National Humanities Center
Research Triangle Park, NC · EIN 59-1735367. Reported 76 grants totalling $4,125,903 to 62 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For National Humanities Center, the IRS classifies it under arts & culture rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE A70) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 62 distinct organizations, with 10% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 17% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $47,250. Half of what it reported fell between $35,000 and $65,500; the smallest was $10,000 and the largest $175,500. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Chapel Hill, NC | $431,250 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Duke University | Durham, NC | $411,100 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Regents Univ of California | Los Angeles, CA | $120,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of Missouri | Columbia, MO | $115,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Regents of the University of Colorado | Denver, CO | $114,500 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| University of Texas at Austin | Austin, TX | $113,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Spelman College | Atlanta, GA | $88,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Colgate University Treasurers Office | Hamilton, NY | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Cornell University | Ithaca, NY | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| North Carolina Central University | Durham, NC | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Prairie View a & M University | Prairie View, TX | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Stony Brook University | Stoney Brook, NY | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University of Utah | Salt Lake City, UT | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Xavier University of Louisiana | New Orleans, LA | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Board of Trustees of Illinois State University | Normal, IL | $76,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| The University of North Carolina at Greensboro | Greensboro, NC | $74,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| The Ohio State University | Columbus, OH | $72,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Hampton University | Hampton, VA | $70,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Bowdoin College | Brunswick, ME | $65,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Texas a & M University | College Station, TX | $65,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Regents of the University of California at Irvine | Irvine, CA | $65,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Montclair State University Foundation Inc | Montclair, NJ | $61,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University of California Davis | Davis, CA | $60,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Vanderbilt University | Nashville, TN | $60,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Regents of the University of California | Santa Cruz, CA | $60,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| St Mary's College of Maryland | St Marys City, MD | $59,511 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| University of Florida | Gainesville, FL | $58,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Board of Regents Nevada System of Higher Education | Reno, NV | $57,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| George Mason University Foundation Inc | Fairfax, VA | $55,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| North Carolina State University | Raleigh, NC | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Florida State University Research Foundation Inc | Tallahassee, FL | $54,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Indiana University Bloomington | Bloomington, IN | $51,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| University of Connecticut | Storrs, CT | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of Oaklahoma | Norman, OK | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Trustees of the College of the Holy Cross | Worcester, MA | $48,750 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Brandeis University | Waltham, MA | $48,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund | New Orleans, LA | $48,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Swarthmore College | Swarthmore, PA | $46,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| University of Miami | Coral Gables, FL | $45,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Bucknell University | Lewisburg, PA | $42,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University of Notre Dame Du Lac | Notre Dame, IN | $41,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of Texas at Dallas | Richardson, TX | $41,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Southeast Missouri University | Cpe Girardeau, MO | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Trustees of Tufts College | Medford, MA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University of South Carolina | Comumbia, SC | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Virginia Commonwealth University | Richmond, VA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Yale University | New Haven, CT | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Wesleyan University | Middletown, CT | $36,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of North Carolina at Charlotte | Charlotte, NC | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Texas Tech University | Lubbock, TX | $34,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| The Trustees of Grinnell College | Grinnell, IA | $31,250 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Davidson College | Davidson, NC | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Western Michigan University | Kalamazoo, MI | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Southern Methodist University | Dallas, TX | $28,750 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Delaware State University | Dover, DE | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Montana State University | Bozeman, MT | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Arizona State University Foundation for a New American University | Tempe, AZ | $24,292 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Case Western Reserve University | Cleveland, OH | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Johnson C Smith University Incorporated | Charlotte, NC | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of Georgia Foundation | Athens, GA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| William Marsh Rice University | Houston, TX | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| San Diego State University | San Diego, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
10 of 62 (16%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 35 of 62 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 22 | $1,279,350 | $46,000 |
| 2022 | 18 | $1,049,000 | $49,750 |
| 2023 | 25 | $1,121,542 | $33,500 |
| 2024 | 11 | $676,011 | $57,500 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
28% of its giving went to organizations in North Carolina. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. 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 grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $47,250 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in North Carolina.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from National Humanities Center's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 11 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 7 Tw Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27709.
EIN 59-1735367 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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