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Ohio · Nonprofit

The Buckeye Institute

The Buckeye Institute (Ohio) receives grants from 68 organizations whose IRS filings report $12,476,348 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($1,552,250). 46 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2024
$4.6M
Funders on record
68
Grants received
$12M
Net assets
$8.6M
46/68 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 69%
01What it does

What The Buckeye Institute does

Mission

The Buckeye Institute is an independent research and educational institution -- a think tank -- whose mission is to advance free-market public policy in the states.

As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.

Program

  1. The Buckeye Institute develops durable and replicable economic and legal public policy solutions to our great nation's most pressing problems. Buckeye's Economic Research Center (ERC) produces academic-quality, peer-reviewed, scholarly reports and dynamic models to assess the impact of various policy changes on state economies, businesses, and taxpayers. Buckeye's amicus brief filings and direct litigation seek to expand liberty, opportunity, and prosperity for all Americans, protect individual rights, uphold the rule of law, limit government power, defend against encroachments on freedom and intrusions into citizens' lives, families, businesses, and property, which-we hope-will sustain our precious constitutional republic for generations to come. The Buckeye Institute Case Summaries for 2024 IRS Form 990 Filing Buckeye v. IRS. The IRS requires 501(c)(3) organizations, including The Buckeye Institute, to disclose their "significant donors" via Form 990, Schedule B. The Buckeye Institute sued, claiming that the U.S. Constitution protects the right of private association in the First Amendment. The case is pending in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. No fees have been awarded.…

    $2,731,806 spent$358,474 earned by the program
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $2,731,806.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($2.9M) Expenses 100 ($1.8M) Net assets 100 ($2.0M)2018 Revenue 118 ($3.4M) Expenses 135 ($2.4M) Net assets 151 ($3.1M)2019 Revenue 95 ($2.8M) Expenses 129 ($2.3M) Net assets 174 ($3.6M)2020 Revenue 74 ($2.2M) Expenses 110 ($1.9M) Net assets 185 ($3.8M)2021 Revenue 116 ($3.4M) Expenses 127 ($2.3M) Net assets 249 ($5.1M)2022 Revenue 89 ($2.6M) Expenses 125 ($2.2M) Net assets 251 ($5.1M)2023 Revenue 159 ($4.6M) Expenses 159 ($2.8M) Net assets 345 ($7.1M)2024 Revenue 157 ($4.6M) Expenses 173 ($3.1M) Net assets 421 ($8.6M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Revenue (157)Expenses (173)Net assets (421)

Balance sheet

Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $5.5M to $7.3M (+34%).

$2.1M
$3.2M
$3.6M
$3.8M
$5.2M
$5.5M
$7.3M
$8.8M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
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.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.

$1.1M
’17
$1.0M
’18
$471k
’19
$220k
’20
$1.1M
’21
$372k
’22
$1.8M
’23
$1.5M
’24
32
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

Robert Alt

President and CEO

Board chair

Bradley A Smith

Chairman

As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Listed8887671010
Joined·+0+0+0+0+1+4+0
No longer listed·0011010
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 16 funders to 35 funders, grant income rose $415k → $2.4M.

17 of 68 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% 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 The Buckeye Institute’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 68 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

The Buckeye Institute has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 12% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left

44% 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 The Buckeye Institute.

12%
largest funder
32%
top three
~16
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 37% · 2018 39% · 2019 22% · 2020 18% · 2021 18% · 2022 17% · 2023 17% — 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

59% of The Buckeye Institute's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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

The Buckeye Institute draws 85% of its grant income from funders outside Ohio, across 15 states in all.

WA
WI
OH
PA
NJ
CT
UT
CO
VA
NM
NC
SC
DC
TX
FL

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

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Ohio out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 12 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

Organizations like The Buckeye 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 Ohio

Nationally

05Profile & governance

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

Where the money goes

89% of spending goes to programs.

Program 89%Management 7%Fundraising 4%

Governance

5
board members
80%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

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 1 state

OH

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for The Buckeye 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.

A paid feature, included from the $75 plan up. Sign in to download.

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 The Buckeye Institute?
The Buckeye Institute (Ohio) receives grants from 68 organizations whose IRS filings report $12,476,348 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($1,552,250). 46 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does The Buckeye Institute have?
IRS filings report 68 organizations giving $12,476,348 in grants to The Buckeye Institute, 46 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of The Buckeye Institute?
FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $1,552,250 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like The Buckeye Institute find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Ohio. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.

Play a game about who funds Buckeye Institute →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 68 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