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Washington, D.C. · Public charity

National Space Society

The vision of nss is people living and working in thriving communities beyond the earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

$185k
Granted FY2023
4
Itemized grants FY2023
4
Organizations funded FY2023
75%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Itemized, FY2023
$139k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2023
$40,000
Largest grant, FY2023
$49,000
Organizations funded a year
3 to 4
FY2022 to FY2023
States reached, FY2023
3
Total assets, FY2023
$6.7M

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 75% of the organizations National Space Society funded were first-time grantees, receiving 65% of its grant dollars.

The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY20234$139k75%
FY20223$127kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2022 to 2023.

Science & Tech$131kCommunity Improvement$49kEducation$46kYouth Development$40k

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2022 to FY2023, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Expanding Frontiers Corp$105,395216%
Kids Read America Inc$46,0001n/a
Gaaays in Spaaace$40,0001n/a
University of Arizona$25,0001n/a
Earthlight Foundation Inc$25,0001n/a
Steamspace Education Outreach$25,0001n/a

Compare National Space Society with peer funders

About National Space Society

How much does National Space Society give?
National Space Society reported 4 itemized grants totaling $139,000, out of $184,800 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2023 IRS filing. It funded between 3 and 4 organizations a year over FY2022 to FY2023.
What does National Space Society fund?
By grant dollars over FY2022 to FY2023, its largest causes are Science & Tech (49%), Community Improvement (18%), Education (17%).
Who are National Space Society's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2022 to FY2023: Expanding Frontiers Corp ($105k), Kids Read America Inc ($46k), Gaaays in Spaaace ($40k).
Does National Space Society fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 75% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Where is National Space Society based?
National Space Society is based in DC.

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 6 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 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports $63k of grant expense, but none of it to a named recipient. On a Form 990 that can mean grants abroad, filed by region only (Schedule F), grants under $5,000, which are not itemized, or a schedule referenced as an attachment the e-file does not carry. The figures above are therefore from FY2023, the most recent year this funder named its grantees.

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