· Private foundation
The Spencer Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k59 grants · $2.2M
- $50k–250k143 grants · $14M
- $250k+10 grants · $8.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NATIONAL ACADEMY OF EDUCATION | $2,532,835 |
| NATIONAL ACADEMY OF EDUCATION | $1,753,042 |
| WILLIAM T GRANT FOUNDATION | $650,000 |
| WILLIAM T GRANT FOUNDATION | $650,000 |
| COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK | $593,600 |
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $483,044 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY | $392,629 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS CENTER FOR RESEARCH INC | $382,906 |
| Individual grant recipient | $274,540 |
| BOSTON UNIVERSITY | $250,850 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN | $243,904 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON | $229,772 |
| INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON | $221,301 |
| NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY | $212,830 |
| NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | $209,723 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY21–24, $275k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 10% of The Spencer Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +17% since the first grant, against +9% for those funded once.
196 repeat relationships: 89 still active in FY2025, 107 since wound down; 51 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4.5M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- WTWILLIAM T GRANT FOUNDATION INC3× · 2022–2025 · $2.9M · revenue +118%
- NYNew York University4× · 2022–2025 · $1.9M · revenue +21%
Northwestern University5× · 2021–2025 · $1.9M · revenue +14%
Funded once
POMONA COLLEGEgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $671k · revenue +106%- PUPontificia Universidad Javerianaone grant, 2023 · $400k
- UOUniversity of KwaZulu-Natalone grant, 2022 · $399k
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.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Depauw university develops leaders the world needs through an uncommon commitment to the liberal arts. depauw's diverse and inclusive learning and living experience, distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and its global and…
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Manhattan university is an independent catholic instituion of higher learning that embraces qualified men and women of all faiths, cultures, and traditions. the mission of manhattan university is to provide a contemporary, person-centered…
How this is measured
274 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. 274 of the 519 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
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 THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM T GRANT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds BROWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION FOR A NEW AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Teachers College Columbia University ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds POMONA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds STRATEGIC EDUCATION RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Research Foundation of the City University of New York ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Gates Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Carnegie Corporation of New York · Walton Family Foundation Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · William T Grant Foundation Inc · Field Foundation of Illinois · WK Kellogg Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · The Heising-Simons Foundation · The Wallace Foundation · The Ford Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Spencer Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Spencer Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 35% of income from government
- University of Delaware: 30% of income from government
- National Florence Crittenton Mission: 24% of income from government
- Trustees of Tufts College: 13% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University: 12% of income from government
- Johns Hopkins University: 12% of income from government
- Brandeis University: 9% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Northeastern University: 7% of income from government
- University of Miami: 5% of income from government
- American Academy of Arts & Sciences: 3% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston College: 3% of income from government
- Pacific University: 2% of income from government
- Trustees of Clark University: 2% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Middlebury College: 1% of income from government
- Wellesley College: 1% of income from government
- The Trustees of Mount Holyoke College: 1% of income from government
- Suffolk University: 1% of income from government
- Seton Hall University: 1% of income from government
- Lesley University: 1% of income from government
- Rowan University Foundation Inc: 0% of income from government
- Drew University: 0% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Spencer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Spencer Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.
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