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Plinth

· Public charity

The Planetary Society

THE PLANETARY SOCIETY empowers the world's citizens to advance space science and exploration.

$115k
Granted FY2025still arriving
1
Grants FY2025still arriving
States reached
$25k
Largest
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20172025.

Education$199kScience & Tech$128kArts & Culture$1k
02FY2025 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 1 grants below total $25,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $114,962 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $89,962 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

$25,000
Median grant
States reached
$7.8M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO$25,000
02The need
03

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 46% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 11%LOWELL OBSERVATORY: $25k → 16%HARVARD UNIVERSITY: $18k → 8%CENTER FOR SOLAR SYSTEM STUDIES: $9k → 14%INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ASTRONOMICAL ARTISTS: $200 → 16%NATIONAL SPACE CLUB AND FOUNDATION: $2k → 14%HONEYBEE ROBOTICS: $25k → 11%ADLER PLANETARIUM: $1k → 14%ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE: $6k → 18%HARVARD UNIVERSITY: $12k → 8%AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY: $5k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.

Which US states your grants reach

IL
MA
CT
CA
AZ
KS
SC
DC

Grants abroad, by region — $69k on the FY2025 return

Schedule F, as filed: 2 regions, all to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

Europe (including Iceland and Greenland)$51k · 73% · 6 people

Stated purpose: SHOEMAKER GRANT

South America$18k · 27% · 3 people

Stated purpose: NEO RESEARCHNEO RESEARCH · SHOEMAKER GRANT

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.

03Your field

The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
American Museum of Natural History

The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."

Arts & Culture
2
Institute for Advanced Study - Louis Bamberger & Mrs Felix Fuld Foundation

The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.

Science & Tech
3
American Association of Variable Star Ob

The aavso provides amateur astronomers and students the opportunity to make real and direct contributions to astronomy. in programs they complete at their own pace, we teach them how to make observations and how to analyze astronomical…

Science & Tech
4
William Marsh Rice University

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…

Education
5
Earth & Space Research

Increase societal understanding of the earth system through scientific research and education.

Science & Tech
6
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education
7
Dickinson College

Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship

Education
8
Universities Space Research Association

To provide a collaborative membership organization where universities and other research organizations may cooperate effectively with each other, with the United States government, and other entities to develop knowledge associated with…

Science & Tech
9
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corp

Operate 3.6 meter astronomical telescope to further the knowledge and understanding of the universe through scientific research, studies, education, and dissemination of such knowledge.

10
Association for Computing Machinery Inc

We are an intl. scientific & educational org. dedicated to advancing art, science & technology.

Science & Tech
11
University of Miami

See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.

Education
12
Boyce Research Initiatives & Education Fountation
Science & Tech

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Astronomical Society and the most unlike its peers is Astronomical Research Institute Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

8 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 16 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/8
Grantees still filing
6/8
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO — $50,000 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF COLORADOREGENTS UNIVERSITY OF CA LOS ANGELES — $49,980 · OtherREGENTS UNIVERSITY OF CA LOS ANGELESHoneybee Robotics Ltd — $25,000 · OtherHoneybee Robotics LtdNE KANSAS AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS LEAGUE INC — $11,591 · OtherNE KANSAS AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS LEAGUE INCCENTER FOR SOLAR SYSTEM STUDIES — $8,995 · OtherCENTER FOR SOLAR SYSTEM STUDIESWOODLAND HILLS CAMERA AND TELESCOPES — $7,998 · OtherNORTHEAST KANSAS AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS LEAGUE INC — $6,860 · OtherAstronomical Research Institute Inc — $5,550 · Other+1 more — $200 · OtherFLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY INC — $50,000 · EducationFLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY INCTrustees of Dartmouth College — $49,284 · EducationTrustees of Dartmouth CollegePresident and Fellows of Harvard College — $30,000 · EducationPresident and Fellows of Harvard CollegeLOWELL OBSERVATORY — $25,000 · Science & TechLOWELL OBS…AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY — $4,500 · Science & TechAMERICAN A…THE NATIONAL SPACE CLUB AND FOUNDATION — $2,305 · Science & TechTHE NATION…THE ADLER PLANETARIUM — $1,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$166,174Education$129,284Science & Tech$31,805Arts & Culture$1,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetFLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY INC — $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTrustees of Dartmouth College — $49,284 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPresident and Fellows of Harvard College — $30,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetLOWELL OBSERVATORY — $25,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetAstronomical Research Institute Inc — $5,550 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetAMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY — $4,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE NATIONAL SPACE CLUB AND FOUNDATION — $2,305 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetTHE ADLER PLANETARIUM — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them

A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Government reliance of your grantees

Every dot is one organization The Planetary Society funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%23%45%68%90%share of the org’s income from governmentmedian 7%
  • President and Fellows of Harvard College7% of income from government
  • Florida Institute of Technology Inc5% of 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 · 0–90%
typical government reliance, FY2025

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 your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not 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 12–24 months.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 16 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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