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New York · Nonprofit

PROJECT CETI INC

PROJECT CETI INC (New York) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $27,113,186 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($9,001,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 82% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.

Revenue FY2024
$6.0M
Funders on record
11
Grants received
$27M
Net assets
$14M
6/11 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 99%
01What it does

What Project Ceti Inc does

Mission

Project ceti (cetacean translation initiative) is a nonprofit organization that aims to apply advanced machine learning and non-invasive robotics to listen to and translate the communication of whales.

As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.

Program

  1. Project ceti was founded in 2020, and the organization's mission includes developing the technology needed for whale communication research and examining an initial data set from ceti's research location dominica. Project ceti has designed, planned and constructed project ceti's core whale listening station (buoys) as well as customized existing whale tags to improve data collection methods and built a fully automatic ml-based pipeline from audio waveform data, including click detection, automatic detection of basic low-level structure (codas).

    $3,915,209 spentof which $88,911 as grants
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $3,915,209.

02The organization over time

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.

100 = 20202020 Revenue 100 ($6.8M) Expenses 100 ($6k) Net assets 100 ($6.8M)2021 Revenue 117 ($8.0M) Expenses 70256 ($4.5M) Net assets 151 ($10M)2022 Revenue 118 ($8.1M) Expenses 81208 ($5.2M) Net assets 192 ($13M)2023 Revenue 91 ($6.2M) Expenses 104931 ($6.8M) Net assets 185 ($13M)2024 Revenue 88 ($6.0M) Expenses 77515 ($5.0M) Net assets 200 ($14M)
20202021202220232024
Revenue (88)Expenses (77515)Net assets (200)Peer revenue range

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 $8.2M to $11M (+32%).

$8.2M
$11M
$13M
$13M
$14M
20202021202220232024
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

93% of PROJECT CETI INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (67% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 498 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 5 reported years ran a deficit.

$6.8M
’20
$3.5M
’21
$2.8M
’22
−$533k
’23
$1.0M
’24
26
months of
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.

Chief executive

David Gruber

CEO

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

20202021202220232024
Listed34345
Joined·+2+1+1+1
No longer listed·1200
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 7 funders, grant income rose $3.5M → $3.8M.

6 of 11 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 82% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.

From the IRS filings of PROJECT CETI INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 10 of 11 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

PROJECT CETI INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 33% of grant income and the top three 69%; half comes from just 2 funders.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left

100% 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 PROJECT CETI INC.

33%
largest funder
69%
top three
~5
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 71% · 2021 62% · 2022 32% · 2023 48% — 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

100% of PROJECT CETI INC's funders are still giving 2 years after their first grant; 55% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y

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

82% of PROJECT CETI INC's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $5.0M that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside New York, across 5 states.

IL
OH
CT
CA
DC

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’20
’22
’23
New York out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $22M arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

PROJECT CETI INC holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 482 science & tech nonprofits its size.

Operating margin17% · above the median
Months of reserve25.9mo · top quartile
Revenue growth (annualized)−3% · bottom quartile

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 482 science & tech nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024

Organizations like PROJECT CETI INC

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 New York

Nationally

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

67% of spending goes to programs.

Program 67%Management 30%Fundraising 3%

Governance

3
board members
67%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 1 state

NY

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for PROJECT CETI INC: 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.

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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 PROJECT CETI INC?
PROJECT CETI INC (New York) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $27,113,186 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($9,001,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 82% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
How many funders does PROJECT CETI INC have?
IRS filings report 11 organizations giving $27,113,186 in grants to PROJECT CETI INC, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of PROJECT CETI INC?
FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $9,001,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like PROJECT CETI INC find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 2020–2024), and the filings of 11 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing