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Washington, D.C. · Public charity

The Bhutan Foundation

To support the people of Bhutan to reach their full potential by developing local capacity and facilitating global support.

$3.3M
Granted FY2024(still arriving)
3
Itemized grants FY2024
1
Organizations funded FY2020
0%
First-time grantees FY2020
Read the full brief

Read this first · the figures below need context

98% of The Bhutan Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, not to grantees.

Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.

Organizations named directly on the return

2
’17
2
’19
1
’20
0
’21
0
’22
2
’24

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

Itemized, FY2024
$159k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2024
$2,415
Largest grant, FY2024
$155,013
Organizations funded a year
1 to 2
FY2017 to FY2020
States reached, FY2024
2
Total assets, FY2024
$7.5M

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2020, 0% of the organizations The Bhutan Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 0% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2020, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20
RenewedFirst-time

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

’19’20
EnvironmentOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2024still arriving2$3k50%
FY20201$125k0%
FY20192$400k100%
FY20172$25kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Education$1.2MEnvironment$520kHealth$19kAnimals$5kInternational$2k

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
World Wildlife Fund Inc$520,00020%
Phelps Memorial Hospital Association$19,28510%
Perkins School for the Blind$6,45220%
The University of Montana$5,3411n/a
Health Volunteers Overseas Inc$2,41510%

Compare The Bhutan Foundation with peer funders

About The Bhutan Foundation

How much does The Bhutan Foundation give?
The Bhutan Foundation reported 3 itemized grants totaling $158,507, out of $3,255,884 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 2 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2020.
What does The Bhutan Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (69%), Environment (29%), Health (1%).
Who are The Bhutan Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: World Wildlife Fund Inc ($520k), Phelps Memorial Hospital Association ($19k), Perkins School for the Blind ($6k).
Does The Bhutan Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2020, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Where is The Bhutan Foundation based?
The Bhutan Foundation 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 7 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.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports $4.0M 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 FY2024, the most recent year this funder named its grantees.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Bhutan’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