The Trustees of Princeton University
Princeton, NJ · EIN 21-0634501. Reported 165 grants totalling $107.8M to 68 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, 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 The Trustees of Princeton University, the IRS classifies it under education rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE B430) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 68 distinct organizations, with 36% 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. 63% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 56% median for grantmaking charities -- lower than 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 $75,796. Half of what it reported fell between $27,573 and $322,342; the smallest was $6,000 and the largest $37.8M. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
4 of those grants were non-cash -- goods, property or services worth $2,171,775 in total. In-kind giving is real support but it is not a cheque.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S & G Foundation | Albany, NY | $39.3M | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Princeton Fire Department | Princeton, NJ | $29.2M | 11 | 5 | 2024 |
| Community Foundation of New Jersey | Morristown, NJ | $7,568,663 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Princeton Public Schools | Princeton, NJ | $7,531,800 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America - Leda | New York, NY | $4,109,775 | 9 | 5 | 2024 |
| Mary John Goree Las Animas County Scholarship Foundation | Trinidad, CO | $3,614,404 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| County of Mercer | Trenton, NJ | $3,445,368 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Mccarter Theatre Company | Princeton, NJ | $2,286,335 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated | New York, NY | $2,012,722 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Triangle Club of Princeton University | Princeton, NJ | $1,107,776 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Climate Central Inc | Princeton, NJ | $868,096 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| West Windsor Township | West Windsor, NJ | $750,775 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Wilderness Society | Washington, DC | $641,183 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| American University of Beirut | New York, NY | $450,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad Inc | Princeton, NJ | $398,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce Foundation Inc | Princeton, NJ | $378,001 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Food Project Inc | Lincoln, MA | $331,809 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| The YWCA of Princeton Inc | Princeton, NJ | $300,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Princeton University Class of 2020 | Princeton, NJ | $271,976 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Greater Trenton Inc | Trenton, NJ | $235,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy Inc | Boston, MA | $227,417 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| 101 Inc | Princeton, NJ | $200,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Armand Hammer United World College of the American West | Montezuma, NM | $200,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Housing Initiatives of Princeton Charitable Tr | Princeton, NJ | $200,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Barnard College | New York, NY | $132,736 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Broadmead Swim Club Inc | Princeton, NJ | $118,433 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Arts Council of Princeton | Princeton, NJ | $109,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Princeton Senior Resource Center | Princeton, NJ | $100,680 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Princeton Healthcare System Foundation Inc | Plainsboro, NJ | $100,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Institute for Advanced Study | Princeton, NJ | $95,967 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Matriculate Inc | New York, NY | $94,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| West Harlem Environmental Action Inc | New York, NY | $75,796 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Princeton in Ishikawa Inc | Princeton, NJ | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Watershed Institute Inc | Pennington, NJ | $75,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| African School of Economics -USA Inc | Princeton, NJ | $70,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation | Menlo Park, CA | $67,469 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Friends and Foundation of the Princeton Public Library Inc | Princeton, NJ | $66,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| United Way of Greater Mercer County Inc | Hamiliton, NJ | $63,650 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Sadie Collective | Washington, DC | $60,000 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Princeton Nursery School Inc | Princeton, NJ | $55,546 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Vermont Community Foundation | Middlebury, VT | $50,466 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Compass Pro Bono | Washington, DC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Friends of Princeton Open Space | Princeton, NJ | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Futures Ignite Inc | New York, NY | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Harmony Program | New York, NY | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Homeworks Trenton Inc | Princeton, NJ | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| National Dance Institute Inc | New York, NY | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Plainsboro Free Public Library Foundation Inc | Plainsboro, NJ | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA | $48,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| College Horizons | Pena Blanca, NM | $47,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Freedom Reads | Hamden, CT | $36,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| United States Fund for Unicef | New York, NY | $30,428 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Save the Children Federation Inc | Fairfield, CT | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Princeton in Asia Inc | Princeton, NJ | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| American National Red Cross | Washington, DC | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Princeton Project 55 Inc | Princeton, NJ | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| World Vision | Federal Way, WA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University | Stanford, CA | $18,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Historical Society of West Windsor | West Windsor, NJ | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Marc Sanders Foundation | Hillsborough, NJ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Nassau Swimming Club | Princeton, NJ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| New Jersey Council for the Humanities Inc | Camden, NJ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Princeton Area Community Foundation Inc | Princeton, NJ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Reformed Church of Highland Park Affordable Housing Corporation | Highland Park, NJ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Regents of the University of California Davis | Davis, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Trustees of Columbia University | New York, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| T a S K | Trenton, NJ | $6,275 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Cancer Care Inc | New York, NY | $6,203 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
34 of 68 (50%) received money in more than one year over the 5 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 56 of 68 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 31 | $9,987,287 | $50,466 |
| 2021 | 36 | $9,885,453 | $50,000 |
| 2022 | 36 | $13.7M | $62,750 |
| 2023 | 33 | $59.2M | $154,495 |
| 2024 | 29 | $15.0M | $100,000 |
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
52% of its giving went to organizations in New Jersey. 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 $75,796 -- 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 Jersey.
- 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 The Trustees of Princeton University's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). 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 27 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 1 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: 701 Carnegie Center Suite 445, Princeton, NJ, 08540.
EIN 21-0634501 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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