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Utah · Nonprofit

WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY

WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY (Utah) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $241,374 to it, the largest being FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION ($135,374). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2025
$1.7B
Funders on record
12
Grants received
$241k
Net assets
$381M
4/12 repeat fundersgrants exceed reported revenue in one year
01What it does

What Western Governors University does

Mission

Wgu's mission is to change lives for the better by creating pathways to opportunity. Wgu does this by operating and administering an institution of higher education and learning.

As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.

Program

  1. Wgu is an online, nonprofit, competency-based university with more than 193,000 students nationwide and more than 480,000 graduates in all 50 states, as of february 2026. Wgu was originally established in 1997 by 19 u.s. Governors with a mission to expand access to high-quality, affordable higher education. Wgu is accredited by the northwest commission on colleges and universities and offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in business, information technology, healthcare/nursing and k-12 education.

    $1,420,239,577 spentof which $57,233,590 as grants$1,676,424,174 earned by the program
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,420,239,577.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($2k) Expenses 100 ($995) Net assets 100 ($3.0M)2018 Revenue 40 ($867) Expenses 31 ($312) Net assets 100 ($3.0M)2019 Revenue 465231 ($10M) Expenses 183742 ($1.8M) Net assets 373 ($11M)2020 Revenue 479971 ($10M) Expenses 418957 ($4.2M) Net assets 578 ($17M)2021 Revenue 555816 ($12M) Expenses 2848114 ($28M) Net assets 32 ($969k)2022 Revenue 3688973 ($79M) Expenses 7036422 ($70M) Net assets 345 ($10M)2023 Revenue 30407729 ($654M) Expenses 62217302 ($619M) Net assets 1521 ($46M)2024 Revenue 67958596 ($1.5B) Expenses 128708667 ($1.3B) Net assets 7440 ($223M)2025 Revenue 78282746 ($1.7B) Expenses 153510602 ($1.5B) Net assets 12677 ($381M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (78282746)Expenses (153510602)Net assets (12677)Peer revenue range

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 $30M to $394M (+1203%).

$3.0M
$3.0M
$11M
$18M
$2.4M
$30M
$394M
$658M
$852M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

0% of WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (14% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 731 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.

$1k
’17
$555
’18
$8.2M
’19
$6.2M
’20
−$16M
’21
$9.4M
’22
$35M
’23
$182M
’24
$157M
’25
0.1
months of
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

Stacey Ludwig Johnson

Executive director, work-based pathways

Board chair

Joe Fuller

Chair

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

The chief executive listed changed between the FY2024 and FY2025 filings.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Listed546151517263433
Joined·+0+3+9+2+8+15+19+6
No longer listed·110266117
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2018 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 2 funders, grant income rose $10k → $22k.

2 of 12 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 14% 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: $137k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Wgu Corporation). These are real filings, and they are not money WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY raised.

From the IRS filings of WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY’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

WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 56% of grant income and the top three 75%; half comes from just 1 funder.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left

88% 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 WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY.

56%
largest funder
75%
top three
~3
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 100% · 2021 100% · 2022 67% · 2023 55% — 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.

Where its funders are

WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Utah, across 10 states in all.

WA
MT
NY
IN
OH
CT
MO
OK
GA
TX

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’18
’21
’22
Utah out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $35k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 679 education nonprofits its size.

Operating margin9% · above the median
Months of reserve0.1mo · bottom quartile
Revenue growth (annualized)445% · outside the comparable range

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 679 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025

Government funding WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY receives

Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $85.3M on record — $84.8M federal, $498k state.

Federal$84.8M
grants $59.7Mcontracts $25.2M
18
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Top agencies
  • Department of Education$59.2M
  • Department of Defense$25.5M
  • National Science Foundation$147k
State$498k
06
07
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
By state
  • CT$211k
  • NJ$161k
  • OR$90k
  • VT$19k
  • DE$16k

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 WESTERN GOVERNORS 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 Utah

Nationally

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

93% of spending goes to programs.

Program 93%Management 7%Fundraising 0%

Governance

12
board members
92%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

Footprint & structure

Part of a family of 3 related entities

  • Wgu Corporation · exempt
  • Miller Bullen Hansen Scholarship Foundation Inc · exempt
  • Hansen Scholars Wgu Foundation Inc · exempt

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WESTERN GOVERNORS 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.

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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 WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY?
WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY (Utah) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $241,374 to it, the largest being FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION ($135,374). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY have?
IRS filings report 12 organizations giving $241,374 in grants to WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY?
FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $135,374 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Utah. 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 12 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