Who funds Cornell University?
463 private foundations reported grants to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York totaling $80.5 million across 590 grants in tax years 2023 to 2025. The largest funder was Gates Foundation, with $9.5 million.
From the funders' IRS Form 990-PF filings.
- Foundation funders463
- Grants reported590
- Total received$80.5 million
- Funders taking applications24
Funders of Cornell University that accept applications
If your organization does similar work, these foundations are prospects: they already fund work like Cornell University's and say in their IRS filings that they accept applications.
- Gates Foundation
- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Seneca Foods Foundation
- The Duffield Family Foundation DBA Maddie's Fund
- The Block Friedman Family Foundation Inc
- Charles Koch Foundation
- The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- The Andrew W Mellon Foundation
- New York State Health Fdn D/B/A New York Health Foundation
- Carnegie Corporation of New York
- Alfred P Sloan Foundation
- John S and James L Knight Foundation
- The Ford Foundation
- The Michele & Agnese Cestone Foundation Inc
- The McKnight Foundation
Foundations that fund Cornell University
| Foundation | Purpose given | Grants | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gates Foundation | K-12 education; postsecondary education; research and learning opportunities | 11 | $9.5 million |
| Stephanie and Peter Nolan Foundation | As needed | 1 | $5.2 million |
| The Selander Foundation | Educational purposes | 1 | $3.9 million |
| Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation | Duffield institute for animal behavior | 1 | $2.8 million |
| The Simons Foundation Inc | Support for arxiv mmodernization | 18 | $2.8 million |
| The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | 79754 developing rapidly responsive community-engaged research on media-messaging and narrative-change strategies to promote health and racial equity | 5 | $2.1 million |
| Seneca Foods Foundation | Dyson annual fund; support local agricultural dev program, cornell endowment fund | 1 | $2.0 million |
| Brooks Family Foundation | Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy | 1 | $2.0 million |
| Dunaway Foundation | Center for precision nutrition & health, college of human ecology endowment funds | 1 | $2.0 million |
| Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation | To increase access to computing education | 1 | $2.0 million |
| The Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc | To support tech fellows | 1 | $1.9 million |
| Crankstart Foundation | To support the mggg redistricting lab to advance proportional representation | 2 | $1.8 million |
| Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts | General & Unrestricted | 1 | $1.7 million |
| Meinig Family Foundation | General fund | 1 | $1.5 million |
| Sequoia Climate Foundation | To support agriculture systems that advance anti-hunger and climate resiliency | 1 | $1.5 million |
| Freedom Together Foundation | Gene therapy for neurorestoration and neuroprotection in parkinson's disease | 2 | $1.5 million |
| Fulk Family Foundation Inc | Fund for nutrition equity and food justice | 1 | $1.4 million |
| Schleifer Family Foundation | General charitable purposes | 1 | $1.2 million |
| UW S Pearsall for Cornell Univ | Unrestricted general | 1 | $1.2 million |
| The Pershing Square Foundation | The mind (maximizing innovation in neuroscience discovery) prize | 6 | $1.0 million |
| Charina Endowment Fund Inc | General support | 1 | $1.0 million |
| The Fried Foundation Inc | General purposes | 1 | $992,500 |
| The Duffield Family Foundation DBA Maddie's Fund | Maddie's shelter medicine program, years 20 - 24 continuation grant | 1 | $935,000 |
| The Block Friedman Family Foundation Inc | Unrestricted charitable contribution | 1 | $866,667 |
| The Heising-Simons Foundation | To collect in-situ data at the greenland ice sheet margin during the winter season | 5 | $830,544 |
| ESL Esperance Trust UW | Unrestricted general | 1 | $768,111 |
| Dr H Fisk Johnson Charitable Foundation | General support | 1 | $676,536 |
