Massachusetts · Nonprofit
TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY
TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY (Massachusetts) receives grants from 1393 organizations whose IRS filings report $664,344,876 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($61,850,374). 812 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.5B
- Funders on record
- 1,393
- Grants received
- $664M
- Net assets
- $6.4B
What Trustees of Boston University does
Mission
Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world. Boston university is committed to generating new knowledge to benefit society.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Instruction - boston university today is one of the most dynamic, forward-looking private research universities in the world, with students and faculty who are immersed in innovative educational programs at the frontiers of scholarship, research, and public service, all in a 21st-century atmosphere of urban and global engagement. With 17 schools and colleges and the faculty of computing & data sciences and three campuses boston university offers its students more than 300 programs of study in the liberal arts, science and engineering, health science, the arts, and other professional disciplines. Students come from all over the globe and study around the world through more than 170 study abroad programs offering opportunities in more than 20 countries. Boston university faculty are committed to excellence in teaching and in path-breaking research and scholarship. They are expanding the boundaries of knowledge across disciplines, from molecular medicine, biological evolution, and high-energy physics to business management, poetry, and the performing arts. The university places a strong emphasis on the interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts of both faculty and students, with…
$2,032,098,482 spentof which $785,453,162 as grants$2,075,071,922 earned by the program65% of program spendingResearch - what sets boston university apart as a research university is the breadth and depth of its research and the uniquely entrepreneurial spirit of its faculty. Researchers at bu are not afraid to cross disciplinary boundaries, as can be seen by strategic efforts to support interdisciplinary research and education in neuroscience, religion and world affairs, integrative biology, clean energy, sustainability and the environment, health care delivery, and global health, to name a few. In each case, the emphasis is not on interdisciplinarity for its own sake, but on using a multifaceted approach to solve the important and complex problems facing society today.
$455,046,330 spentof which $153,160,685 as grants$21,307,556 earned by the program15% of program spendingAuxiliaries - auxiliary enterprises support the mission of boston university by providing essential services to the campus community. They are enterprises in that they are generally self-supporting activities, recovering their costs through the fees or prices they charge for their goods and services. At boston university, auxiliary enterprises are designed to deliver superior quality services that are expected by the students, faculty, staff and alumni.
$393,000,184 spent$392,755,164 earned by the program13% of program spendingOther program services consist of libraries, academic services, student services, external programs, and other deductions.
$228,242,031 spent7% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,108,387,027.
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.
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 $7.2B to $8.3B (+15%).
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.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 12% · 2018 12% · 2019 13% · 2020 14% · 2021 16% · 2022 15% · 2023 13% · 2024 14% · 2025 15%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 316 funders to 566 funders, grant income rose $45M → $122M.
91 of 1393 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 32% 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: $94M from 85 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Boston Medical Center Corporation). These are real filings, and they are not money TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY raised.
From the IRS filings of TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 1393 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
TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 9% of grant income, and it takes 16 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 16 funders to its left
64% 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 TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 14% · 2018 27% · 2019 12% · 2020 17% · 2021 26% · 2022 9% · 2023 21% — growing more concentrated.
“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
44% of TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% 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
TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY draws 80% of its grant income from funders outside Massachusetts, across 49 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $213M arriving through sponsors registered in 33 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.
Government funding TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $3.6B on record — $3.5B federal, $119.0M state.
- Department of Health and Human Services$2.7B
- National Science Foundation$307.4M
- Department of Defense$153.3M
- Department of Education$118.1M
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration$90.3M
- Department of Veterans Affairs$50.3M
- MA$118.9M
- OK$81k
- NJ$135
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 TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY
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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
91% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
89%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 12 states
Part of a family of 42 related entities
- Bu (Gt) Funding LLC · disregarded
- Pleasant Ventures Realty Trust · disregarded
- Scarlet Castle Brr-I LLC · disregarded
- Boston Emergency Physician Foundation · exempt
- Boston Rehabilitation Med Assoc Inc · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY: 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 TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY?
- TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY (Massachusetts) receives grants from 1393 organizations whose IRS filings report $664,344,876 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($61,850,374). 812 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY have?
- IRS filings report 1393 organizations giving $664,344,876 in grants to TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 812 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $61,850,374 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 1393 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