Texas · Nonprofit
Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute (Texas) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $110,284,058 to it, the largest being JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ($100,603,480). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $979M
- Funders on record
- 25
- Grants received
- $110M
- Net assets
- $881M
What Southwest Research Institute does
Mission
Southwest Reseach Institute(SwRI) exists to benefit government, industry & the public by conducting innovative applied & basic research; developing/transferring technology; establishing, maintaining & operating research facilities; & providing a challenging and rewarding work environment to fulfill its scientific, charitable, testing for public safety, literary and educational purposes.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Southwest Research Institute exists to benefit government, industry and the public by conducting innovative applied and basic research developing/transferring technology; establishing, maintaining and operating research facilities; and providing a challenging and rewarding work environment to fulfill its scientific, charitable, testing for public safety, literary and educational purposes. During fiscal year 2025, research yielded 376 papers published, 507 technical presentations, 21 technical podcasts, 58 webinars, and 36 streaming technical media presentations, as well as 26 U.S. patent awards, 29 U.S. patent applications filed, and 42 invention disclosures submitted. Areas of research and development included chemistry and chemical engineering, fire safety technology, automotive engineering, powertrain engineering, emissions, space systems, planetary science, fuels and lubricants, intelligent systems, applied power, applied physics, space science, defense and intelligence solutions, material science, structural mechanical engineering, and solar system science and exploration. The 2025 Annual Report is available at…
$790,790,766 spentof which $640,152 as grants$967,529,645 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $790,790,766.
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. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $1.0B to $1.1B (+10%).
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.
0% of Southwest Research Institute’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (36% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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
Jan Newton
Director-Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 13 funders, grant income rose $10M → $24M.
2 of 25 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 0% 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: $1.9M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Tom Slick Memorial Trust for SWRI). These are real filings, and they are not money Southwest Research Institute raised.
From the IRS filings of Southwest Research Institute’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
Southwest Research Institute leans on a few funders — its largest provides 91% of grant income and the top three 95%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder 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 Southwest Research Institute.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 96% · 2018 67% · 2019 55% · 2020 80% · 2021 92% · 2022 91% · 2023 95% — broadly stable.
“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
69% of Southwest Research Institute's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 72% 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
Southwest Research Institute draws 99% of its grant income from funders outside Texas, across 15 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $66k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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.
Against its field
Southwest Research Institute runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 29 science & tech nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 29 science & tech nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding Southwest Research Institute receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.2B on record — $2.2B federal, $816k state.
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration$1.0B
- Department of Defense$903.8M
- Department of Energy$132.1M
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission$45.2M
- Environmental Protection Agency$32.9M
- Department of Transportation$24.6M
- PROFESSIONAL SERVICES APPLICATION MOD$728k
- PROFESSIONAL SERVICES APPLICATION MAINT$88k
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 Southwest Research Institute
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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
85% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
68%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 4 states
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- Signature Science LLC · disregarded
- ESSAR Recreation Association · exempt
- Tom Slick Memorial Trust for SwRI · exempt
- Tianjun SwARC Automotive Research Lab Co · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Southwest Research Institute: 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 Southwest Research Institute?
- Southwest Research Institute (Texas) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $110,284,058 to it, the largest being JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ($100,603,480). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Southwest Research Institute have?
- IRS filings report 25 organizations giving $110,284,058 in grants to Southwest Research Institute, 18 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Southwest Research Institute?
- JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY is the largest funder on record, with $100,603,480 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Southwest Research Institute find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 25 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