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Santa Fe Institute at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Santa Fe Institute

The SANTA FE INSTITUTE is a transdisciplinary research community that expands the boundaries of scientific understanding.

$482k
Granted FY2024still arriving
1
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$31k
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 2024.

Science & Tech$645kEducation$632kCivil Rights$30kHealth$25kSocial Science$12k
02FY2024 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 1 grants below total $31,001, the rows itemized in this filing. The $481,963 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $450,962 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.
$31,001
Median grant
1
States reached
$86M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO - BOULDER$31,001
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 (FY17–22) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 66% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $124k → 8%WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE: $27k → 11%CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY: $22k → 11%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $196k → 14%THE SOLACE CRISIS TREATMENT CENTER: $25k → 12%INDIANA UNIVERSITY: $12k → 18%SUNWATER INSTITUTE: $16k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK: $68k → 11%MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $82k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $52k → 14%SUNWATER INSTITUTE: $14k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK: $64k → 11%MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $20k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $27k → 14%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: $31k → 11%MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $20k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES: $31k → 14%UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK: $939 → 11%MASSACHUSSETS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: $14k → 8%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

WA
MA
IN
PA
CA
CO
MD
NM
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.

82%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$623k · 5 repeat orgs$140k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +332% since the first grant, against +27% for those funded once.

5 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
6

Total granted

$623k
$140k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+332%
+27%

Still filing today

20%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time
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

  • RO
    REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
    3× · 2017–2024 · $190k
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK
    4× · 2017–2020 · $164k
  • WS
    WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
    5× · 2017–2021 · $153k

Funded once

  • RU
    REGENTS UNIV OF CALIFORNIA
    one grant, 2021 · $31k
  • WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
    one grant, 2022 · $27k · revenue +19%
  • SS
    SOLACE SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICESgraduated
    one grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue +35%
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
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 of the 14 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)
7/7
Grantees still filing
6/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: $189,735 · OtherREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADOUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK: $163,984 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARKWASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY: $152,680 · OtherWASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITYUNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO: $86,591 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICOREGENTS UNIV OF CALIFORNIA: $30,675 · OtherWORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE: $26,534 · OtherSOLACE SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICES: $25,000 · Other+3 more: $58,144 · Other+3 moreUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $274,584 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $259,611 · EducationMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $46,865 · EducationTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUN…THE SUNWATER INSTITUTE: $29,867 · Civil Rights
Other$733,343Education$581,060Civil Rights$29,867

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

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $274,584 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $259,611 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $46,865 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetTHE SUNWATER INSTITUTE: $29,867 over 2y, 48% of budgetWORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE: $26,534 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSOLACE SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICES: $25,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetCarnegie Mellon University: $22,327 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.

  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
  • Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
  • Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds THE SUNWATER INSTITUTE ↗
  • Who funds WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE ↗
  • Who funds SOLACE SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICES ↗
  • Who funds Carnegie Mellon University ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Santa Fe Institute funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Santa Fe Institute. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%3%13%28%50%funder's share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government →median 35%
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 35% of income from government
  • Worcester Polytechnic Institute: 8% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
1get no government money at all
1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
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 14 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

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