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Mercatus Center Inc at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Mercatus Center Inc

The Center builds and maintains a vibrant community of scholars dedicated to market-oriented thinking and classical liberal principles.

$11M
Granted FY2025still arriving
50
Grants FY2025still arriving
16
States reached
$1.1M
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 2025.

Science & Tech$25MEducation$20MHealth$8.3MInternational$1.1MSocial Science$1.1MFood & Nutrition$1.0MCommunity Improvement$765kArts & Culture$160kOther$0
02FY2025 · 50 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 50 grants below total $2,850,041, the rows itemized in this filing. The $10,877,082 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $8,027,041 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

  • Under $10k1 grant · $7k
  • $10k–50k35 grants · $706k
  • $50k–250k13 grants · $1.0M
  • $250k+1 grant · $1.1M
$25,000
Median grant
16
States reached
$44M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Kyiv School of Economics$1,100,000
George Mason University Foundation$185,887
Ukraine Global Scholars Foundation$100,000
ChinaTalk Group LLC$100,000
Digital Harbor Foundation Inc$100,000
The Argument Inc$100,000
California Institute of Technology$86,219
The Econ Of LLC$65,000
Nucleate Bio$50,000
The David Network$50,000
Women's Health Fund$50,000
Center for Innovative Governance Research$50,000
ARC Prize Foundation$50,000
Edge Institute Inc$50,000
Energy for Growth Hub$40,000
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:

Its human-services grants (FY23–24, $55k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 64% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%FAVOR Piedmont: $20k → 8%Braver Angels: $35k → 17%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

NH
WA
ID
MT
MN
IL
WI
MI
NY
MA
OR
WY
IA
IN
OH
PA
NJ
CT
RI
CA
UT
CO
MO
KY
WV
VA
MD
DE
AZ
KS
AR
TN
NC
SC
DC
HI
LA
AL
GA
TX
FL

Grants abroad, by region: $5.9M on the FY2025 return

Schedule F, as filed: 9 regions, $2.3M to organizations and $3.6M to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

South Asia$2.5M · 41% · 28 grants · 175 people

Stated purpose: Research Grant · Student development/education fellowships, research grants, and stipend support

Europe (including Iceland and Greenland)$2.2M · 38% · 20 grants · 189 people

Stated purpose: Research Grant · Student development/education fellowships, research grants, and stipend support

North America (Canada and Mexico)$275k · 5% · 3 grants · 39 people

Stated purpose: Student Development/education grant · Research Grant · Student development/education fellowships, research grants, and stipend support

Sub-Saharan Africa$264k · 4% · 2 grants · 43 people

Stated purpose: Research Grant · Student development/education fellowships, research grants, and stipend support

Central America and the Caribbean$209k · 4% · 1 grant · 15 people

Stated purpose: Student Development/education grant · Student development/education fellowships, research grants

Russia and Neighboring States$195k · 3% · 3 grants · 14 people

Stated purpose: Research Grant · Student development/education fellowships, research grants, and stipend support

East Asia and the Pacific$175k · 3% · 29 people

Stated purpose: Student development/education fellowships, research grants, and stipend support

Middle East and North Africa$75k · 1% · 1 grant · 9 people

Stated purpose: Research Grant · Student development/education fellowships, research grants

South America$29k · 0% · 21 people

Stated purpose: Student development/education fellowships, research grants

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.

74%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$37M · 58 repeat orgs$13M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +36% since the first grant, against +11% for those funded once.

58 repeat relationships: 15 still active in FY2025, 43 since wound down; 34 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

58
143

Total granted

$37M
$12M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+36%
+11%

Still filing today

60%
55%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.0M 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
EducationHealthScience & TechPublic BenefitInternationalSocial ScienceOther
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

  • KS
    KYIV SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
    4× · 2022–2025 · $3.3M · revenue +10%
  • CH
    Children's Hospital Corporation
    2× · 2020–2021 · $1.6M · revenue +76%
  • ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI
    2× · 2020–2021 · $1.3M · revenue +39%

Funded once

  • EI
    ESSENTIAL IMPACT INC
    one grant, 2023 · $1.0M · 36% of their budget
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2021 · $500k · revenue -12%
  • CS
    COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORYgraduated
    one grant, 2020 · $500k · revenue +26%
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
The George Washington University

The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…

Education
2
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
3
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Wpi transforms lives, turns knowledge into action to confront global challenges, and revolutionizes stem through distinctive and inclusive education, projects and research. (http://www.wpi.edu/about/mission.html)

—
4
University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education
5
Vanderbilt University

See Disclosure Above.

Education
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
Institute for Advanced Study - Louis Bamberger & Mrs Felix Fuld Foundation

The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.

Science & Tech
8
Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education
9
Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—
10
University of Chicago

The mission of the university of chicago has been to sustain at the highest level of excellence, the communication of knowledge, the creation of knowledge and the fostering of a dynamic community of scholars and students.

Education
11
Claremont Graduate University

Claremont Graduate University prepares individuals to be leaders for positive change in the world. Unique in its transdisciplinary approach, the University is dedicated to the creation, dissemination, and application of new knowledge and…

Education
12
Peter G Peterson Institute for International Economics

The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…

Social Science
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Kentucky Research Foundation; the most unlike its peers is The Miami Native 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

135 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. 135 of the 245 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.

