How much does The Trustees of Princeton University give?

The Trustees of Princeton University reported 28 itemized grants totaling $14,673,325, out of $620,310,685 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 26 and 32 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Trustees of Princeton University fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Philanthropy (41%), Public Benefit (34%), Education (12%).

Who are The Trustees of Princeton University's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Municipality of Princeton ($43M), S&G Foundation Inc ($39M), Robertson Foundation For Government Inc ($26M).

Does The Trustees of Princeton University fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 23% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Trustees of Princeton University?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Princeton Area Community Foundation Inc, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation Inc, Curtis W McGraw Foundation.

Where is The Trustees of Princeton University based?

The Trustees of Princeton University is based in NJ.

The Trustees of Princeton University

The Trustees of Princeton University at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

The Trustees of Princeton University

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.

$620M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$5.3M

Largest

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.

Philanthropy$67MPublic Benefit$57MEducation$20MEnvironment$6.3MArts & Culture$5.4MCommunity Improvement$2.7MPublic Safety & Disaster$2.4MHealth$1.3MOther$0

02FY2025 · 28 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 28 grants below total $14,673,325, the rows itemized in this filing. The $620,310,685 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $605,637,360 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

$10k–50k8 grants · $154k
$50k–250k11 grants · $1.1M
$250k+9 grants · $13M

$100,000

Median grant

States reached

$45.9B

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
MUNICIPALITY OF PRINCETON	$5,304,000
PRINCETON PUBLIC SCHOOLS	$2,886,800
County of Mercer	$1,416,168
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF NEW JERSEY	$1,323,863
MARY J GOREE LAS ANIMAS CTY SCHLRSHP	$788,469
MCCARTER THEATRE COMPANY	$657,267
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND	$410,550
LEADERSHIP ENT FOR A DIVERSE AMERICA	$310,000
PRINCETON MASS TRANSIT	$300,000
PRINCETON FIRE DEPARTMENT	$200,000
THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY	$168,249
CLIMATE CENTRAL INC	$157,224
101 INC	$100,000
Housing Initiatives of Princeton	$100,000
WEST HARLEM ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION INC	$75,796

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $667k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 33% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

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

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.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$150M · 46 repeat orgs$2.4M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +27% since the first grant, against +1% for those funded once.

46 repeat relationships: 21 still active in FY2025, 25 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$150M

$2.2M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+27%

+1%

Still filing today

91%

85%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $141k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationHuman ServicesArts & CultureHealthPhilanthropyEnvironmentOther

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

MJ
MARY JOHN GOREE LAS ANIMAS COUNTY SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION
9× · 2017–2025 · $5.7M · revenue +72% · 73% of their budget
LE
LEADERSHIP ENTERPRISE FOR A DIVERSE AMERICA
9× · 2017–2025 · $4.9M · revenue +145% · 63% of their budget
MCCARTER THEATRE COMPANY
9× · 2017–2025 · $3.9M · revenue +5%

Funded once

PR
Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce Foundation Inc
one grant, 2021 · $378k · revenue -96% · 78% of their budget
PU
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CLASS OF 2020
one grant, 2021 · $272k
THE ARMAND HAMMER UNITED WORLD COLLEGE OF THE AMER
one grant, 2023 · $200k · revenue -12%

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

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 Trustees of Princeton University

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…

Education

Manhattanville University

To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.

Education

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

Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania

The trustees of the university of pennsylvania (the "university") sees itself as having a public service mission. in such regard, the university aims to provide a rich and diverse educational environment for its students; to pioneer…

Education

Fairleigh Dickinson University

Fairleigh dickinson university is a center of academic excellence dedicated to the preparation of world citizens through global education. the university strives to provide students with the multi-disciplinary, intercultural, and ethical…

Education

Fordham University

Fordham university, the jesuit university of new york, is committed to the discovery of wisdom and the transmission of learning, through research and through education of the highest quality. for more information, see schedule o.

Education

Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science Inc

The purpose of the school is to promote, advance and sponsor charitable and educational activities.

Education

President and Fellows of Harvard College

Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.

Education

Public Media Nj Inc

To bring quality public television programs and resources to communities throughout new jersey and its tri-state neighbors. its content, both on-air and online, aims to reflect the diverse

Arts & Culture

Westminster Foundation At Princeton Nj

—

University of New Haven

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…

Education

The Trustees of the Smith College

Smith college educates women of promise for lives of distinction and purpose. a college of and for the world, smith college links the power of the liberal arts to excellence in research and scholarship, developing leaders for society's…

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Princeton Healthcare System Foundation Inc; the most unlike its peers is Mary John Goree Las Animas County Scholarship Foundation. 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

87 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. 87 of the 95 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

85/87

Grantees still filing

52/87

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Philanthropy$79,770,087Other$61,132,667Education$12,431,621Environment$4,536,638Arts & Culture$4,245,903Community Improvement$1,942,480Science & Tech$1,747,365

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.

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.

Princeton Area Community Foundation IncNJ45.4× affinity22 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Princeton Area Community Foundation Inc · Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation Inc · Curtis W McGraw Foundation · The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation · Tenacre Foundation · Community Foundation of New Jersey · Investors Foundation Inc · The J Robert & Barbara A Hillier Foundation Inc · The Burke Foundation Inc · Twin Chimney Inc · Pseg Foundation Inc · The Losam Fund

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 Trustees of Princeton University funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Trustees of Princeton University. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

24get no government money at all

16report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

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.

Play a game based on Trustees of Princeton University’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