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California · Public charity

The Long Now Foundation

The Long Now Foundation is a globally-recognized champion of long-term thinking and responsibility, operating within the context of the next and last 10,000 years a timespan we call the long now.

$209k
Granted FY2023
1
Itemized grants FY2023
1
Organizations funded FY2023
100%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Itemized, FY2023
$125k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2023
$125,450
Largest grant, FY2023
$125,450
Organizations funded a year
1 to 2
FY2017 to FY2023
States reached, FY2023
1
Total assets, FY2023
$20M

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 100% of the organizations The Long Now Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 100% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $125k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’21’23
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’21’23
Youth DevelopmentOther
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
FY20231$125k100%
FY20212$30k50%
FY20191$12k0%
FY20182$2.2M100%
FY20171$90kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2023.

Youth Development$2.2MScience & Tech$125kEnvironment$90kArts & Culture$53kCivil Rights$11k

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2023, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Girls Incorporated of Omaha$2,222,278146%
Rufus Corporation$125,4501n/a
Prelinger Archives LLC$52,9513n/a
Ignite Talks Pbc Inc$11,2501n/a

Plus 1 recipient with no EIN on record ($90k), not named here.

Compare The Long Now Foundation with peer funders

About The Long Now Foundation

How much does The Long Now Foundation give?
The Long Now Foundation reported 1 itemized grants totaling $125,450, out of $208,735 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2023 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 2 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.
What does The Long Now Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2023, its largest causes are Youth Development (89%), Science & Tech (5%), Environment (4%).
Who are The Long Now Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2023: Girls Incorporated of Omaha ($2.2M), Rufus Corporation ($125k), Prelinger Archives LLC ($53k).
Does The Long Now Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 100% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Where is The Long Now Foundation based?
The Long Now Foundation is based in CA.

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 5 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 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports $79k 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 FY2023, the most recent year this funder named its grantees.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Long Now’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