4
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
17
Early backer (in before they grew)
131/135
Grantees still filing
88/135
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: $5,895,000 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTONREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY: $3,753,000 · OtherREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELE…UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO: $2,915,900 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCOGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $2,484,822 · OtherGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY+110 more: $10,391,160 · Other+110 moreKYIV SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: $3,300,000 · EducationKYIV SCHOOL OF ECONOMICSTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $2,817,800 · EducationTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD J…Yale University: $2,750,000 · EducationYale UniversityICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI: $1,300,000 · EducationICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAIWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: $1,246,786 · EducationEmory University: $1,180,000 · EducationCornell University: $1,095,226 · EducationGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $1,079,887 · EducationTHE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY: $990,000 · EducationTHE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE TULANE EDUCATIONAL FUND: $850,000 · EducationCALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $836,219 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION: $800,000 · Education+40 more: $5,328,049 · Education+40 moreChildren's Hospital Corporation: $1,600,000 · HealthTHE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: $975,000 · HealthMAYO CLINIC: $250,000 · HealthAddgene Inc: $200,000 · HealthSANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS MEDICAL DISCOVERY INSTITUTE: $200,000 · HealthDana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc: $200,000 · HealthVanderbilt University Medical Center: $150,000 · Health+8 more: $730,000 · HealthUKRAINE DEFENSE FUND INC: $500,000 · InternationalDevelopment Data Lab Inc: $350,000 · InternationalFEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: $120,000 · InternationalAAVISHKAAR USA: $100,000 · InternationalPANORAMA GLOBAL: $100,000 · InternationalMEDIATORS FOUNDATION INC: $85,000 · InternationalESSENTIAL IMPACT INC: $1,000,000 · Food & NutritionCOLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY: $500,000 · Science & TechNUCLEATE BIO INC: $148,000 · Science & TechUniversity of Kansas Center for Research Inc: $140,466 · Science & TechTHE HACK FOUNDATION D/B/A HACK CLUB: $61,000 · Science & TechEdge Institute Inc: $50,000 · Science & TechCenter for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology: $50,000 · Science & TechSpeculative Technologies Inc: $50,000 · Science & TechBROWN UNIVERSITY: $620,000 · Community ImprovementCenter for Innovative Governance Research: $100,000 · Community ImprovementFAITH ACTION FOR COMMUNITY EQUITY: $28,750 · Community Improvement+2 more: $45,000 · Community Improvement
Other$25,439,882Education$23,573,967Health$4,305,000International$1,255,000Food & Nutrition$1,000,000Science & Tech$999,466Community Improvement$793,750

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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 budgetKYIV SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: $3,300,000 over 4y, 2.1% of budgetTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $2,817,800 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetYale University: $2,750,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetChildren's Hospital Corporation: $1,600,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI: $1,300,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: $1,246,786 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetEmory University: $1,180,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCornell University: $1,095,226 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $1,079,887 over 9y, 0.2% of budgetESSENTIAL IMPACT INC: $1,000,000 over 1y, 36% of budgetTHE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY: $990,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetTHE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: $975,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetTHE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE TULANE EDUCATIONAL FUND: $850,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $836,219 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION: $800,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetTHE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK: $725,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetBROWN UNIVERSITY: $620,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION: $500,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCOLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY: $500,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetTRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY: $500,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetUKRAINE DEFENSE FUND INC: $500,000 over 1y, 6.2% of budgetTRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $400,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTrustees of Tufts College: $350,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetDevelopment Data Lab Inc: $350,000 over 2y, 57% of budgetMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $350,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetTHE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATION INC: $280,000 over 1y, 7.1% of budgetARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION FOR A NEW AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: $258,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetMAYO CLINIC: $250,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER: $222,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetUKRAINE GLOBAL SCHOLARS FOUNDATION: $200,000 over 2y, 22% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION: $200,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetAddgene Inc: $200,000 over 1y, 1.0% of budgetSANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS MEDICAL DISCOVERY INSTITUTE: $200,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetDana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc: $200,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION: $200,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetDUKE UNIVERSITY: $191,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetDIGITAL HARBOR FOUNDATION: $150,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetThe Trustees of Princeton University: $150,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetVanderbilt University Medical Center: $150,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNUCLEATE BIO INC: $148,000 over 4y, 2.8% of budgetPLAYERS PHILANTHROPY FUND INC: $142,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetUniversity of Kansas Center for Research Inc: $140,466 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetPublic Health Institute: $130,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetFEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: $120,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $109,406 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetJOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: $108,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCenter for Innovative Governance Research: $100,000 over 2y, 4.0% of budgetGundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation Inc: $100,000 over 1y, 0.2% 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 tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Seminar Network I…Charles Koch Foundati…Good Ventures Foundat…Donors Trust IncAtlas Economic Resear…Charles Koch InstituteFounders Pledge IncJohn Templeton Founda…The Lynde and Harry B…John William Pope Fou…Yale UniversitySarah Scaife Foundati…
The Seminar Network IncVA24.5× affinity10 shared granteesties to 9 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Seminar Network Inc · Charles Koch Foundation · Good Ventures Foundation · Donors Trust Inc · Atlas Economic Research Foundation · Charles Koch Institute · Founders Pledge Inc · John Templeton Foundation · The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc · John William Pope Foundation · Yale University · Sarah Scaife Foundation Incorporated

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 Mercatus Center Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Mercatus Center Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 80%6%25%56%100%funder's share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 10%
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 35% of income from government
  • Trustees of Tufts College: 13% of income from government
  • Trustees of Boston University: 12% of income from government
  • Johns Hopkins University: 12% of income from government
  • Yale University: 12% of income from government
  • The Trustees of Princeton University: 11% of income from government
  • Children's Hospital Corporation: 10% of income from government
  • President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
  • Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research: 7% of income from government
  • Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc: 7% of income from government
  • Digital Harbor Foundation: 2% of income from government
  • Suffolk University: 1% of income from government
  • Addgene Inc: 0% of income from government
  • Rutgers University Foundation: 0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
8get no government money at all
10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely 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 245 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

Play a game based on Mercatus Center’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