Texas · Nonprofit
William Marsh Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Texas) receives grants from 607 organizations whose IRS filings report $544,131,651 to it, the largest being The Moody Foundation ($60,035,000). 374 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.6B
- Funders on record
- 607
- Grants received
- $544M
- Net assets
- $9.4B
What William Marsh Rice University does
Mission
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor. The University enrolls approximately 4,800 undergraduate and 4,200 graduate students. Approximately 70% of undergraduate students receive financial aid, as do almost all doctoral students.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Departmental research and instruction, and other institutional activities. Rice University is accredited by the Southern Association Of Colleges And Schools Commission On Colleges (SACS-COC), Accreditation Board For Engineering And Technology (ABET), International Association for Management Education (AACSB International), National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), and the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Rice serves approximately 4,500 undergraduate and 4,000 graduate students, as well as 13,000 life-long learners. For the cohort entering Fall 2017 the six-year undergraduate graduation rate is 95.7 percent. Rice offers more than 50 undergraduate majors across six schools of study: Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Humanities, Music and Architecture. In conjunction with various majors, students can take courses that satisfy the requirements for admission to medical, dental, law or graduate school, or that lead to teacher certification. The university offers four online master's degrees to deliver education to working professionals who may not have the option to study on campus: MBA@Rice, Master of Computer Science, Master of Data Science, and Master of Engineering…
$737,343,032 spentof which $301,634,224 as grants$622,486,530 earned by the program75% of program spendingBasic scientific research and training and other sponsored educational programs. From its inception, Rice has been dedicated, in the words of its first president Edgar Odell Lovett,"As much to investigation as to instruction to providing a setting in which faculty would join the "pleasures of teaching" with "the privileges of research." The university has realized much of this ambition with distinction in undergraduate education and research excellence across many disciplines. Rice is home to more than 40 interdisciplinary research centers, institutes and consortia, and research is a fundamental part of the undergraduate experience. The university has produced Fulbright Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Watson Fellows, Mellon Fellows, National Science Foundation Fellows, and Rhodes Scholars among other honors and awards. The university has a very high level of research activity for its size, with $205 million in sponsored research funding in 2024. Rice is noted for its applied science programs in the fields of artificial heart research, structural chemical analysis, signal processing, space science and nanotechnology. It was ranked in the top 10% of institutions based on citations per…
$215,145,000 spent$19,466,878 earned by the program22% of program spendingOperations of a library that serves students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of William Marsh Rice University and is open to the public by charter. The Fondren Library subscribes to approximately 72,000 current journals (print and electronic) and houses over 3,032,000 print volumes and 3,276,000 units of microforms. The collections include audiovisuals, music recordings, scores, and other special formats. An increasing amount of library resources are provided online. The library is a selective depository for U.S. and Texas government publications and a depository for documentation of U.S. patents and trademarks. The Brown Fine Arts Library contains over 200,000 volumes related to art, architecture, classical archaeology, and music. All library patrons are welcome to use fine arts materials and facilities, including listening equipment, VHS, DVD, and Laserdisc players. The Gilbert and Ruth Whitaker Business Information Center provides additional specialized resources in its nearby space, designed by noted architect Robert A.M. Stern.
$34,577,000 spent$3,597,845 earned by the program4% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $987,065,032.
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 2020 to 2021, from $8.4B to $10.4B (+23%).
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 15% · 2018 11% · 2019 11% · 2020 14% · 2021 11% · 2022 9% · 2023 14% · 2024 12% · 2025 12%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
21% of William Marsh Rice University’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (14% 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
Robert T Ladd
Chair, Board of Trustees
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 159 funders to 259 funders, grant income rose $22M → $77M.
73 of 607 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 16% 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: $11M from one payer (an institutional transfer, not a grant programme, largest American Athletic Conference). These are real filings, and they are not money William Marsh Rice University raised.
From the IRS filings of William Marsh Rice University’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 607 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
William Marsh Rice University has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 11% of grant income, and it takes 8 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 8 funders to its left
31% 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 William Marsh Rice University.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 14% · 2018 18% · 2019 17% · 2020 11% · 2021 25% · 2022 20% · 2023 19% — 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
46% of William Marsh Rice University's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
54% of William Marsh Rice University's grant income comes from Texas funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $87M arriving through sponsors registered in 28 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
William Marsh Rice University runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 684 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 684 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding William Marsh Rice University receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $936.1M on record — $936.1M federal, $4k state.
- National Science Foundation$385.6M
- Department of Health and Human Services$249.1M
- Department of Defense$167.0M
- Department of Energy$60.7M
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration$30.3M
- Department of Education$22.3M
- OR$3k
- OK$826
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 William Marsh Rice 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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
72% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
74%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 11 states
Part of a family of 50 related entities
- WMR BNA Holdings LLC · disregarded
- WMR WS Holdings LLC · disregarded
- WMR BNA IV Holdings LLC · disregarded
- Rice HSA Funding LLC · disregarded
- Rice HSA Holdings LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for William Marsh Rice 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 William Marsh Rice University?
- William Marsh Rice University (Texas) receives grants from 607 organizations whose IRS filings report $544,131,651 to it, the largest being The Moody Foundation ($60,035,000). 374 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does William Marsh Rice University have?
- IRS filings report 607 organizations giving $544,131,651 in grants to William Marsh Rice University, 374 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of William Marsh Rice University?
- The Moody Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $60,035,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like William Marsh Rice University 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.
Play a game about who funds William Marsh Rice University →
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 607 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