Laura and John Arnold Foundation
Preselected recipients only
Laura and John Arnold Foundation is a private foundation in Houston, Texas. In tax year 2024 it gave $193 million in 789 grants; the typical grant was $122,776 and the largest $12.5 million. It only gives to organizations it selects itself and does not accept unsolicited applications.
From its IRS Form 990-PF for tax year 2024.
- Grants paid, 2024$193 million
- Number of grants789
- Typical grant$122,776
- Largest grant$12.5 million
- Assets$4.8 billion
- New grantees44%
Giving in 2024 was up from $163 million the year before.
44% of its 2024 grantees had not received a grant from it the year before, a sign it is open to new organizations.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants paid | Number of grants | Assets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $163 million | 644 | $4.3 billion |
| 2024 | $193 million | 789 | $4.8 billion |
How to apply
Laura and John Arnold Foundation says in its IRS filing that it only makes contributions to preselected organizations, so unsolicited applications are unlikely to be considered. Organizations it funds are usually invited.
Foundation website IRS filings on ProPublica
What Laura and John Arnold Foundation funds
Where it gives
Its US grants went to recipients in 42 states, the most to District of Columbia. It also paid $491,804 in 4 grants to recipients outside the US.
| State | Grants | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 169 | $37.6 million |
| California | 101 | $25.0 million |
| Massachusetts | 69 | $24.8 million |
| New York | 85 | $21.5 million |
| Oregon | 6 | $13.8 million |
| Maryland | 21 | $8.1 million |
| Illinois | 42 | $7.2 million |
| Pennsylvania | 27 | $7.1 million |
| North Carolina | 29 | $5.9 million |
| Texas | 27 | $4.9 million |
Grants paid in 2024
| Recipient | Purpose | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| The City Fund | To provide general operating support to support grantee's efforts to partner with local leaders to create innovative public school systems, with the overall goal of improving the quality of public education in cities across the united states. | $12.5 million |
| MDRC | To support grantee to develop and advance multiple strategies to significantly increase its organizational impact in areas including: (i) strengthening connections between its research and policymakers; (ii) building a more rigorous approach to technical assistance; (iii) advancing its leadership on the use of new evaluation methodologies and data; and (iv) leveraging data efficiently for evaluation, decision-making, and program improvement. | $5.0 million |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | To support j-pal north america, including by funding landmark randomized evaluations, expanding the capacity and diversity of researchers who work on randomized evaluations, translating findings into actionable insights that inform policy at scale, and institutionalizing the use of evidence as a driving force behind u.s. Policymaking. | $3.5 million |
| Accelerate - the National Collaborative for Accelerated Learning | To support grantee's states leading recovery grant program. | $3.3 million |
| Center for Effective Public Policy | To provide training and technical assistance for the public safety assessment and pretrial reform. | $3.0 million |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | To support the abdul latif jameel poverty action lab north america in its work to generate randomized controlled trials that measure the impact of social programs and policies. | $3.0 million |
| Johns Hopkins University | To continue to develop and publicly disseminate policy options to regulate and control drug spending. | $2.0 million |
| Vera Institute of Justice Inc | To support the restoring promise initiative that partners with state departments of corrections to design and facilitate rigorous evaluation of reimagined housing units for incarcerated young adults in a way that centers human dignity, safety, and race equity. | $2.0 million |
| Georgetown University | To support grantee's center on health insurance reforms in providing policymakers and key stakeholders with educational resources and non-partisan technical assistance to support effective cost containment strategies. | $2.0 million |
| Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | To expand pwbm's ability to provide accurate, accessible, and transparent budget and economic analysis of public policy by providing more access to the model and data while deepening the model's capabilities. | $1.9 million |
| Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation | To support grantee's work in bringing greater attention and visibility to hospital and health system spending, prices, finance, and business practices that impact access to care and lead to higher costs for families, employers, and the government. | $1.5 million |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | To construct a cyclotron facility and procuring the installation of the first 30 mev proton beam within the cyclotron facility. | $1.5 million |
| The Brigham and Women's Hospital Inc | To support the program on regulation, therapeutics, and law ("portal") project on prescription drug policy and promoting meaningful drug innovation and regulation. | $1.5 million |
| Social Finance Inc | To support the acceleration of donor-advised fund capital toward impact investing. | $1.4 million |
| Committee for A Responsible Federal Budget | To support fiscal policy work related to tax and budget policy. | $1.3 million |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | To support the state and local innovation initiative ("slii") of grantee's abdul latif jameel poverty action lab ("j-pal") north america. | $1.3 million |
| Terner Housing Innovation Labs Inc | To support (1) the scaling of grantee's housing supply simulator tool to new states and municipalities to assist policymakers and researchers in determining the market effects of individual land use policies and (2) publishing assessments on the most effective land use policies for increasing housing supply in various localities. | $1.2 million |
| Project on Predatory Student Lending Inc | To provide general operating support. | $1.1 million |
| Rand Corporation | To support and expand grantee's gun policy in america initiative which provides the public, policymakers, and journalists with needed information on the effects of gun policies. | $1.1 million |
