Texas · Nonprofit
Wonderworks
Wonderworks (Texas) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $804,336 to it, the largest being The Brown Foundation Inc ($415,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $461k
- Funders on record
- 6
- Grants received
- $804k
- Net assets
- $529k
What Wonderworks does
Mission
Wonderworks educates students to become better-qualified college applicants and better equipped to succeed in undergraduate studies by exploring challenging subject matter and techniques in a college setting.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Wonderworks is a summer pre-college enrichment program that offers courses in the arts and humanities at the University of Houston and Rice University campuses. Including ancillary college assistance for 10-12th-grade Houston-area students of special promise and ability, especially those economically and/or culturally disadvantaged. Students gain knowledge and skills while beginning to develop portfolios of work that will support their college applications. In most cases, instructors have college-level teaching experience and advanced degrees in the subject area.
$360,270 spentof which $77,500 as grants$206,500 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $360,270.
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 $256k to $514k (+101%).
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: 2019 13% · 2020 22% · 2021 15% · 2022 29% · 2023 16% · 2024 23% · 2025 17%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
55% of Wonderworks’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (57% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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
Drexel Turner
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 3 funders, grant income rose $1k → $110k.
1 of 6 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 4% 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 Wonderworks’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
Wonderworks leans on a few funders — its largest provides 52% of grant income and the top three 91%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 100% · 2019 50% · 2020 83% · 2021 82% · 2022 51% · 2023 45% — 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
100% of Wonderworks's grant income comes from Texas funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $33k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
Wonderworks holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 16,849 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 16,849 education nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like Wonderworks
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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
46%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Wonderworks: 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 Wonderworks?
- Wonderworks (Texas) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $804,336 to it, the largest being The Brown Foundation Inc ($415,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Wonderworks have?
- IRS filings report 6 organizations giving $804,336 in grants to Wonderworks, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Wonderworks?
- The Brown Foundation Inc is the largest funder on record, with $415,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Wonderworks find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 Wonderworks →
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 6 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