How much does The Kavli Foundation give?

The Kavli Foundation reported 107 grants totaling $17,416,685 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 72 and 81 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Kavli Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Science & Tech (53%), Education (31%), Health (15%).

Who are The Kavli Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: National Academy of Sciences ($17M), Johns Hopkins University ($13M), University of California San Francisco Foundation ($8.0M).

Does The Kavli Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 20% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Kavli Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Kavli Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation, The Simons Foundation Inc, Rita Allen Foundation Inc.

Where is The Kavli Foundation based?

The Kavli Foundation is based in CA.

Foundation Dossiers

California · Private foundation

The Kavli Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$17M
Granted FY2024(still arriving): 107
Grants FY2024: 74
Organizations funded FY2023: 20%
First-time grantees FY2023

Read the full brief

Median grant, FY2024: $65,550
Largest grant, FY2024: $2,000,000
Organizations funded a year: 72 to 81; FY2017 to FY2023
States reached, FY2024: 14
Total assets, FY2024: $604M
Applications: Preselected organizations only; Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 20% of the organizations The Kavli Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 11% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.0M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationScience & TechHealthEnvironmentRecreation & SportsSocial ScienceOther

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 year	Organizations funded	To those organizations	First-time grantees
FY2024still arriving	70	$16M	36%
FY2023	74	$18M	20%
FY2022	80	$47M	46%
FY2021	72	$27M	17%
FY2020	77	$24M	31%
FY2019	80	$23M	34%
FY2018	75	$24M	48%
FY2017	81	$23M	n/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.

Science & Tech$111MEducation$65MHealth$32MSocial Science$1.5MPhilanthropy$925kArts & Culture$614kEnvironment$216kAnimals$169kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

Top grantees

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

Grantee	Total granted	Years	Share of their budget
National Academy of Sciences	$16,505,490	8	1%
Johns Hopkins University	$13,250,653	7	0%
University of California San Francisco Foundation	$7,990,000	3	1%
The Rockefeller University	$7,083,335	4	1%
California Institute of Technology	$5,454,334	6	0%
Uc San Diego Foundation	$4,794,395	4	1%
Cornell University	$4,324,597	2	0%
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies	$4,105,000	6	2%
Uc Santa Barbara Foundation	$3,858,913	6	4%
University of California Berkeley Foundation	$3,774,567	8	1%