| Laura and John Arnold Foundation | To analyze how well the medicare advantage star rating system measures and incentivizes quality. | 7 | $664,332 |
| The Sarah Min and Matt Pincus Foundation | General & Unrestricted | 1 | $650,000 |
| Charles Koch Foundation | General operating support | 1 | $614,000 |
| Grantham Foundation for the Protection | Food and agriculture research | 1 | $613,488 |
| The Rimora Foundation | Cornell annual fund for student and campus life & polo | 1 | $600,000 |
| Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation | To support investigation of outstanding problems in quantum materials, including the strong correlation problem and quantum dynamics of many-body hamiltonians by creation of voltage-controllable superlattice structures in two-dimensional materials. | 3 | $593,533 |
| Abby S & Howard P Milstein Foundation | Irc sec. 501(c)(3) org. | 1 | $561,054 |
| Barry L and Jan R Zubrow Foundation | General support | 1 | $560,000 |
| Ellen G Adelson Family Foundation | Education | 1 | $550,000 |
| The David and Lucile Packard Foundation | Environment and Science | 4 | $525,000 |
| The Andrew W Mellon Foundation | To continue to support the cornell prison education program | 1 | $500,000 |
| Suna Family Foundation | To further donees exempt purpose | 1 | $500,000 |
| Gold Family Charitable Trust | To support medical education and research. | 1 | $499,059 |
| The Gerstner Family Foundation | Environmental research | 1 | $493,271 |
| Mueller Health Foundation Inc | General exempt purpose | 1 | $456,355 |
| KT Foundation | Lab of Ornithology | 3 | $450,000 |
| The Wright Foundation Inc | Peter a. Wright catalyst fund | 3 | $400,000 |
| New York State Health Fdn D/B/A New York Health Foundation | Farm to institution in new york: leveraging the food hub collaborative for statewide impact | 2 | $388,000 |
| Carnegie Corporation of New York | For innovative and analytical proposals for immigration | 2 | $366,700 |
| The Ronald P and Susan E Lynch Foundation | Support organization's programs & activities | 1 | $364,402 |
| Kanders Foundation Inc | All are for charitable, educational, scientific, or literacy purposes within the meaning of irc section 501(c)(3). | 1 | $360,096 |
| The E&ss Foundation Inc | Education | 1 | $360,000 |
| Penn Oberlander Family Foundation Inc | Payments for charity | 1 | $359,144 |
| March Conservation Fund | General support | 1 | $348,266 |
| The Stanton Foundation | To achieve charitable purpose | 2 | $309,724 |
| Alfred P Sloan Foundation | Alfred p. Sloan research fellowship for karan mehta in physics | 4 | $300,000 |
| John S and James L Knight Foundation | To support greater freedom of the press by providing direct pro bono legal services to local and regional journalists and journalism organizations in new york, pennsylvania, vermont and other nearby states. | 1 | $280,988 |
| Schneur Family Foundation | Charitable contributions | 1 | $260,000 |
| Tolly Vinik Trust | General operating | 1 | $253,354 |
| The Ford Foundation | Core support for cat lab's work to build community engaged research methodologies and computational social science infrastructure for understanding the way algorithms and other technologies impact human systems and societies | 2 | $250,750 |
| John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation | In support of the ai, policy, and practice initiative | 1 | $250,000 |
| The Ball Family Foundation | General support | 1 | $250,000 |
| Kelson Foundation | General support to mggg redistricting lab | 1 | $250,000 |
| Tuchman Family Foundation co Mantucket Capital Mgmt Corp | General support | 1 | $250,000 |
| Bicket Family Foundation | General support | 1 | $250,000 |
| Progress Charitable Foundation de | General support | 1 | $233,000 |
| UW Strang for Cornell & Nyudh | Unrestricted general | 1 | $230,314 |
| Additional Ventures Foundation | Single ventricle research fund | 1 | $220,000 |
| The Rockefeller Foundation | In support of finalizing the metrics to estimate the true cost of public distribution system (pds) food baskets in india by accounting for the ?hidden costs? Associated with the production, transportation, storage, and retail of pds food grain | 1 | $213,946 |
| The Kenbe Foundation | Education | 1 | $200,000 |
