How much does Paulson Family Foundation give?

Paulson Family Foundation reported 44 grants totaling $6,596,528 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 31 and 51 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Paulson Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (86%), Arts & Culture (4%), Philanthropy (2%).

Who are Paulson Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: New York University ($78M), Central Park Conservancy Inc ($11M), American Friends of Hebrew University Inc ($11M).

Does Paulson Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 41% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Paulson Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Paulson Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Communal Fund, Earle I Mack Foundation Inc, The Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund.

Where is Paulson Family Foundation based?

Paulson Family Foundation is based in FL.

Paulson Family Foundation

Paulson Family Foundation at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Private foundation

Paulson Family Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$6.6M

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$2.0M

Largest

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.

Education$413MArts & Culture$21MPhilanthropy$12MRecreation & Sports$11MInternational$5.8MSocial Science$4.5MReligion$4.4MCivil Rights$3.3MOther$0

02FY2024 · 44 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k1 grant · $1k
$10k–50k17 grants · $474k
$50k–250k21 grants · $1.9M
$250k+5 grants · $4.2M

$50,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.4B

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Manhattan Institute	$2,000,000
MILKEN CENTER FOR ADVANCING THE AMERICAN DREAM	$750,000
Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach	$700,000
The UJA Federation	$500,000
Success Academy Charter Schools	$250,000
PRINCESS GRACE FOUNDATION- USA	$242,200
HARVARD UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL	$200,000
JOHN PAULSON CAMPUS for JEWISH LIFE	$185,000
Prostate Cancer Foundation	$150,000
Fund for Public Schools Inc	$110,000
Tel Aviv Museum of Art American Friends	$109,828
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE	$100,000
Gabrielle's Angel Foundation	$100,000
MUSEO DE ARTE DE PONCE	$100,000
Hope for Depression Research Foundation	$70,000

02The need

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 (FY17–22, $60k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 83% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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

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.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 85% of Paulson Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 32% of the giving stays in NY; by stated purpose, 30%.

Paulson Family Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 2.6% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$318M · 62 repeat orgs$12M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +27% since the first grant, against +15% for those funded once.

62 repeat relationships: 27 still active in FY2024, 35 since wound down; 15 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$318M

$11M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+27%

+15%

Still filing today

74%

59%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $710k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationPhilanthropyHealthInternationalPublic BenefitOther

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

NY
New York University
5× · 2017–2022 · $78M · revenue +76%
CP
CENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY INC
6× · 2017–2024 · $11M · revenue +76%
UJ
UNITED JEWISH APPEAL-FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES OF NEW YORK INC
7× · 2017–2024 · $8.1M · revenue +39%

Funded once

TA
TEL AVIV MUSEUM OF ART'S AMERICAN FRIENDS
one grant, 2023 · $5.0M
JI
J&J Independent Foundation
one grant, 2018 · $3.7M · 100% of their budget
DE
DEFENDING EDUCATIONgraduated
one grant, 2022 · $500k · revenue +54%

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.

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

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

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

Manhattanville University

To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.

Education

The Jewish Museum

The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.

Arts & Culture

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

The Graduate Center Foundation Inc

The graduate center foundation is committed to promoting and safe-guarding the success of the graduate center by raising funds and managing and investing donations for use by the graduate center. the board of trustees of the foundation…

—

Manhattan University

Manhattan university is an independent catholic instituion of higher learning that embraces qualified men and women of all faiths, cultures, and traditions. the mission of manhattan university is to provide a contemporary, person-centered…

Education

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

New York Genome Center Inc

Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.

Health

Boston Architectural College

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

—

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

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Success Academy Charter Schools Inc; the most unlike its peers is J&J Independent Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

99 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 99 of the 147 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

97/99

Grantees still filing

61/99

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Education$235,472,900Other$186,608,140Philanthropy$20,716,293International$16,135,850Recreation & Sports$10,713,000Public Benefit$6,675,000Arts & Culture$4,092,413

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

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.

Jewish Communal FundNY22.7× affinity16 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Communal Fund · Earle I Mack Foundation Inc · The Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund · The Achelis & Bodman Foundation Co Manice & Budd LLP · May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation Inc · The New York Community Trust · The Hyde and Watson Foundation · The Bessemer Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Audrey and Martin Gruss Foundation · Samuel J & Ethel Lefrak Charitable Trust · Arnhold Foundation Inc

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 Paulson Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Paulson Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

9get no government money at all

16report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%

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.

Play a game based on Paulson Family’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