M from 8 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Winston-Salem Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY raised.
From the IRS filings of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 607 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
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 24% 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
54% 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 WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 27% · 2018 35% · 2019 47% · 2020 25% · 2021 22% · 2022 38% · 2023 25% — broadly stable.
“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
47% of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY draws 86% of its grant income from funders outside North Carolina, across 41 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $166M arriving through sponsors registered in 29 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
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 684 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 684 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $99.4M on record — $99.4M federal, $6k state.
- Department of Health and Human Services$38.8M
- National Science Foundation$21.5M
- Department of Education$16.6M
- Agency for International Development$10.1M
- Department of Defense$5.0M
- Department of Energy$3.1M
- DE$5k
- OK$480
- NJ$463
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 WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY
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 North Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
85% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
65%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 26 related entities
- Deacon Blvd Holdings I LLC · disregarded
- Creative Cafe' LLC · disregarded
- Wake Forest University Spain SL · disregarded
- Wake Forest Advantage LLC · disregarded
- Verger Fund I LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY: 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 WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY?
- WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY (North Carolina) receives grants from 607 organizations whose IRS filings report $356,404,379 to it, the largest being LILLY ENDOWMENT INC ($85,069,849). 377 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY have?
- IRS filings report 607 organizations giving $356,404,379 in grants to WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, 377 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY?
- LILLY ENDOWMENT INC is the largest funder on record, with $85,069,849 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in North Carolina. 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 607 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