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Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary

THE MASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY ("THE INFIRMARY") IS A NOT-FOR-PROFIT TEACHING HOSPITAL CONDUCTING PATIENT CARE AND RESEARCH.

$20M
Granted FY2018
27
Grants FY2018
15
States reached
$15M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
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 2018.

Health$33MScience & Tech$3.8MEducation$242k
02FY2018 · 27 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2018

  • Under $10k1 grant · $7k
  • $10k–50k10 grants · $273k
  • $50k–250k10 grants · $971k
  • $250k+6 grants · $18M
$74,947
Median grant
15
States reached
$524M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
MASS EYE & EAR ASSOCIATES$15,083,409
BIONIC EYE TECHNOLOGIES INC$1,106,959
MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL$800,296
PRESIDENT & FELLOWS OF HARVARD$426,941
BRIGHAM & WOMEN'S HOSPITAL$309,529
Schepens Eye Research Institute$271,961
RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL$219,902
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY$106,924
WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE$98,339
PORTLAND VA RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC$97,243
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY$92,846
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN$87,696
BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL$82,588
JOHNS HOPKINS U SCHOOL OF MED$74,947
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY$58,232
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 (FY17–18) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 91% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%CHARLES STARK DRAPER LABORATORY: $36k → 8%WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE: $98k → 11%BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL: $363k → 16%PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY: $58k → 12%UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $24k → 22%BIONIC EYE TECHNOLOGIES INC: $1.1M → 9%RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR SUNY: $28k → 14%NYU LAGONE MEDICAL CENTER: $36k → 17%UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: $103k → 15%UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: $59k → 15%UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: $39k → 14%UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: $104k → 10%PORTLAND VA RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC: $97k → 12%VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: $93k → 13%DUKE UNIVERSITY: $46k → 11%RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL: $220k → 14%EMORY UNIVERSITY: $59k → 14%OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: $53k → 15%CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: $211k → 17%JOHNS HOPKINS U SCHOOL OF MED: $75k → 19%UNIVERSITY OF MAINE: $35k → 15%PRESIDENT & FELLOWS OF HARVARD: $526k → 8%WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE: $36k → 11%BRIGHAM & WOMEN'S HOSPITAL: $310k → 16%WILLS EYE HOSPITAL: $48k → 22%BIONIC EYE TECHNOLOGIES INC: $769k → 9%WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE: $47k → 17%UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: $27k → 15%UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: $28k → 14%UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: $88k → 10%PORTLAND VA RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC: $80k → 12%DUKE UNIVERSITY: $30k → 11%RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL: $163k → 14%NATIONWIDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: $29k → 15%CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY: $107k → 17%JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: $14k → 19%UNIVERSITY OF MAINE: $28k → 15%PRESIDENT & FELLOWS OF HARVARD: $427k → 8%BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: $138k → 16%WILLS EYE HOSPITAL: $15k → 22%NATIONWIDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: $25k → 15%BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: $83k → 16%MASS EYE & EAR ASSOCIATES: $15.1M → 16%MASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR ASSOCIATES INC: $14.3M → 16%MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL: $804k → 16%MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL: $800k → 16%Schepens Eye Research Institute: $272k → 16%SCHEPENS EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE: $171k → 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

ME
MN
WI
MI
NY
MA
OR
IA
OH
PA
RI
CA
MD
TN
NC
GA
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.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$36M · 19 repeat orgs$409k to everyone else

19 repeat relationships: 19 still active in FY2018, 0 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

19
3

Total granted

$36M
$133k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+51%
+80%

Still filing today

42%
67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2018, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $276k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18
HealthEducationScience & 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

  • Rhode Island Hospital
    2× · 2017–2018 · $383k · revenue +79%
  • CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
    2× · 2017–2018 · $318k · revenue +50%
  • CH
    Children's Hospital Corporation
    2× · 2017–2018 · $221k · revenue +91%

Funded once

  • EU
    Emory Universitygraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $59k · revenue +80%
  • WC
    WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE
    one grant, 2017 · $47k
  • TR
    The Research Foundation for The State University of New Yorkgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $28k · revenue +62%
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
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
2
Cornell University

Education, research, medical services and other public services.

Education
3
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
4
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
5
Drexel University

Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…

Education
6
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
7
Trustees of Tufts College

Education and Research

Education
8
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
9
Trustees of Boston University

Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.…

—
10
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
11
University of Southern California

The central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…

Education
12
The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Worcester Polytechnic Institute; the most unlike its peers is City of Philadelphia Trustee Administering Wills Eye Hospital. 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

19 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. 19 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)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
17/19
Grantees still filing
19/19
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

MASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR ASSOCIATES INC: $29,334,698 · HealthMASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR ASSOCIATES INC+6 more: $1,156,876 · HealthBIONIC EYE TECHNOLOGIES INC: $1,876,119 · OtherBIONIC EYE TECH…MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM INCORPORATED: $1,604,196 · OtherMASS GENERAL BR…MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM INCORPORATED: $672,930 · OtherMASS GENERAL BR…University of Wisconsin Madison: $191,871 · Other+9 more: $651,571 · Other+9 morePresident and Fellows of Harvard College: $953,247 · EducationCASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY: $318,146 · EducationUniversity of Miami: $110,288 · EducationVanderbilt University: $92,846 · EducationDUKE UNIVERSITY: $76,368 · EducationEmory University: $58,598 · Education+3 more: $74,781 · EducationPORTLAND VA RESEARCH FOUNDATION: $177,558 · Science & TechCHARLES STARK DRAPER LABORATORY INC: $36,131 · Science & Tech
Health$30,491,574Other$4,996,687Education$1,684,274Science & Tech$213,689

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 budgetMASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR ASSOCIATES INC: $29,334,698 over 2y, 12% of budgetPresident and Fellows of Harvard College: $953,247 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetSchepens Eye Research Institute Inc: $442,847 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetRhode Island Hospital: $383,282 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY: $318,146 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetChildren's Hospital Corporation: $220,604 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetWORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE: $134,562 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetUniversity of Miami: $110,288 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetVanderbilt University: $92,846 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetDUKE UNIVERSITY: $76,368 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCITY OF PHILADELPHIA TRUSTEE ADMINISTERING WILLS EYE HOSPITAL: $62,131 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetEmory University: $58,598 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNYU LANGONE HOSPITALS: $36,222 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCHARLES STARK DRAPER LABORATORY INC: $36,131 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Research Foundation for The State University of New York: $28,296 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $23,548 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $22,937 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMAYO CLINIC: $11,790 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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Johns Hopkins Univers…
Johns Hopkins UniversityMD13.1× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Johns Hopkins University

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 Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. 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%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 10%
  • Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc: 100% of income from government
  • Portland Va Research Foundation: 34% of income from government
  • Children's Hospital Corporation: 10% of income from government
  • Worcester Polytechnic Institute: 8% of income from government
  • President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
  • University of Miami: 5% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
1rely on government for over half their income
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 2018, released 2018. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary’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