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Bonsen Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$330k
Granted FY2024still arriving
1
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$330k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead

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

10
’19
0
’20
0
’22
0
’23
0
’24

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What it funds
0193% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2024.

Education$1.5MArts & Culture$15kInternational$15kEnvironment$10kHealth$10kCommunity Improvement$10kCrime & Legal$5kHuman Services$5kOther$0
02FY2024 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$330,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$4.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLO$330,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its 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. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 10%INTERNET ARCHIVE: $5k → 10%ARTISAN'S ASYLUM: $5k → 8%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

NY
MA
OR
NJ
CA
UT
MD
DC
GA
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Inc

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.

International
2
Open Markets Institute

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.

Education
3
Center for Democracy and Technology

Advocating for public policies that advance democratic values in the digital age.

Civil Rights
4
The Internet Association

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…

—
5
Committee to Protect Journalists Inc

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…

Civil Rights
6
Orcid Inc

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…

Education
7
Middle East Media and Research Institute Inc

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,…

International
8
Global Investigative Journalism Network Inc

To support the training and sharing of information among journalists worldwide in investigative and computer-assisted reporting.

Arts & Culture
9
Electronic Privacy Information Center

Epic's mission is to secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age for all people through advocacy, research, and litigation.

Civil Rights
10
Peter G Peterson Institute for International Economics

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…

Social Science
11
Internet Society Foundation

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…

International
12
Creative Commons Corporation

Develops legal and technical infrastructure for digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.

Education
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wikimedia Foundation Inc; 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.
04the grantee network

13 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 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.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
12/13
Grantees still filing
12/13
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: $1,480,000 · EducationMassachusetts Institute of Technology+4 more: $20,000 · EducationIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · OtherICIJ INC: $5,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · OtherTHEGUARDIANORG: $5,000 · OtherSELCO FOUNDATION: $5,000 · OtherPROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY: $5,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · OtherSANERGY: $5,000 · OtherEMW COMMUNITY SPACE INC: $5,000 · OtherJEEON LLC: $5,000 · OtherMYRIAD USA INC: $5,000 · InternationalLITER OF LIGHT USA INC: $5,000 · InternationalARTISAN'S ASYLUM INC: $5,000 · Human ServicesInternet Archive: $5,000 · Human ServicesPRO PUBLICA INC: $5,000 · Arts & CultureReporters Without Borders Inc: $5,000 · Civil RightsSAHA GLOBAL INC: $5,000 · EnvironmentDigital Medicine Society Inc: $5,000 · Health
Education$1,500,000Other$50,000International$10,000Human Services$10,000Arts & Culture$5,000Civil Rights$5,000Environment$5,000Health$5,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $1,480,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetMYRIAD USA INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPRO PUBLICA INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetReporters Without Borders Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetARTISAN'S ASYLUM INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetInternet Archive: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE REASON FOUNDATION: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSAHA GLOBAL INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetWIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetEDUCATE LANKA FOUNDATION INC: $5,000 over 1y, 3.9% of budgetDigital Medicine Society Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetPresident and Fellows of Harvard College: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

American Online Givin…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
American Online Giving Foundation IncDE7.2× affinity4 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Bonsen Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Bonsen Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government →median 14%
  • 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
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
1get no government money at all
2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 23 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Bonsen’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home