Show all 105 grantees

All grantees of The Kavli Foundation by total granted
Grantee	Total granted	Years	Share of their budget
National Academy of Sciences	$16,505,490	8	1%
Johns Hopkins University	$13,250,653	7	0%
University of California San Francisco Foundation	$7,990,000	3	1%
The Rockefeller University	$7,083,335	4	1%
California Institute of Technology	$5,454,334	6	0%
Uc San Diego Foundation	$4,794,395	4	1%
Cornell University	$4,324,597	2	0%
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies	$4,105,000	6	2%
Uc Santa Barbara Foundation	$3,858,913	6	4%
University of California Berkeley Foundation	$3,774,567	8	1%
University of Chicago	$3,490,000	4	0%
William Marsh Rice University	$1,835,670	3	0%
Yale University	$1,693,777	4	n/a
American Association for the Advancement of Science	$1,569,784	6	1%
Regents of the University of California at Berkeley	$1,382,900	5	n/a
Marine Biological Laboratory	$1,221,126	3	2%
Yale University	$1,000,000	1	n/a
Berkeley Lab Foundation	$950,000	6	6%
Association of Science-Technology Centers Inc	$862,000	5	6%
Stony Brook Foundation Inc	$802,850	7	0%
Researchamerica	$637,000	6	7%
Society for Neuroscience	$555,000	5	1%
The American Society for Cell Biology	$545,000	5	3%
Emory University	$497,500	6	n/a
University of Washington Foundation	$460,000	2	0%
Materials Research Society	$459,000	8	1%
Regents of the University of California	$430,000	4	n/a
Society for Science & the Public	$399,000	3	1%
American Physical Society	$386,000	8	0%
The Uc Davis Foundation	$355,000	5	0%
New York University	$354,000	6	0%
World Science Foundation	$352,500	3	2%
The Broad Institute Inc	$350,000	2	0%
Institute for Learning Innovation	$340,320	4	12%
American Chemical Society	$316,000	8	0%
Regents of the University of Michigan	$259,990	3	n/a
American Geophysical Union	$250,463	3	0%
The Conversation US Inc	$250,000	1	6%
University of California San Francisco	$241,500	1	n/a
Sciencecounts Inc	$229,195	5	27%
Open Notebook Inc	$218,800	3	19%
University of Wisconsin Foundation	$199,865	2	0%
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc	$185,000	2	0%
University of Minnesota Foundation	$180,000	2	0%
Council for the Advancement of Science Writing Inc	$168,300	4	13%
National Science Teaching Association	$150,000	3	0%
American Astronomical Society	$147,962	8	0%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	$125,000	2	n/a
University of Rhode Island Foundation & Alumni Engagement	$117,700	5	0%
Trustees of Boston University	$112,500	2	0%
Multiplier	$105,000	2	0%
Carnegie Institution of Washington	$101,786	3	0%
Research Corporation dba Research Corporation for Science Advancement	$100,000	2	1%
Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute	$100,000	2	0%
Michigan State University	$100,000	2	n/a
The University of Texas Foundation Inc	$98,000	1	0%
American Society for Microbiology	$95,000	1	0%
Cognitive Neuroscience Society	$95,000	7	6%
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center	$95,000	2	0%
The Franklin Institute	$91,948	2	0%
The Adler Planetarium	$75,000	1	0%
Institute for Advanced Study - Louis Bamberger & Mrs Felix Fuld Foundation	$75,000	1	0%
Curators of the University of Missouri Special Tr	$70,000	3	n/a
Regents of the University of California	$70,000	1	n/a
University of Colorado Foundation	$67,500	2	0%
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	$66,000	1	0%
Gmto Corporation	$65,000	1	1%
Gordon Research Conferences Inc	$64,000	3	0%
Association for Psychological Science	$60,000	5	0%
Northwestern University	$57,500	1	0%
Compass Science Communication Inc	$57,500	1	6%
Washington University	$55,000	1	0%
Trinity University	$55,000	1	0%
Oakland University	$55,000	1	n/a
Regents of the University of California at Riverside	$55,000	1	n/a
Community Initiatives	$50,000	1	0%
Southwestern Medical Foundation	$50,000	1	0%
Trustees of Tufts College	$50,000	1	0%
The Aspen Institute Inc	$50,000	1	0%
Cambridge in America	$39,180	1	0%
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory	$35,000	1	0%
Associated Universities Inc	$35,000	1	0%
Regents of the University of California at San Diego	$30,000	3	n/a
The University of Connecticut Foundation Inc	$25,000	1	0%
Health Research Alliance Inc	$25,000	1	5%
International Neuroethics Society	$25,000	5	3%
North American Associates of the Sts Forum	$25,000	1	8%
University of Maryland College Park Foundation Inc	$21,388	2	n/a
Council of Scientific Society Presidents	$20,000	1	n/a
Federation of American Scientists	$19,063	1	0%
Thinking About Thinking Inc	$15,000	1	n/a
Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science	$15,000	1	0%
Cosyne Inc	$15,000	1	2%
Child Mind Institute Inc	$12,500	1	0%
Global Partnerships Forum Inc	$12,108	1	14%
Regents of the University of Colorado	$10,000	1	n/a
Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology	$10,000	1	0%
Baylor College of Medicine	$10,000	1	0%
University of Pittsburgh	$10,000	1	0%
Addgene Inc	$10,000	1	0%
Duke University	$10,000	1	0%
University of Utah	$10,000	1	n/a
Indiana University School of Medicine	$10,000	1	n/a
Sculpted Light in the Brain Association	$7,500	1	6%
American Brain Coalition	$3,000	1	0%

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 152 recipients with no EIN on record ($104M), not named here.

The Kavli Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 1 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 85 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured

Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 85.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

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.

Gordon E and Betty I Moore FoundationCA46.8× affinity22 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · The Simons Foundation Inc · Rita Allen Foundation Inc · Alfred P Sloan Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The Heising-Simons Foundation · Johns Hopkins University · The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · Research Corporation dba Research Corporation for Science Advancement · The Brinson Foundation · Gates Foundation

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.

Compare The Kavli Foundation with peer funders

About The Kavli Foundation

How much does The Kavli Foundation give?: The Kavli Foundation reported 107 grants totaling $17,416,685 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 72 and 81 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.
What does The Kavli Foundation fund?: By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Science & Tech (53%), Education (31%), Health (15%).
Who are The Kavli Foundation's largest grantees?: By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: National Academy of Sciences ($17M), Johns Hopkins University ($13M), University of California San Francisco Foundation ($8.0M).
Does The Kavli Foundation fund new organizations?: In FY2023, 20% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does The Kavli Foundation accept unsolicited applications?: Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as The Kavli Foundation?: Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation, The Simons Foundation Inc, Rita Allen Foundation Inc.
Where is The Kavli Foundation based?: The Kavli Foundation is based in CA.