Khyentse Foundation
San Francisco, CA · EIN 91-2167303. Reported 78 grants totalling $7,682,979 to 32 organizations across tax years 2020-2023, 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 Khyentse Foundation, the IRS classifies it under religion rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE X50) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 32 distinct organizations, with 28% 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. 44% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 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 $25,000. Half of what it reported fell between $14,000 and $90,000; the smallest was $4,400 and the largest $1,000,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Middle Way School | Saugerties, NY | $2,175,594 | 6 | 4 | 2023 |
| Buddhist Digital Resource Center (bdrc) | Cambridge, MA | $2,109,828 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| American Friends of the Hebrew University Inc | New York, NY | $1,000,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| The Head Lama of the Tibetan Nyingmapa Meditation Center | Cazadero, CA | $649,367 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Middle Way Education | Woodstock, NY | $642,508 | 5 | 4 | 2023 |
| Northwestern University | Evanston, IL | $208,622 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Rangjung Yeshe Institute Foundation Inc | Leggett, CA | $93,900 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Yale University | New Haven, CT | $91,680 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| William Marsh Rice University | Houston, TX | $78,370 | 5 | 3 | 2023 |
| University of Arizona Foundation | Tucson, AZ | $75,000 | 3 | 2 | 2022 |
| Light of Buddhadharma Foundation International | Berkeley, CA | $68,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA | $63,480 | 3 | 1 | 2021 |
| Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia | Charlottesvle, VA | $50,420 | 2 | 1 | 2021 |
| Uw Foundation | Seatlle, WA | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Dharma Gates Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| University of Arizona | Tucson, AZ | $27,620 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Dharma Bums | San Diego, CA | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| University of Washington Foundation | Seattle, WA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Siddharthas Intent-Western Door | Aptos, CA | $24,812 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Duke University | Durham, NC | $22,500 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Khyentse Foundation | San Francisco, CA | $21,548 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| One Love Prison Meditation Project Inc | Gainesville, FL | $20,700 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Himalayan Art Resources Inc | New York, NY | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Tools for Peace | Pasadena, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Vidyadhara Foundation | Boulder, CO | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Abiding Heart Education | Boulder, CO | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Naropa University | Boulder, CO | $14,625 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Engaged Buddhist Alliance | Rosemead, CA | $12,560 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Shambhala USA | New Haven, CT | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Young Buddhist Editorial Inc | Los Angeles, CA | $7,245 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Upaya Organization for Contemplative Activities | Edgewater, CO | $6,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Terma Foundation | Half Moon Bay, CA | $5,100 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
14 of 32 (44%) 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.
- American Friends of the Hebrew University
ON BEHALF OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM TO ESTABLISH A PERMANENT TENURE TRACK FACULTY POSITION/PROFESSORSHIP IN BUDDHIST STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY. - Middle Way School
USA - GRANT FOR SUPPORTING THE GENERAL OPERATING FUNDS OF MWS 2023-2024. - Buddhist Digital Resource Center (bdrc)
USA - GRANT TO SUPPORT FRAGILE PALM LEAVES PHASE III TO COMPLETE THE WORK OF DIGITIZING FPLS BURMESE PALI COLLECTION AND GRANT TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF BUDDHIST INFORMATICS INCLUDING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ORDER TO UNDERPIN THEIR CORE WORK OF ARCHIVING SCRIPTURES IN EVERY CLASSICAL BUDDHIST LANGUAGE. - Middle Way Education
GRANT SUPPORTING MIDDLE WAY EDUCATION, A RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ADVISORY ORGANIZATION THAT HELPS PARENTS, EDUCATORS, AND SCHOOL LEADERS INTRODUCE THE WISDOM OF THE DHARMA TO CHILDREN IN MODERN, CREATIVE AND AGE-APPROPRIATE WAYS. - Head of the Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center (dharma College)
SUPPORTING DHARMA COLLEGE TO PROMOTE DHARMA ENGAGEMENT AND RESILIENCE AMONG THE MILLENIAL AND GEN Z DEMOGRAPHICS. - Rangjung Yeshe Institute Foundation Inc
USA - KHYENTSE FOUNDATION - RYI JOINT SCHOLARSHIP GRANT
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 24 of 32 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 22 | $2,586,178 | $20,000 |
| 2021 | 23 | $1,605,934 | $25,000 |
| 2022 | 22 | $1,800,718 | $25,000 |
| 2023 | 11 | $1,690,149 | $63,355 |
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
50% of its giving went to organizations in New York. 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.
Down to the city
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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 $25,000 -- 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 New York.
- 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.
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Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Khyentse Foundation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2020-2023). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
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: Po Box 156648, San Francisco, CA, 94115.
EIN 91-2167303 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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