· Private foundation
Bonsen Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Bonsen Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLO | $330,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY19–19, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 50% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
International consortium of investigative journalists, inc.'s (icij) mission is to show people how the world really works through stories that rock the world; forcing positive change.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Advocating for public policies that advance democratic values in the digital age.
To protect and preserve the free, innovative and decentralized architecture of the internet that has enabled it to evolve into a powerful engine for economic growth, freedom and prosperity. by channeling the strengths, cultures and stories…
The committee to protect journalists promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal. cpj ensures the free flow of news and commentary by taking action wherever…
Orcid provides an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. we provide open tools that enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their…
The middle east media research institute (memri) explores the middle east through its media, providing timely translations from arabic, farsi, urdu, pashtu, and turkish media and publishing original analysis of political, ideological,…
To support the training and sharing of information among journalists worldwide in investigative and computer-assisted reporting.
Epic's mission is to secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age for all people through advocacy, research, and litigation.
The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…
At the internet society foundation, we focus on funding initiatives that strengthen the internet in function and reach so that it can effectively serve all people. our work advances the vision of the internet society (isoc): the internet…
Develops legal and technical infrastructure for digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wikimedia Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Internet Archive. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 13 of the 23 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds SAHA GLOBAL INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds Reporters Without Borders Inc ↗
- Who funds Internet Archive ↗
- Who funds ARTISAN'S ASYLUM INC ↗
- Who funds THE REASON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MYRIAD USA INC ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds EDUCATE LANKA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LITER OF LIGHT USA INC ↗
- Who funds Digital Medicine Society Inc ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Bonsen Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Digital Medicine Society Inc — 14% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.