| The Michele & Agnese Cestone Foundation Inc | Cestone scholarship support | 1 | $200,000 |
| The Mosse Foundation | Charitable organization | 1 | $200,000 |
| The Louis & Rachel Rudin Foundation Inc | PROGRAM GRANT - Cornell University - Weill Cornell Medicine. Grants to support medical education. | 1 | $195,000 |
| The McKnight Foundation | to build the Circular Bionutrient Economy to Enhance Systems Health in Africa's Lake Victoria Basin | 2 | $194,000 |
| Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation | Support educational programs, including scholarship aid | 1 | $189,000 |
| Russell Sage Foundation | Socioeconomic and racial disparities in drivers license suspension | 3 | $185,421 |
| CDVSJ Foundation | To help provide the highest level of academic excellence to the students. | 1 | $180,000 |
| The Henry Luce Foundation Inc | Support for 24 Clare Boothe Luce undergraduate STEM research awards | 3 | $175,750 |
| Ralph Landau Foundation | Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine Annual Fund (Aquavet Program) | 2 | $161,652 |
| One Hive Foundation | Pesticide analytical lab discretionary fund | 1 | $159,010 |
| Park Foundation Inc | Project support | 4 | $155,200 |
| Good Ventures Foundation | Study of microbiome of preterm infants and cytomegalovirus infection in mothers | 1 | $154,000 |
| William T Grant Foundation Inc | Effects of work and financial assistance policies on child outcomes: long-term evidence from welfare reform experiments | 1 | $151,936 |
| The Hartwell Foundation Corporation | Fellowship award | 1 | $150,000 |
| The Esther A & Joseph Klingenstein Fund Inc | Neuroscience | 1 | $150,000 |
| Democracy Fund Inc | Program support for the Data and Democracy Lab | 1 | $150,000 |
| The Estee Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation | General operating support | 1 | $150,000 |
| Wescustogo Foundation | Weill Cornell Medicine | 1 | $125,061 |
| The Statler Foundation | Scholarships and support | 1 | $116,492 |
| New York Vegetable Association Inc | Vegetable research | 1 | $113,385 |
| Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation | Research, general support & education | 1 | $110,000 |
| The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Inc | Camille teacher- scholar award grant | 1 | $100,000 |
| Whitehall Foundation Inc | Biological Research | 1 | $100,000 |
| Tsunami Foundation | Weill Cornell's Neurosurgery Training | 1 | $100,000 |
| Brown Foundation Inc | Mary fainsod katzenstein prison program director's discretionary fund | 1 | $100,000 |
| The Joseph and Florence Mandel Family- Michele M and Lawrence R Beyer Family Fund | Project support | 1 | $100,000 |
| David Bershad Family Foundation Inc | General use | 1 | $100,000 |
| Chau Family Charitable Foundation | Contribution to the university research, discovery, public engagement and creativity. | 1 | $100,000 |
| The Allen Institute for Artificial | Research | 1 | $100,000 |
| Bohmfalk Charitable Trust | General | 1 | $92,000 |
| Gray Foundation | Nolan school/ceriale scholarship | 1 | $85,141 |
| John and Gwen Smart Foundation | Weill cornell medicine COVID 19 | 1 | $85,000 |
| Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund | Education | 1 | $84,500 |
Using this list
A foundation that already gives to Cornell University gives in its field and region, so the list doubles as a prospect list for similar organizations in Ithaca. Open a foundation to see its application rules, typical grant and every other grant it paid.
Questions people ask
Who funds Cornell University?
Gates Foundation, Stephanie and Peter Nolan Foundation, The Selander Foundation, Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation and The Simons Foundation Inc, and 458 more, according to their IRS Form 990-PF filings.
How much does Cornell University get from foundations?
$80.5 million in 590 reported grants from 463 private foundations in tax years 2023 to 2025. Government grants and gifts from individuals are not included.
Which of these funders accept applications?
Gates Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Seneca Foods Foundation, The Duffield Family Foundation DBA Maddie's Fund and The Block Friedman Family Foundation Inc say in their filings that they accept applications.