| American University | To support the postsecondary equity and economics research ("peer") project and its efforts on accountability and student loan research, policy development and technical assistance. | $1.1 million |
| West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education | To support the expansion of the city university of new york's accelerated study in associate programs program in two west virginia community colleges. | $1.1 million |
| Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc | To support welcoming neighbors network education fund, and its efforts to remove regulatory barriers to expand the supply of housing across a diverse array of states and municipalities through educational and non-partisan campaigns. | $1.0 million |
| Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation | To support grantee's second chances agenda, which aims to build support at the state and federal levels for evidence-based sentencing reforms and second chance release mechanisms through an integrated policy development ad public education program, with the overall goal of reducing extreme prison sentences. | $1.0 million |
| Fwdus Education Fund Inc | To support policy analysis, advocacy, and education work to safely reduce prison terms, recidivism, and the incarcerated population, reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and expand opportunities for the people and families impacted by the criminal justice system. | $1.0 million |
| Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation | To support new research and data analysis to inform forthcoming policy discussions related to medicare sustainability and affordability in four areas: 1) medicare advantage; 2) medicare spending, financing, and affordability; 3) medicare and prescription drugs in the post-inflation reduction act era; and 4) rapid-response analyses of emerging medicare policy issues. | $1.0 million |
| Metropolitan Family Services | To support the immediate maintenance and transition of the rapid employment and development initiative (readi), a causal evidence-backed program designed to reduce violent crime and recidivism. | $1.0 million |
| The Brigham and Women's Hospital Inc | To support the program on regulation, therapeutics, and law ("portal") project on promoting meaningful clinical trials. | $1.0 million |
| New York University | To support the transit costs project at grantee's marron institute and its efforts to (1) further advance research in the causes of high costs and delays in u.s. Transit projects and (2) support more direct policy engagement for reforms at the federal, state, and local level. | $978,913 |
| Nacdl Foundation for Criminal Justice | To support a pilot evaluation on the adoption of counsel at first appearance in virginia. | $945,308 |
| New York University | To be used by the policing project at grantee's school of law to develop and promote publicly available and nonpartisan model legislation governing key aspects of policing at the local, state, and federal levels, with the overall goal of promoting police accountability. | $900,000 |
| Research Triangle Institute | To conduct a comprehensive outcome evaluation for oregon measure 110. | $900,000 |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | To generate evidence on emerging issues in medicare advantage of interest to policymakers, specifically 1) affinity plans and 2) ghost networks, to inform policy discussions and bolster arguments for reforms to reduce overpayments and increase accountability and competition. | $878,275 |
| For the People | To support implementation of prosecutor-initiated resentencing ("pir") nationally, resulting in prosecutors offices implementing the law effectively and improved assistance for incarcerated people returning home through pir laws. | $850,000 |
| National Conference of State Legislatures | To raise awareness in state legislatures on criminal justice data and causal research, to increase knowledge of policy options, and support legislator-driven policy change. | $833,262 |
| Oregon Health & Science University | To provide technical assistance for states implementing pharmaceutical policy interventions that lower drug prices. | $812,502 |
| Ah Datalytics | To build and develop the real-time crime index ("rtci"), an infrastructure for regularly collecting data from hundreds of law enforcement agencies and creating a publicly accessible dataset and accompanying visualizations, with the overall goal of allowing interested researchers and members of the public to view crime data and understand crime trends in as close to real-time as possible. | $802,165 |
| Georgetown University | To conduct credible research, analyze policy proposals, and provide in-depth technical assistance to federal policymakers to advance common-sense reforms in the medicare advantage program. | $800,000 |
| President and Fellows of Harvard College | To establish a collaborative of foremost experts on dual-eligible research to provide policy-responsive analyses on integration between medicare and medicaid. | $800,000 |
| The Good Nation Foundation Inc | To advance the successful implementation of health policy changes that are taking place to support individuals' well-being as they leave incarceration, and inform the development of future federal policy reforms. | $795,000 |
| The Regents of the University of California San Diego | To conduct research on changes to risk adjustment in medicare advantage (ma) to inform policy proposals and ongoing administrative efforts to reduce incentives for ma plans to engage in aggressive risk coding to increase payments. | $789,000 |
Officers and trustees
- John D Arnold
- Laura E Arnold
- Roxanne Almaraz
- Elizabeth Banks
- Kelli Rhee
Questions people ask
Does Laura and John Arnold Foundation accept grant applications?
No. Its IRS filing says it only makes contributions to preselected organizations.
How much does Laura and John Arnold Foundation give?
$193 million in tax year 2024, across 789 grants, with a typical grant of $122,776.
Who runs Laura and John Arnold Foundation?
Its 2024 filing lists John D Arnold (Director/Co-Chair), Laura E Arnold (Director/Co-Chair), Roxanne Almaraz (Secretary) and Elizabeth Banks (Treasurer) among 5 officers and trustees.
What does Laura and John Arnold Foundation fund?
Based on its grants, mainly education, science and research and health.