Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY
NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $125,274 to it, the largest being ROBERT A & VIRGINIA HEINLEIN PRIZE TRUST ($107,337). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Sarah Scaife Foundation Incorporatedshared funders
- Nyholm Family Foundation Incportfolio match
- Philip Lee & Elizabeth B Ellis Foundationportfolio match
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.
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.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 7 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 5 funders, grant income fell $14k → $12k.
1 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 2% 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: $1.0M from one payer (an institutional transfer, not a grant programme, largest Club for the Future). These are real filings, and they are not money NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY raised.
From the IRS filings of NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 86% of grant income and the top three 94%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 93% · 2018 93% · 2019 97% · 2020 77% · 2021 65% · 2022 78% · 2023 82% — 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
67% of NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 75% 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
NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 6 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 stateis 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 8 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Sarah Scaife Foundation Incorporatedshared fundersPA · backs 37 organizations that share your funders
- Nyholm Family Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Philip Lee & Elizabeth B Ellis Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Kurz Charitable Trust & Foundation 10018300portfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Wolfsohn Family Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Sunkara Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- McCormick Dosh Collins Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Prospect Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Brunckhorst Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Efrein Foundation Inc Co Fettmann Ginsburg PCportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Samta Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Corduroy Charitable Trustportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Organizations like NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
51%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 29 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY: 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY?
- NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $125,274 to it, the largest being ROBERT A & VIRGINIA HEINLEIN PRIZE TRUST ($107,337). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $125,274 in grants to NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY?
- ROBERT A & VIRGINIA HEINLEIN PRIZE TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $107,337 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2018–2024), and the filings of 8funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing