Illinois · Nonprofit
Wheaton College
Wheaton College (Illinois) receives grants from 290 organizations whose IRS filings report $100,366,926 to it, the largest being Schwab Charitable Fund ($29,604,174). 161 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly. Wheaton College administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
Hosts funds for others
Wheaton College administers funds on behalf of other donors. The grants recorded as coming in are contributions into those funds, so they count custody rather than support for a programWheaton College runs itself. This page therefore states the flows and does not draw the comparisons it would draw for an operating charity: concentration, funder retention, grant dependency and the peer field are all left out, because each of them would read a vehicle as if it were a program.
Paid out
$7.9M
Recipients
121
Contributions on record
$101M
Donors on record
294
Payments out are 0.08x the contributions on record, so the balance accumulates rather than passing straight through.
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Incshared funders
- Asianetwork Incportfolio match
- Niccum Educational Trustportfolio match
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.
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 0% · 2020 1% · 2021 2% · 2022 3% · 2023 1% · 2024 1% · 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. 0 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 61 funders to 114 funders, grant income rose $7.6M → $14M.
51 of 290 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 54% 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 Wheaton College’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 290 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.
Where its funders are
54% of Wheaton College'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 $46M that is directly attributable, 85% of it comes from funders outside Illinois, across 42 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $54M arriving through sponsors registered in 26 statesis 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 290 funders put you typical among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Incshared fundersDC · backs 72 organizations that share your funders
- Asianetwork Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Niccum Educational Trustportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Edward L Schwab Memorial Foundation Dacotah Bankportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- W E Ruebush Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Wabash Collegeportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Council of Independent Collegesportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- American Chemical Societyshared fundersDC · backs 135 organizations that share your funders
- Howard Hughes Medical Instituteshared fundersMD · backs 75 organizations that share your funders
- American Council of Learned Societiesshared fundersNY · backs 103 organizations that share your funders
- Kpmg US Foundation Incshared fundersNJ · backs 154 organizations that share your funders
- Northeastern Universityshared fundersMA · backs 63 organizations that share your funders
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Government funding Wheaton College receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $13.2M on record.
- Department of Education$10.2M
- National Science Foundation$1.6M
- Department of Health and Human Services$1.2M
- Department of Defense$109k
- Department of Agriculture$67k
- Department of Commerce$9k
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.
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
70%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 6 states
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- Wheaton College Billy Graham Center · exempt
- Wheaton College Alumni Association · exempt
- Wheaton College Trust Company Na · corp_trust
- Charitable Remainder Trust · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Wheaton College: 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Wheaton College?
- Wheaton College (Illinois) receives grants from 290 organizations whose IRS filings report $100,366,926 to it, the largest being Schwab Charitable Fund ($29,604,174). 161 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly. Wheaton College administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
- How many funders does Wheaton College have?
- IRS filings report 290 organizations giving $100,366,926 in grants to Wheaton College, 161 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Wheaton College?
- Schwab Charitable Fund is the largest funder on record, with $29,604,174 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Wheaton College 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.
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 290funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing