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The Big 12 Conference Inc at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

The Big 12 Conference Inc

The mission of the conference is to: advance standards of scholarship, sportsmanship and equity with the highest ideals of conference membership; support the development of national-championship caliber intercollegiate athletic programs; organize, promote and administer intercollegiate athletics among its member institutions; optimize…

$557M
Granted FY2025still arriving
16
Grants FY2025still arriving
10
States reached
$43M
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.

Recreation & Sports$2.8BEducation$739MHealth$207M
02FY2025 · 16 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$39,034,422
Median grant
10
States reached
$60M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY$43,009,550
IOWA STATE$41,194,426
BAYLOR UNIVERSITY$39,950,085
KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY$39,830,544
TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY$39,734,106
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY$39,582,600
TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY$39,272,007
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO$39,034,422
KANSAS ATHLETICS INC$38,312,680
OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY$38,038,756
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA$38,009,311
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH$37,879,865
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY$23,110,622
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI$20,211,539
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA$19,978,520
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA: $38.0M → 15%TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $48.3M → 11%BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $44.8M → 16%UNVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $45.2M → 13%OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: $44.9M → 19%KANSAS ATHLETICS INC: $44.1M → 15%KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: $45.0M → 20%UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: $37.9M → 8%WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: $44.3M → 19%TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $42.0M → 11%BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $43.1M → 16%UNVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $44.2M → 13%OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: $43.8M → 19%KANSAS ATHLETICS INC: $42.2M → 15%KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: $43.5M → 20%WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: $42.0M → 19%TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $39.9M → 11%BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $40.0M → 16%UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $42.0M → 13%OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: $39.8M → 19%KANSAS ATHLETICS INC: $40.0M → 15%KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: $39.8M → 20%WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: $39.9M → 19%TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $39.3M → 11%BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $39.9M → 16%UNVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $40.7M → 13%OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: $39.7M → 19%KANSAS ATHLETICS INC: $38.6M → 15%KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: $39.7M → 20%WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: $39.6M → 19%TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $37.8M → 11%BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $39.7M → 16%UNVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $40.5M → 13%OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: $38.8M → 19%KANSAS ATHLETICS INC: $38.3M → 15%KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: $38.7M → 20%WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: $38.7M → 19%TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $37.1M → 11%BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $37.9M → 16%UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $36.6M → 13%OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: $38.0M → 19%KANSAS ATHLETICS INC: $37.4M → 15%KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: $38.2M → 20%WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: $37.0M → 19%UNVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $36.5M → 13%OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: $35.5M → 19%WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: $35.3M → 19%UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $35.2M → 13%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

IA
OH
UT
CO
WV
AZ
KS
OK
TX
FL
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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$3.6B · 16 repeat orgs$158M to everyone else

16 repeat relationships: 12 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

16
4

Total granted

$3.6B
$158M

Still filing today

13%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $158M went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
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

  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
    9× · 2017–2025 · $464M
  • KS
    KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
    9× · 2017–2025 · $348M
  • TC
    TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
    9× · 2017–2025 · $348M · revenue +60%

Funded once

  • AS
    ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
    one grant, 2025 · $43M
  • RO
    REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
    one grant, 2025 · $39M
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
    one grant, 2025 · $38M
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

2 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. 2 of the 20 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
2/2
Grantees still filing
2/2
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $463,504,290 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMAKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY: $348,286,629 · OtherKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITYSTATE OF WEST VIRGINIA: $345,066,369 · OtherSTATE OF WEST VIRGINIATEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: $344,166,410 · OtherTEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY SYSTEMUNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: $315,264,519 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF TEXASIOWA STATE UNIVERSITY: $242,857,305 · OtherIOWA STATE UNIVERSITYKANSAS ATHLETICS INC: $237,016,701 · OtherKANSAS ATHLETICS INCUNVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: $207,145,259 · OtherUNVERSITY OF OKLAHOMAIOWA STATE UNIVERSITY: $109,411,187 · OtherKANSAS ATHLETICS INCORPORATED: $106,639,391 · Other+8 more: $322,042,371 · Other+8 moreTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $347,757,112 · EducationTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVE…BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $347,566,307 · EducationBAYLOR UNIVERSITY
Other$3,041,400,431Education$695,323,419

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

25%50%75%100%grantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $347,757,112 over 9y, 4.4% of budgetBAYLOR UNIVERSITY: $347,566,307 over 9y, 3.6% 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 TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds BAYLOR UNIVERSITY ↗

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.

National Collegiate A…Tulsa Community Found…Cornell UniversityAmerican Chemical Soc…Corporation for Publi…Folds of Honor Founda…American Heart Associ…
National Collegiate Athletic AssociationIN16.3× affinity5 shared granteesties to 6 of 6Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: National Collegiate Athletic Association · Tulsa Community Foundation · Cornell University · American Chemical Society · Corporation for Public Broadcasting · Folds of Honor Foundation · American Heart Association 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 The Big 12 Conference Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Big 12 Conference Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%6%13%19%25%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%
    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 20 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 Big 12 Conference’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