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Lowell Observatory at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Lowell Observatory

The mission of LOWELL OBSERVATORY is to pursue the study of astronomy, especially the study of our solar system and its evolution; to conduct pure research in astronomical phenomena; and to maintain quality public education and outreach programs to bring the results of astronomical research to the public.

$175k
Granted FY2024still arriving
4
Grants FY2024still arriving
2
States reached
$95k
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, FY2017 to 2024.

Science & Tech$5.7MEducation$167k
02FY2024 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k3 grants · $80k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $95k
$46,723
Median grant
2
States reached
$103M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY$94,935
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND - COLLEGE PARK$46,723
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY$17,752
PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE$15,741
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 95% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE: $131k → 15%LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $920k → 16%MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $138k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $30k → 11%UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII: $34k → 9%UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA: $36k → 13%PURDUE UNIVERSITY: $20k → 19%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: $149k → 11%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND - BALTIMORE COUNTY: $46k → 11%PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE: $100k → 15%LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $540k → 16%MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $64k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $24k → 11%UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII: $34k → 9%UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA: $19k → 13%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: $63k → 11%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND - BALTIMORE COUNTY: $43k → 11%PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE: $68k → 15%LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $152k → 16%MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $39k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $22k → 11%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: $59k → 11%PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE: $66k → 15%LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $53k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND - COLLEGE PARK: $47k → 11%PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE: $60k → 15%LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $41k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND - COLLEGE PARK: $29k → 11%PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE: $50k → 15%LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $38k → 16%LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $19k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $338k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $333k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $328k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $324k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $223k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $179k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $100k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $95k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $79k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $72k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $65k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $45k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $33k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $33k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $33k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $32k → 16%NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $18k → 16%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
MA
IN
PA
MD
AZ
HI
MS
FL
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.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$5.6M · 10 repeat orgs$18k to everyone else

10 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

10
1

Total granted

$5.6M
$18k

Still filing today

40%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

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

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Science & TechEducationEnvironmentOther
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

  • LO
    LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION
    6× · 2017–2022 · $1.8M · revenue +11% · 54% of their budget
  • PS
    Planetary Science Institute
    8× · 2017–2024 · $506k · revenue +41%
  • UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
    6× · 2018–2023 · $108k · revenue +40%

Funded once

  • WW
    WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
    one grant, 2018 · $18k
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

5 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. 5 of the 12 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
5/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: $2,329,386 · OtherNORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITYPlanetary Science Institute: $506,183 · OtherPlanetary Science InstituteUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK: $447,963 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARKARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY: $242,407 · OtherARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY+4 more: $196,037 · OtherLOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $1,775,514 · Science & TechLOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATIONMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $256,438 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $107,679 · EducationPERCIVAL LOWELL TRUST UW: $17,986 · Environment
Other$3,721,976Science & Tech$1,775,514Education$364,117Environment$17,986

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 budgetLOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION: $1,775,514 over 6y, 54% of budgetPlanetary Science Institute: $506,183 over 8y, 0.9% of budgetMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $256,438 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $107,679 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetPERCIVAL LOWELL TRUST UW: $17,986 over 2y, 0.4% 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 LOWELL OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds Planetary Science Institute ↗
  • Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ↗
  • Who funds PERCIVAL LOWELL TRUST UW ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%4%15%34%60%funder's share of their income ↑0%23%45%68%90%share of the org’s income from government →median 35%
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 35% 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 · 0–90%
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.
05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Lowell Observatory?

Find your warmest path to Lowell Observatory 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 12 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

Play a game based on Lowell Observatory’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