New York · Nonprofit
TED FOUNDATION INC
TED FOUNDATION INC (New York) receives grants from 58 organizations whose IRS filings report $146,190,050 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($49,304,001). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $91M
- Funders on record
- 58
- Grants received
- $146M
- Net assets
- $53M
What Ted Foundation Inc does
Programs
Conferencested exists to research, discover and spread great new ideas. The purpose: to educate and inspire a more comprehensive understanding of our shared humanity and improve the ways in which we connect and communicate with one another. The primary way in which we do this is via our flagship ted conferences to which we invite prominent researchers, academics, educators, philanthropists, environmentalists, scientists, technologists, artists and others, to attend and present short lectures our signature tedtalks - in their areas of research and expertise.
$22,595,804 spentAudaciousthe audacious project is a collaborative approach to researching the biggest ideas in the nonprofit world and then seeking to get them funded, with the potential to create change at a thrilling global scale housed at ted, this is a unique partnership between some of the most respected organizations in philanthropy and the public. Every year we research and select the boldest, brightest ideas and work with change-makers to make their initiatives even more audacious. We then present those ideas to the public and an inspiring group of donors who come together to get them launched.
$16,700,959 spentCountdownwe launched countdown, ted's first issue-specific initiative, in 2019 in order to educate, champion and accelerate the bold ideas and underinvested solutions that can bring us closer to achieving a zero-carbon world one that is cleaner, healthier and fairer for all.
$14,105,459 spentTed-edyoung people and educators have a critical future role to play in solving global challenges and there are few if any platforms dedicated to celebrating and sharing their ideas. Ted-ed, ted's education initiative aims to amplify the voices and ideas of teachers and students around the world via a series of powerful free and/or low-cost resources for educators and students. For ted-ed animations, the internal team researches and scouts the world's best educators and brings to life their most compelling lessons via animation. The current library of more than 1,200 ted-ed animations is accessed by more than 2 million learners every day. Educators can also create interactive lessons around any ted video.
$9,092,766 spent
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990-PF.
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. 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 $71M to $93M (+30%).
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.
Who funds it, year by year
2018 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 27 funders, grant income rose $14k → $26M.
16 of 58 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 51% 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 TED FOUNDATION INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 58 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
TED FOUNDATION INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 34% of grant income and the top three 64%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
52% 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 TED FOUNDATION INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 79% · 2019 80% · 2020 35% · 2021 39% · 2022 44% · 2023 34% — 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
47% of TED FOUNDATION INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
51% of TED FOUNDATION 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 $71M that is directly attributable, 96% of it comes from funders outside New York, across 17 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $75M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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
TED FOUNDATION INC's revenue grew 3647934% between 2018 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 366 community improvement nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Organizations like TED FOUNDATION 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
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for TED FOUNDATION 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.
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 TED FOUNDATION INC?
- TED FOUNDATION INC (New York) receives grants from 58 organizations whose IRS filings report $146,190,050 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($49,304,001). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does TED FOUNDATION INC have?
- IRS filings report 58 organizations giving $146,190,050 in grants to TED FOUNDATION INC, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of TED FOUNDATION INC?
- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $49,304,001 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like TED FOUNDATION 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 FY2025 (financials across 2018–2025), and the filings of 58 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