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Health Effects Institute

HEALTH EFFECTS INSTITUTE's mission is to conduct independent research to provide high-quality, impartial and relevant science on the health effects of air pollution.

$7.2M
Granted FY2025still arriving
18
Grants FY2025still arriving
12
States reached
$1.1M
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.

Science & Tech$27M
02FY2025 · 18 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 18 grants below total $5,746,190, the rows itemized in this filing. The $7,150,898 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $1,404,708 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

  • $10k–50k3 grants · $106k
  • $50k–250k6 grants · $1.0M
  • $250k+9 grants · $4.6M
$258,121
Median grant
12
States reached
$10M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN$1,122,489
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY$620,207
HARVARD UNIVERSITY$598,327
YALE UNIVERSITY$480,617
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY$440,630
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY$437,199
BOSTON UNIVERSITY$344,034
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA$314,885
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON$258,121
EMORY UNIVERSITY$247,160
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY$235,634
REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA$161,075
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY$150,934
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS$125,000
GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORP$103,637
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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 65% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%HARVARD UNIVERSITY: $862k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS: $211k → 12%BOSTON UNIVERSITY: $511k → 16%PENN STATE UNIVERSITY: $620k → 16%DREXEL UNIVERSITY: $255k → 22%UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN: $1.1M → 14%UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $278k → 16%COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: $302k → 17%UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: $845k → 10%UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: $226k → 14%OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY: $400k → 18%NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY: $255k → 8%DUKE UNIVERSITY: $391k → 11%GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORP: $350k → 13%UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: $242k → 12%UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: $294k → 9%NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY: $236k → 14%GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $437k → 6%HARVARD UNIVERSITY: $765k → 8%BOSTON UNIVERSITY: $344k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: $868k → 14%UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $194k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: $385k → 10%UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: $190k → 14%OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY: $316k → 18%GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORPORATION: $289k → 13%UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: $216k → 12%UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: $258k → 9%GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $409k → 6%HARVARD UNIVERSITY: $598k → 8%BOSTON UNIVERSITY: $237k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $456k → 14%UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $194k → 16%OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY: $261k → 18%EMORY UNIVERSITY: $250k → 13%UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: $236k → 9%Harvard UNIVERSITY: $562k → 8%BOSTON UNIVERSITY: $200k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $412k → 14%OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY: $226k → 18%EMORY UNIVERSITY: $247k → 13%HARVARD UNIVERSITY: $543k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $315k → 14%EMORY UNIVERSITY: $243k → 13%HARVARD UNIVERSITY: $306k → 8%REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $265k → 14%EMORY UNIVERSITY: $221k → 13%GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORP: $206k → 13%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

WA
IL
MI
NY
MA
OR
NV
PA
CT
CA
CO
VA
NC
DC
GA
TX
FL

Grants abroad, by region: $1.6M on the FY2025 return

Schedule F, as filed: 2 regions. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

North America (Canada and Mexico)$1.1M · 72% · 3 grants

Stated purpose: SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Europe (including Iceland and Greenland)$440k · 28% · 2 grants

Stated purpose: SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

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. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

95%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$19M · 23 repeat orgs$943k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +69% since the first grant, against +51% for those funded once.

23 repeat relationships: 13 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

23
3

Total granted

$19M
$707k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+69%
+51%

Still filing today

30%
67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $236k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationHealthRecreation & SportsOther
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

  • TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY
    4× · 2022–2025 · $1.3M · revenue +12%
  • GT
    GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORPORATION
    7× · 2017–2025 · $1.0M · revenue +69%
  • EU
    Emory University
    5× · 2017–2025 · $1.0M · revenue +80%

Funded once

  • DUKE UNIVERSITYgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $391k · revenue +51%
  • BU
    BOSTON UNIVERSITY
    one grant, 2021 · $200k
  • TG
    The George Washington Universitygraduated
    one grant, 2021 · $116k · revenue +30%
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.

1
New York University

Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.

Education
2
University of Miami

See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.

Education
3
Lehigh University

The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…

Education
4
William Marsh Rice University

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…

Education
5
Trustees of Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.

Education
6
Trustees of Tufts College

Education and Research

Education
7
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education
8
Washington University

The washington university is a co-educational, nondenominational university with a long and distinguished history of teaching, research and (cont'd on schedule o)

Education
9
Western New England University

Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…

Education
10
Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania

The trustees of the university of pennsylvania (the "university") sees itself as having a public service mission. in such regard, the university aims to provide a rich and diverse educational environment for its students; to pioneer…

Education
11
Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is an independent, research-oriented university with broadly based strengths in health, including medicine, nursing and dentistry; in engineering; in the arts and sciences; and in law, management and social…

Education
12
Cornell University

Education, research, medical services and other public services.

Education
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The George Washington University; the most unlike its peers is Dri Research Foundation. 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

14 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. 14 of the 31 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)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
14/14
Grantees still filing
13/14
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: $3,754,051 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF TEXASCOLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY: $1,371,968 · OtherCOLORADO STATE UNIVERSITYTRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY: $1,278,151 · OtherTRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITYOREGON STATE UNIVERSITY: $1,253,668 · OtherOREGON STATE UNIVERSITYUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: $1,144,494 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTONPENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY: $934,737 · OtherPENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITYUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS: $741,710 · OtherREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: $739,466 · OtherREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: $725,334 · OtherREGENTS UNIV OF CALIFORNIA: $640,587 · Other+8 more: $2,636,010 · Other+8 morePresident and Fellows of Harvard College: $3,844,155 · EducationPresident and Fellows of Harvard CollegeUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $1,735,453 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAYale University: $1,480,873 · EducationYale UniversityEmory University: $1,003,053 · EducationEmory UniversityGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $925,605 · EducationGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INCTHE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK: $547,907 · EducationDREXEL UNIVERSITY: $452,503 · EducationDUKE UNIVERSITY: $391,259 · Education+2 more: $252,636 · EducationGEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORPORATION: $1,038,845 · HealthDRI RESEARCH FOUNDATION: $116,840 · HealthNorthwestern University: $235,634 · Recreation & Sports
Other$15,220,176Education$10,633,444Health$1,155,685Recreation & Sports$235,634

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

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetPresident and Fellows of Harvard College: $3,844,155 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $1,735,453 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetYale University: $1,480,873 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetTRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY: $1,278,151 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetGEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORPORATION: $1,038,845 over 7y, 0.1% of budgetEmory University: $1,003,053 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $925,605 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetTHE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK: $547,907 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetDREXEL UNIVERSITY: $452,503 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetDUKE UNIVERSITY: $391,259 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER: $136,236 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetDRI RESEARCH FOUNDATION: $116,840 over 2y, 13% of budgetThe George Washington University: $116,400 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.

  • Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
  • Who funds Yale University ↗
  • Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds GEORGIA TECH RESEARCH CORPORATION ↗
  • Who funds Emory University ↗
  • Who funds GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
  • Who funds DREXEL UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds Northwestern University ↗
  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER ↗
  • Who funds DRI RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds The George Washington University ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%23%45%68%90%share of the org’s income from government →median 12%
  • Trustees of Boston University: 12% of income from government
  • Yale University: 12% of income from government
  • President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%
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 31 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 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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