Which funders back the same organizations as For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Foundation for Inspiration & Recognition of Scienc, Round It Up America Inc, GenYOUTH Incorporated.

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)

Q: What does For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (54%), Science & Tech (15%), Youth Development (14%).

Q: Who are For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)'s largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: First in Michigan ($4.3M), Ingenuityne Inc ($3.4M), Foundation for Inspiration & Recognition of Scienc ($2.8M).

Q: Does For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 22% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

See Mission statement on Schedule O, pg.

$33M

Granted FY2025still arriving

482

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$1.4M

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Education$38MScience & Tech$11MYouth Development$9.8MRecreation & Sports$5.0MHuman Services$3.1MPhilanthropy$729kPublic Benefit$617kHealth$576kOther$0

02FY2025 · 482 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 482 grants below total $13,021,284, the rows itemized in this filing. The $33,011,192 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $19,989,908 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k350 grants · $1.5M
$10k–50k98 grants · $1.9M
$50k–250k23 grants · $2.3M
$250k+11 grants · $7.3M

$5,750

Median grant

States reached

$73M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
FIRST in Michigan	$1,397,747
IngenuityNE Inc	$1,063,191
FIRST in Texas	$964,694
FIRST Chesapeake	$902,500
FIRST North Carolina	$547,400
Georgia FIRST Robotics Inc	$517,600
Mid Atlantic Robotics	$517,517
Washington First Robotics	$503,336
Oregon Robotics Tournament & Outreach Program	$318,639
Indiana FIRST Inc	$293,731
Wisconsin FIRST Robotics Inc	$250,000
Colorado Robotics Excelling at Science and Technology Inc	$228,777
American Indian Science and Engineering Society	$205,086
Fikret Yuksel Foundation	$161,000
Pennsylvania FIRST Robotics	$153,721

02The need

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 (FY17–25, $2.9M) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 74% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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

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 grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

89%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$62M · 1064 repeat orgs$7.7M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +31% since the first grant, against +17% for those funded once.

1064 repeat relationships: 353 still active in FY2025, 711 since wound down; 112 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

1064

811

Total granted

$62M

$6.6M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+31%

+17%

Still filing today

29%

22%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.1M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EducationYouth DevelopmentScience & TechHuman ServicesPhilanthropyArts & CultureOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.

Backed again, and grew

FI
FIRST IN MICHIGAN
6× · 2017–2025 · $4.3M · revenue +72% · 42% of their budget
II
INGENUITYNE INC
6× · 2017–2025 · $3.4M · revenue +124% · 66% of their budget
FF
Foundation for Inspiration & Recognition of Scienc
5× · 2017–2025 · $2.8M · revenue +58% · 32% of their budget

Funded once

OS
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
one grant, 2017 · $113k
MS
MANCHESTER SCHOOL DISTRICT
2× · 2017–2022 · $106k
NA
Nc A&T State University
one grant, 2024 · $85k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its 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.

Perrybotics

High school students learning to make robots

Youth Development

Robomaster North America

Supporting robotic contests in schools

Science & Tech

Ignite Robotics

To increase student interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) by engaging students in hands-on programs and competitions in robotics, programming, engineering, math, and other stem-related areas.

Education

Kss Robotics

STEM Education Grades K - 12

Youth Development

Port City Robotics

We mentor young people (Grades K through 12) as they learn to design, build and program robots, which are then taken to regional and national competitions. This practical, collaborative, hands-on experience in science and technology has…

Recreation & Sports

The School for Global Thinkers

Our mission is to challenge and nurture young women to thrive in future global markets through personalized STEM advanced academics. Through a supportive small school and single-gender environment, project-based learning, and STEM advanced…

Education

Stem C

High school robotics club

Education

Girls in Stem

Human Services

Elementary Einstein Titanium Tigers

Our primary program is the Titanium Tigers Robotics Team, which is a student run FIRST robotics team composed of students who work together to build robots for FIRST robotics competitions and based at Chapel Hill High School. Our goal is…

Education

Connecting Stem Kids With the Future Inc

—

P31Girls Incorporated

youth educational and enrichment programs for girls

Youth Development

Bainbridge Auburn Battle Bots

Worked with high schools and middle schools teaching how to design and build battle bots

Youth Development

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Access Educational Services Inc; the most unlike its peers is Radha Govind Dham Dallas. 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

565 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 565 of the 2,000 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

138

Early backer (in before they grew)

528/565

Grantees still filing

371/565

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$17,267,874Youth Development$8,774,766Education$8,501,797Recreation & Sports$4,324,920Science & Tech$3,192,517Human Services$2,766,098Philanthropy$569,995

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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

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.

Foundation for Inspiration & Recognition of SciencTX94.3× affinity66 shared granteesties to 7 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Foundation for Inspiration & Recognition of Scienc · Round It Up America Inc · GenYOUTH Incorporated · Project Lead the Way Inc · Project Lead the Way Inc · The George W Bush Foundation · Minnesota State High School League Foundation · Washington First Robotics · Ingenuityne Inc · The Mr Holland's Opus Foundation · Sme Education Foundation · Save the Music 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 For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

10get no government money at all

19report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%

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.

Play a game based on For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)’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