Knowledgeworks Foundation
Cincinnati, OH · EIN 31-1321973. Reported 74 grants totalling $5,682,712 to 45 organizations across tax years 2020-2023, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Knowledgeworks Foundation, the IRS classifies it under education rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE B820) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 45 distinct organizations, with 20% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 47% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $39,256. Half of what it reported fell between $17,500 and $75,000; the smallest was $6,075 and the largest $1,134,812. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greater Cincinnati Foundation | Cincinnati, OH | $1,134,812 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Wested | Seal Beach, CA | $870,969 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Jobs for the Future Inc | Boston, MA | $498,250 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Every Child Succeeds Inc | Cincinnati, OH | $465,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships Inc | Chapel Hill, NC | $379,750 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Furman University | Greenville, SC | $352,657 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Tides Center | San Francisco, CA | $215,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| National Career Technical Education Foundation Inc | Silver Spring, MD | $201,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Bard College | Annandale, NY | $180,250 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Achieving the Dream Inc | Silver Spring, MD | $178,250 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Research for Action Inc | Philadelphia, PA | $160,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Middle College High School National Consortium Inc | Long Is City, NY | $137,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Summit Education Initiative | Akron, OH | $100,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Kentucky Chamber Foundation Inc | Frankfort, KY | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence | Lexington, KY | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| High Tech High Graduate School of Education | San Diego, CA | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| New York University | New York, NY | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Rowan University Foundation Inc | Glassboro, NJ | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Childrens Defense Fund | Washington, DC | $35,550 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Aurora Institute | Arlington, VA | $35,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Roger Williams University | Bristol, RI | $30,220 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Commonwealth of Kentucky | Frankfort, KY | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Illinois Community College Board | Springfield, IL | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Metropolitan Regional Career & Tech Center | Providence, RI | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Minnesota State Colleges and Universities | St Paul, MN | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education | Oklahoma City, OK | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Rodel Charitable Foundation De | Wilmington, DE | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Yuma Union High School District | Yuma, AZ | $21,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Smcc Storytelling Institute | Phoenix, AZ | $21,179 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Springfield International Charter School | Springfield, MA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Big Picture Company Inc | Providence, RI | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Envision Education Inc | Oakland, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Great Schools Partnership Inc | Portland, ME | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Learner-Centered Collaborative | Vista, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Mastery Transcript Consortium | Winchester, MA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment Inc | Dover, NH | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Transcend Inc | Hastings Hdsn, NY | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Mayerson Academy for Human Resource Dev | Cincinnati, OH | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Albany-Schoharie-Schenectady-Saratoga Boces | Albany, NY | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Research Foundation for the State University of New York | Albany, NY | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Research Foundation of the City University of New York | New York, NY | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Foundation Inc | Lakeside Park, KY | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Rhode Island College Foundation | Providence, RI | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Cast Inc | Lynnfield, MA | $6,750 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts | Cincinnati, OH | $6,075 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
13 of 45 (29%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Greater Cincinnati Foundation
POSITIVE PARENTING AND EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT - Wested
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH STUDIES - REMIQS INITIATIVE - The Riley Institute at Furman University
SUPPORT SC PERSONALIZ ED COMPETENCY-BASED LEARNING - Jobs for the Future
HIGH-QUALITY COLLEGE IN HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCES - Center for Innovation in Education
SUPPORT LOCAL & STATE ADVOCACY IN KY - Research for Action
ANALYSIS OF PERSONALIZED, COMPETENCY-BASED LEARN.
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 31 of 45 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 21 | $1,188,664 | $50,000 |
| 2021 | 17 | $1,137,754 | $50,000 |
| 2022 | 24 | $2,610,986 | $16,250 |
| 2023 | 12 | $745,308 | $63,500 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
30% of its giving went to organizations in Ohio. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $39,256 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Ohio.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Knowledgeworks Foundation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2020-2023). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 12 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 312 Plum Street Suite 950, Cincinnati, OH, 45202.
EIN 31-1321973 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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