Pennsylvania · Nonprofit
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 627 organizations whose IRS filings report $905,560,653 to it, the largest being MASTERCARD FOUNDATION ($270,656,471). 395 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.5B
- Funders on record
- 627
- Grants received
- $906M
- Net assets
- $6.3B
What Carnegie Mellon University does
Mission
To create a transformative educational experience for students focused on deep disciplinary knowledge; problem solving; leadership, communication and interpersonal skills; and personal health and well-being. To cultivate a transformative university community committed to (a) attracting and retaining diverse, world-class talent; (b) creating a collaborative environment open to the free exchange of ideas, where research, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship can flourish; and (c) ensuring individuals can achieve their full potential. To impact society in a transformative way - regionally, nationally, and globally - by engaging with partners outside the traditional borders of the university campus.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Instruction: carnegie mellon is a hybrid of a technical institute, fine-arts conservatory and traditional research university, having evolved in response to emerging social needs and intellectual development of the past century. Uniting technology and arts, fusing the practical with the imaginative, maintaining its educational emphasis on developing skills to solve problems. Includes 7 colleges and schools offering degree programs and more than 100 majors and minors to approximately 16,700 undergraduates, graduates and doctoral students. Instruction includes academic support and student services. Carnegie mellon has its main campus in pittsburgh, satellite campuses in silicon valley and doha, qatar, and degree-granting programs in coordination with global programs including portugal, rwanda, and thailand. Nationally and globally, carnegie mellon has become a major voice of connectivity in technology, expansion of educational opportunity and economic development.
$1,050,952,848 spentof which $273,078,258 as grants$1,018,569,965 earned by the program62% of program spendingResearch: carnegie mellon holds a proud vision of itself as a distinctive and different kind of research university where nationally recognized programs from across the leading disciplines, from computing and engineering to fine arts, intersect. It is a decentralized community of scientists and intellectuals, artists and policymakers, business experts and poets. The diverse and decentralized community that characterizes carnegie mellon culture rests on a set of core underpinnings and a strong commitment to real-world problem solving, interdisciplinary collaboration and hard work, combined with joie de vivre. Each of these requires connections among engineering, science, policy and management, and the arts. Basic research is performed in all 7 colleges and schools and the software engineering institute. Carnegie mellon is also the home of numerous research institutes and centers focusing on some of the world's greatest challenges. Carnegie mellon's research-intensive environment provides a rich setting for the university's educational offerings and aspirations. The search for new knowledge and a spirit of ongoing critical inquiry are the ideals that permeate its approach to…
$458,341,813 spentof which $49,651,714 as grants27% of program spendingAuxiliary services: services to support the instruction and research functions of the university. These services include but are not limited to housing, dining services, parking, bookstore, printing, telecommunications, and other services related to the delivery of education and research.
$162,078,624 spent$96,513,219 earned by the program10% of program spendingOther program services:
$10,615,684 spent$10,873,669 earned by the program1% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,681,988,969.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $4.7B to $6.3B (+33%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 15% · 2018 22% · 2019 22% · 2020 20% · 2021 20% · 2022 21% · 2023 22% · 2024 23% · 2025 20%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
David Coulter
Chair/voting trustee
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 143 funders to 240 funders, grant income rose $26M → $105M.
63 of 627 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 12% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $271M from 58 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Dietrich Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money Carnegie Mellon University raised.
From the IRS filings of Carnegie Mellon University’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 627 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Carnegie Mellon University has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 30% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
51% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Carnegie Mellon University.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 45% · 2018 45% · 2019 21% · 2020 76% · 2021 40% · 2022 21% · 2023 22% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
46% of Carnegie Mellon University's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
Carnegie Mellon University draws 62% of its grant income from funders outside Pennsylvania, across 37 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $105M arriving through sponsors registered in 22 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Government funding Carnegie Mellon University receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $3.1B on record — $3.1B federal, $259k state.
- Department of Defense$1.9B
- National Science Foundation$616.2M
- Department of Health and Human Services$324.4M
- Department of Energy$81.7M
- Department of Education$44.0M
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration$38.3M
- NJ$236k
- MA$14k
- DE$6k
- CT$3k
- OK$199
- FL$175
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like Carnegie Mellon University
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Pennsylvania
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
89% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
84%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 7 states
Part of a family of 13 related entities
- Cm Spe LLC · disregarded
- Benjamin Garver Lamme Scholarship Fund · exempt
- Jack G Buncher Charitable Fund for Carn · exempt
- Mpc Corporation · exempt
- The Dietrich Foundation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Carnegie Mellon University: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Carnegie Mellon University?
- Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 627 organizations whose IRS filings report $905,560,653 to it, the largest being MASTERCARD FOUNDATION ($270,656,471). 395 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Carnegie Mellon University have?
- IRS filings report 627 organizations giving $905,560,653 in grants to Carnegie Mellon University, 395 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Carnegie Mellon University?
- MASTERCARD FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $270,656,471 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Carnegie Mellon University find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Pennsylvania. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 627 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing