Foundation for Individual Rights and
Philadelphia, PA · EIN 04-3467254. Reported 44 grants totalling $1,369,848 to 35 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 Foundation for Individual Rights and, the IRS classifies it under civil rights rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE R630) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 35 distinct organizations, with 18% 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. 9% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 2 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $20,000. Half of what it reported fell between $13,200 and $33,593; the smallest was $6,500 and the largest $250,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmos Institute Inc | Austin, TX | $250,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Alumni Free Speech Alliance | Washington, DC | $173,800 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| New York University | New York, NY | $110,000 | 3 | 2 | 2023 |
| Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA | $105,700 | 5 | 3 | 2024 |
| National Constitution Center | Philadelphia, PA | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | Cambridge, MA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Balaker Media Foundation | Fallbrook, CA | $49,700 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| University of Washington (grants) | Chicago, IL | $37,384 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Junior State of America | Oakland, CA | $36,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Future of Free Speech | Nashville, TN | $35,144 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Georgetown University | Washington, DC | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas | Fayetteville, AR | $33,593 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Pembroke College Foundation Inc | Williamsville, NY | $33,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| California State University Long Beach | Long Beach, CA | $31,400 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Regents of the University of California | Oakland, CA | $25,177 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| George Mason University | Fairfax, VA | $25,015 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University of South Florida Board of Trustees | Tampa, FL | $24,279 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| University of Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh, PA | $22,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Regents of the University of California at Berkeley | Riverside, CA | $22,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Regents of the University of California at Riverside | Riverside, CA | $21,600 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Mercatus Center Inc | Arlington, VA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Cornell Free Speech Alliance | San Antonio, TX | $18,800 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Institute for Humane Studies | Arlington, VA | $18,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| 2WAY Interactive Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $17,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Elena Velez Industry Inc | Colgate, WI | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Moviegoer Inc | Billings, MT | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Brown University of Providence | Providence, RI | $13,860 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Texas Christian University | Fort Worth, TX | $13,846 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The Ohio State University | Columbus, OH | $12,050 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Johns Hopkins University | Baltimore, MD | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| MIT Free Speech Alliance | Boston, MA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| New Tolerance Campaign | Oro Valley, AZ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Unc Free Speech Alliance Inc | Chapel Hill, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Harvard Alumni for Free Speech Inc | Bonita Spgs, FL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Rutgers the State University | Piscataway, NJ | $6,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
4 of 35 (11%) 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 the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Cosmos Institute Inc
FIRE AND COSMOS INSTITUTE ARE COLLABORATING ON A FAST GRANTS PROJECT TO PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRUTH-SEEKING AI. - Alumni Free Speech Alliance
PROVIDE ASSISTANCE TO THE ALUMNI FREE SPEECH ALLIANCE TO COVER OVERHEAD AND ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS WHILE AFSA PARTNERS WITH FIRE TO DEVELOP MORE INDEPENDENT ALUMNI GROUPS ACROSS THE COUNTRY. - Arthur L Carter Journalism Institute at New York University
FUNDS FOR COLLABORATING ON AND PROMOTING A CURRICULUM EDUCATING COLLEGE STUDENTS ABOUT FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. - President and Fellows of Harvard College
THIS IS AN INTERVENTION STUDY THAT WILL TEST THE HKS PRACTICE OF TRAINING STUDENTS IN CIVIL DISAGREEMENT BY HAVING THEM INTERACT WITH AI CHATBOTS TO DEBATE HOT-BUTTON SOCIAL ISSUES AS PART OF ORIENTATION. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS RELATING TO CIVIL DISAGREEMENT WILL BE MEASURED BEFORE AND AFTER EXPOSURE TO THE INTERVENTION. - The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
TWO STUDIES, ONE USING SURVEY DATA TO SEE HOW POLITICAL SPEECH IN THE WORKPLACE HAS CHANGED OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS, AND ANOTHER USING SURVEYS FROM NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH COUNCIL TO SEE HOW MINOR CHANGES IN SITUATIONS AND CONTEXT REGARDING CONTROVERSIAL SPEECH CHANGE SUPPORT FOR A SPEAKER'S FREE EXPRESSION. - University of Washington (grants)
SUPPORT FOR STUDY LOOKING AT HOW DEI STATEMENTS FROM DIFFERENT IDEOLOGICAL POINTS OF VIEW ARE EVALUATED.
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 22 of 35 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- 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 | 2 | $93,800 | $46,900 |
| 2022 | 14 | $301,683 | $20,800 |
| 2023 | 12 | $407,621 | $21,000 |
| 2024 | 16 | $566,744 | $18,000 |
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
21% of its giving went to organizations in Texas. 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 the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
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 $20,000 -- 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 Texas.
- 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 Foundation for Individual Rights and's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 13 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 3 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: 510 Walnut Street 900, Philadelphia, PA, 19106.
EIN 04-3467254 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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