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McKnight Brain Research Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

McKnight Brain Research Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$3.1M
Granted FY2025still arriving
6
Grants FY2025still arriving
6
States reached
$1.5M
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 2025.

Health$14MEducation$1.1MYouth Development$210kEnvironment$250
02FY2025 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $50k–250k4 grants · $571k
  • $250k+2 grants · $2.5M
$247,500
Median grant
6
States reached
$37M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
American Federation for Aging Research$1,543,700
Foundation for the NIH$1,000,000
American Brain Foundation$247,500
University of Miami$172,588
University of Alabama Birmingham$94,270
University of Arizona$57,098
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 61% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%University of Arizona - Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute: $1.1M → 15%Grand Canyon Conservancy: $250 → 16%American Brain Foundation: $330k → 11%American Federation for Aging Research: $2.6M → 17%University of Miami: $314k → 15%Foundation for the NIH: $1.2M → 8%University of Arizona: $97k → 15%American Brain Foundation: $330k → 11%American Federation for Aging Research: $1.5M → 17%Foundation for the NIH: $1.2M → 8%University of Arizona - Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute: $70k → 15%American Brain Foundation: $330k → 11%American Federation for Aging Research: $535k → 17%Foundation for the NIH: $1.0M → 8%University of Arizona: $57k → 15%American Brain Foundation: $296k → 11%American Federation for Aging Research: $35k → 17%Foundation for the NIH: $1.0M → 8%University of Arizona - Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute: $52k → 15%American Brain Foundation: $276k → 11%Columbia University: $30k → 17%Foundation for the NIH: $1.0M → 8%University of Arizona: $6k → 15%American Brain Foundation: $248k → 11%University of Arizona - Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute: $1k → 15%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.
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.
$15M · 9 repeat orgs$250 to everyone else

9 repeat relationships: 6 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

9
1

Total granted

$15M
$250

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+32%
+38%

Still filing today

67%
100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

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

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

’20’21’22’23’24’25
HealthEducationSocial ScienceYouth DevelopmentEnvironmentOther
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

  • AF
    AMERICAN FEDERATION FOR AGING RESEARCH INC
    4× · 2021–2025 · $4.7M · revenue +15%
  • AB
    AMERICAN BRAIN FOUNDATION
    6× · 2020–2025 · $1.8M · revenue +32%
  • UO
    University of Miami
    4× · 2020–2025 · $743k · revenue +66%

Funded once

  • GRAND CANYON CONSERVANCYgraduated
    one grant, 2022 · $250 · revenue +38%
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
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute

Sanford burnham prebys medical discovery institute's mission is to advance the biomedical sciences by cultivating the next generation of scientific leaders, providing meaningful opportunities for researchers of all backgrounds to learn,…

Health
2
American Museum of Natural History

The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."

Arts & Culture
3
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
4
The Translational Genomics Research Institute

Please see schedule o

Health
5
Doheny Eye Institute

To further the conservation, improvement and restoration of human eyesight" (mrs. doheny - 1947).

—
6
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
7
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation
Philanthropy
8
University of Miami
—
9
Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

We educate the next generation of leaders to improve the health of our society.

Education
10
The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration

Promote and fund research into developing better diagnostic processes, therapies, and cures for frontotemporal degeneration (ftd); provide information, education, support and advocacy to persons diagnosed with ftd, their families and…

Health
11
Target Als Foundation Inc

Our mission is to break down barriers to als research to find effective treatments. by uniting academia, the pharma and biotech industry, government, venture capital, related nonprofits, and the als community, we aim to overcome the…

Education
12
American Neuromuscular Foundation

The american neuromuscular foundation was established to improve the quality of care for people with disorders of skeletal muscle, neuromuscular function, and central and peripheral nervous systems through the promotion of research and…

Health
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The University of Florida Foundation Inc; the most unlike its peers is Citrus County 4-H Association Inc. 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

8 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. 8 of the 11 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)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
7/8
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Inc: $5,313,573 · HealthFoundation for the National Institutes of Health IncAMERICAN BRAIN FOUNDATION: $1,810,003 · HealthAMERICAN BRAIN FOUNDATIONAMERICAN FEDERATION FOR AGING RESEARCH INC: $4,690,900 · Social ScienceAMERICAN FEDERATION FOR AGING RESEA…University of Arizona - Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute: $1,190,542 · OtherUniversity of …University of Alabama Birmingham: $543,933 · OtherUniversity of …University of Arizona: $159,403 · OtherUniversity of …University of Miami: $742,576 · EducationTHE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA FOUNDATION INC: $302,313 · Education+1 more: $30,000 · EducationCITRUS COUNTY 4-H ASSOCIATION INC: $209,820 · Youth DevelopmentGRAND CANYON CONSERVANCY: $250 · Environment
Health$7,123,576Social Science$4,690,900Other$1,893,878Education$1,074,889Youth Development$209,820Environment$250

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetFoundation for the National Institutes of Health Inc: $5,313,573 over 5y, 1.9% of budgetAMERICAN FEDERATION FOR AGING RESEARCH INC: $4,690,900 over 4y, 16% of budgetAMERICAN BRAIN FOUNDATION: $1,810,003 over 6y, 5.6% of budgetUniversity of Miami: $742,576 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetTHE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA FOUNDATION INC: $302,313 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetCITRUS COUNTY 4-H ASSOCIATION INC: $209,820 over 4y, 30% of budgetTHE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK: $30,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGRAND CANYON CONSERVANCY: $250 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 McKnight Brain Research Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from McKnight Brain Research Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 20%6%25%56%100%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →median 5%
  • University of Miami: 5% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
2get no government money at all
2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
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 McKnight Brain Research Foundation?

Find your warmest path to McKnight Brain Research Foundation 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 11 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-PF 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

Play a game based on McKnight Brain Research’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