Funders › District of Columbia

Breakthrough Prize Foundation

Washington, DC · EIN 46-0677985. Reported 176 grants totalling $140.1M to 131 recipients across tax years 2020-2024. This foundation did not tell the IRS it funds only preselected organizations.

Does this foundation accept applications?

Yes -- on its own tax return. Form 990-PF asks every private foundation whether it makes grants only to organizations it selects itself. Of the 91,758 foundations in our data that made a grant and answered, 78% said yes -- and applying to those is wasted effort. Breakthrough Prize Foundation did not check that box on its most recent filing, which puts it in the minority that is at least open to being approached.

How big are its grants?

The median grant is $25,000. Half of everything it gave fell between $8,646 and $1,000,000; the smallest was $2,594 and the largest $20.0M. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong foundation.

Every organization it funded

This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by name and state as they were written on the returns, so an organization entered under two different names appears twice. Years funded is the number of separate tax years in which that name received money.

9 of 131 (7%) received money in more than one year over the 5 years we hold.

Measured the way we measure every foundation -- what share of one year's grantees are funded again the next -- this one retains 24%, across 4 year-to-year transitions. The median foundation retains about 67%, so this one is less consistent than most. This measures how often it paid the same organizations again. It says nothing about whether it would consider a new one.

What the money was for

Taken verbatim from the purpose field of its filings. This is the closest thing to a statement of what this foundation cares about, in its own words.

• National Academy of Sciences $3,000,000 · 2022
  TO SUPPORT UKRAINE REFUGEES AND UKRAINIAN SCIENTISTS AFFECTED BY THE CRISIS IN UKRAINE
• American Red Cross $3,000,000 · 2021
  TO SUPPORT HUMANITARIAN RELIEF EFFORTS TO HELP PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THE CRISIS IN UKRAINE
• Steven Weinberg $3,000,000 · 2020
  Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
• Martin Hairer $3,000,000 · 2020
  Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics
• Eric Adelberger $1,000,000 · 2020
  Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
• Australian Academy of Science $500,000 · 2022
  PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR SHORT-TERM RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN UKRAINIAN SCIENTISTS AND RESEARCH FACILITIES IN AUSTRALIA AND EFFORTS TO PROVIDE UKRAINIAN SCIENTISTS ACCESS TO AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH FACILITIES FOR SAMPLE ANALYSIS.

What kind of organizations it funds

By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 57 grants where we could match the recipient to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's. The match, made from the name and address on the return, is ours.

Giving by year

Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- filings arrive about a year late, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a foundation winding down.

Already committed for future years

Form 990-PF has a separate schedule for grants approved but not yet paid. Breakthrough Prize Foundation has 10 of them, worth $9,040,000. This is the one part of the filing that looks forward rather than back.

Where its money goes

58% of its giving went to organizations in District of Columbia. If your organization is based elsewhere, look in the recipient list for grants to your area before writing.

Funders that support the same organizations

These funders gave to organizations this one also funded -- some private foundations, some community foundations and other grantmaking charities. Shared grantees are a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.

How to approach this foundation

1. Check you are its size. The median grant is $25,000. A request many times that size asks for something it has rarely or never given.
2. Check you are in its geography. Its giving is concentrated in District of Columbia.
3. Read the recipient list above for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer, and a cheap one to get.
4. Look up the current filing before writing. The 990-PF names the foundation's officers and, where one exists, its application procedure. We link it below.

Related guides

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Breakthrough Prize Foundation's own Form 990-PF filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Matching recipients to registered organizations, their IRS classifications, the retention rate and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations, described in how we build this.

Address of record on the latest return: 1900 N Street Nw, Washington, DC, 20036. This is the address the foundation gave the IRS; many small foundations file through an accountant or a bank trust department, so it may not be where post to a programme officer should go.

EIN 46-0677985 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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