Missouri Universal Service Fund
Jefferson City, MO · EIN 43-1818855. Reported 97 grants totalling $2,604,764 to 26 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 Missouri Universal Service Fund, the IRS classifies it under public & societal benefit rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE W90O) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 26 distinct organizations, with 17% 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. 96% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $17,261. Half of what it reported fell between $8,132 and $33,826; the smallest was $5,083 and the largest $126,790. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Centurytel of Missouri LLC | Monroe, LA | $440,377 | 5 | 4 | 2023 |
| Spectra Telecommunications LLC Centurylink | Monroe, LA | $333,774 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Windstream Missouri Inc | Little Rock, AR | $269,510 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Grand River Mutual Tel Co | Sullivan, MO | $204,765 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Embarq Missouri Centurylink | Monroe, LA | $176,996 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Northwest Mo Rural Telephone Co | Green City, MO | $129,491 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Fidelity Telephone Company | Sullivan, MO | $128,466 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Mcdonald Co Telephone Company | Anderson, MO | $120,499 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Mark Twain Rural Telephone Co | Hurdland, MO | $106,121 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Steelville Telephone Co | Steelville, MO | $94,889 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Ellington Telephone Company | Ellington, MO | $69,135 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Fidelity Cablevision LLC | Sullivan, MO | $65,554 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Kingdom Telephone Company | Auxvasse, MO | $65,268 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Green Hills Telephone Corp | Breckenridge, MO | $64,343 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Citizens Telephone Company | Higginsville, MO | $63,134 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Seneca Telephone Company | Seneca, MO | $41,098 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Bps Telephone Company | Bernie, MO | $39,395 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Peace Valley Telephone Company | Peace Valley, MO | $38,713 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Iamo Telephone Company | Coin, IA | $29,120 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Ozark Telephone Company | Seneca, MO | $26,963 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Goodman Telephone Company | Seneca, MO | $22,691 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Craw-Kan Telephone Cooperative Inc | Girard, KS | $21,182 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Chariton Valley Telephone Corporation | Macon, MO | $17,665 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Klm Telephone Company American Broadband | Blair, NE | $17,223 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Rockport Telephone Company | Rock Port, MO | $13,309 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Granby Telephone Company | Granby, MO | $5,083 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
25 of 26 (96%) 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.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 25 | $738,200 | $18,986 |
| 2021 | 25 | $702,334 | $16,968 |
| 2022 | 25 | $622,088 | $17,261 |
| 2023 | 22 | $542,142 | $15,221 |
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
51% of its giving went to organizations in Missouri. 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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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 $17,261 -- 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 Missouri.
- 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.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Missouri Universal Service Fund'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 0 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 50 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: 200 Madison St Suite 900, Jefferson City, MO, 65101.
EIN 43-1818855 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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