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Heffter Research Institute at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Heffter Research Institute

Our mission is to promote research of the highest scientific quality in order to contribute to a greater understanding of the mind, leading to the improvement of the human condition, and to alleviate suffering.

$205k
Granted FY2024still arriving
3
Grants FY2024still arriving
2
States reached
$50k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.

Health$1.8M
02FY2024 · 3 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 3 grants below total $106,955, the rows itemized in this filing. The $205,057 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $98,102 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 · FY2024

  • $10k–50k2 grants · $57k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
$45,645
Median grant
2
States reached
$490k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY$50,000
SHEPPARD PRATT HEALTH SYSTEM INC$45,645
GORDON RESEARCH CONFERENCES$11,310
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 (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 94% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: $147k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION: $75k → 11%NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: $202k → 17%GORDON RESEARCH CONFERENCES: $11k → 7%University of Utah: $78k → 8%SHEPPARD PRATT HEALTH SYSTEM INC: $46k → 11%Johns Hopkins University: $335k → 19%Dana Farber Cancer Institute: $138k → 16%University of Minnesota Foundation: $75k → 11%NYU School of Medicine: $111k → 17%Johns Hopkins University: $152k → 19%Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: $30k → 16%NYU School of Medicine: $50k → 17%JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: $50k → 19%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.

Grants abroad, by region: $87k on the FY2024 return

Schedule F, as filed: 1 region. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

Region not stated$87k · 100% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: MEDICAL 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.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.4M · 4 repeat orgs$135k to everyone else

4 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

4
1

Total granted

$1.4M
$78k

Still filing today

100%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 47% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $57k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22’23’24
EducationHealthScience & TechOther
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

  • JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
    3× · 2021–2024 · $537k · revenue +40%
  • NY
    New York University
    3× · 2021–2023 · $363k · revenue +30%
  • Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc
    3× · 2020–2022 · $315k · revenue +95%

Funded once

  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
    one grant, 2022 · $78k
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
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 of the 8 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)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
7/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: $536,800 · EducationJOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITYNew York University: $363,022 · EducationNew York UniversityYale University: $283,156 · EducationYale UniversityUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION: $150,000 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATIONDana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc: $314,980 · HealthDana-Farber Cancer Ins…SHEPPARD PRATT HEALTH SYSTEM INC: $45,645 · HealthSHEPPARD PRATT HEALTH …UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: $78,317 · OtherGORDON RESEARCH CONFERENCES INC: $11,310 · Science & Tech
Education$1,332,978Health$360,625Other$78,317Science & Tech$11,310

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

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetJOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: $536,800 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetNew York University: $363,022 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetDana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc: $314,980 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetYale University: $283,156 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION: $150,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetSHEPPARD PRATT HEALTH SYSTEM INC: $45,645 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGORDON RESEARCH CONFERENCES INC: $11,310 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Heffter Research Institute funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Heffter Research 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%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →median 12%
  • Johns Hopkins University: 12% of income from government
  • Yale University: 12% of income from government
  • Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc: 7% of income from government
  • Sheppard Pratt Health System Inc: 0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
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.
05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Heffter Research Institute?

Find your warmest path to Heffter Research Institute through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.

Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.

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 8 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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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