Funding search · EIN 956092354 · Los Angeles, CA

Wm Keck Foundation

Name: Wm Keck Foundation grants, 2022–2024
Creator: PaperOrbit
License: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organization-public-disclosure-and-availability-requirements

A private foundation (files IRS Form 990-PF). Most private foundations do not take unsolicited applications; the route in is usually a program officer.

757
grants reported: $202.0M
total given: 2022–2024
filing years: $15,000
median grant

Based on grants this organization reported to the IRS for tax years 2022–2024. This is what they filed, not a complete record of their giving, and recent years may be incomplete because filings lag.

What they fund

develop education expand research science study system angeles

Funder website ↗Full IRS filings ↗How this is built Report an error

Funding pattern

What this funder pays for, at what size, and how to position adjacent work. Read from their filings, with every number checked against the record.

Where the money goes

High-risk basic science research grants at universities, roughly $1-1.6M
Undergraduate science and engineering capacity building at colleges
Southern California K-12 STEM pathways, youth services, facility construction
Los Angeles arts, museums and music education capital projects
Small general support gifts to schools, hospitals, policy groups

Typical grant

The median grant is $15,000 and half fall between $5,000 and $100,000, but that reflects a long tail of small general support checks. The real program money moves in two tiers: single-investigator science awards of $1,000,000 to $1,600,000, and institutional or capital grants of $1,000,000 to $7,500,000 to universities, schools and arts organizations. Southern California community grants cluster at $250,000 to $500,000. Repeat giving shows up mostly among the small general support names and a few anchor institutions like USC, UCLA, Claremont McKenna and Linfield, which appear at both tiers.

Their words

Phrases from their own grant descriptions, worth speaking back to them.

“TO UNDERSTAND”
“TO DEVELOP”
“TO ENHANCE AND ELEVATE”
“INTERDICIPLINARY SCIENCE RESEARCH AND EDUCATION”
“FOR GENERAL SUPPORT OF CHARITABLE PURPOSES”

Positioning adjacent work

Frame the project as one testable question, echoing their 'TO UNDERSTAND' or 'TO DEVELOP' phrasing in a single line.
Ask $1.0M to $1.6M for a research project; anything smaller reads as the wrong tier.
Emphasize novel methods, tools or probes that existing federal funders would call too risky.
If in Southern California, connect to STEM education pathways or facility construction instead of research.

Worth knowing: California takes 449 of 757 grants, and Los Angeles County dominates the non-research giving entirely, so out-of-state applicants realistically compete only in the science research tier. Research awards spread widely across institutions nationally with little repetition, while the seven- and eight-figure institutional gifts go to schools with existing Keck ties.

9 grants matching “quantum” · $10.8M

$1.3M
Northwestern University · Evanston, IL · 2024
To test for violation of quantum linearity due to gravity
$1.2M
Trustees of Purdue University · West Lafayette, IN · 2024
To realize a quantum spin liquid using strain
$1.3M
University of California Santa Barbara · Santa Barbara, CA · 2023
To explore quantum interactive matter.
$1.2M
Purdue University · West Lafayette, IN · 2023
To generate attosecond entangled light for quantum spectroscopy.
$1.1M
University of Texas at Austin · Austin, TX · 2023
To stabilize novel quantum phases of matter through vacuum fluctuations.
$1.4M
University of Minnesota Twin Cities · Minneapolis, MN · 2022
To fabricate topological quantum architectures through dna programmable molecular assembly.
$1.2M
Rice University · Houston, TX · 2022
To realize theoretically predicted intrinsic and macroscopic quantum squeezing in materials.
$1.1M
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey · New Brunswick, NJ · 2022
To control topological quantum magnetism using vortex light beams.
$1.0M
University of Oklahoma · Norman, OK · 2022
To explore self-organization across the classical to quantum transition.

Top recipients

Repeat recipients are the strongest signal of whether a funder has an open door or quietly re-funds the same organizations.

University of Southern California7 grants · $24.4M
Claremont McKenna College6 grants · $12.4M
Chapman University3 grants · $8.0M
Linfield University6 grants · $6.1M
California Institute of Technology5 grants · $5.7M
Pepperdine University4 grants · $5.3M
Los Angeles County Museum of Art2 grants · $4.0M
Stanford University4 grants · $3.3M
University of California Los Angeles5 grants · $3.3M
University of California Berkeley6 grants · $3.0M

Giving over time

$67.8M

2022

$64.5M

2023

$69.7M

2024

Grant history

The 100 largest of 757 grants.

$7.5M
University of Southern California · Los Angeles, CA · 2024
To accelerate groundbreaking medical, clinical and translational research and education
$7.5M
University of Southern California · Los Angeles, CA · 2023
To accelerate groundbreaking medical, clinical and translational research and education.
$7.5M
University of Southern California · Los Angeles, CA · 2022
To accelerate groundbreaking medical, clinical and translational research and education.
$4.0M
Chapman University · Orange, CA · 2024
To enhance and elevate chapman universitys science and engineering
$4.0M
Claremont McKenna College · Claremont, CA · 2024
To enhance claremont mckenna college's interdiciplinary science research and education
$4.0M
California Institute of Technology · Pasadena, CA · 2023
To establish the endowed edward c. Stone professorship.
$4.0M
Claremont McKenna College · Claremont, CA · 2023
To enhance claremont mckenna college's interdisciplinary science research and education.
$4.0M
Claremont McKenna College · Claremont, CA · 2022
To enhance claremont mckenna college's interdiciplinary science research and education.
$3.0M
Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science · Los Angeles, CA · 2023
To support the construction of a health professions education building for the new medical school in south los angeles.
$3.0M
University of California Davis · Davis, CA · 2022
To study endogenous psychedelics and their possible roles in health and disease.
$2.5M
Pepperdine University · Malibu, CA · 2023
To support the keck data science center and initiative.
$2.5M
Pepperdine University · Malibu, CA · 2022
To support the keck data science center and inititative.
$2.0M
Linfield University · McMinnville, OR · 2024
To enhance linfield university's interdiciplinary science research and education
$2.0M
Museum Associates · Los Angeles, CA · 2024
To improve access to art and art education
$2.0M
The Colburn School · Los Angeles, CA · 2024
To support the for the new colburn center and endow the youth ensemble
$2.0M
Chapman University · Orange, CA · 2023
To enhance and elevate chapman universitys science and engineering.
$2.0M
Linfield University · McMinnville, OR · 2023
To enhance linfield university's interdisciplinary science research and education.
$2.0M
Los Angeles County Museum of Art · Los Angeles, CA · 2023
To improve access to art and art education for angelenos from all parts of our region.
$2.0M
Chapman University · Orange, CA · 2022
To enhance and elevate chapman universitys science and engineering.
$2.0M
Linfield University · McMinnville, OR · 2022
To enhance linfield university's interdiciplinary science research and education.
$2.0M
Los Angeles County Museum of Art · Los Angeles, CA · 2022
To improve access to art and art education for angelenos from all parts of our region.
$1.6M
Salk Institute for Biological Studies · La Jolla, CA · 2024
To develop mapping methods with generative manifold networks
$1.6M
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution · Woods Hole, MA · 2024
To construct and field a self-deploying autonomous mooring system
$1.6M
Stanford University · Redwood City, CA · 2022
Climate adaptation for food security: using satellites to measure and accelerate progress.
$1.6M
Stanford University · Redwood City, CA · 2022
Quantifying health impacts and solutions for climate-driven wildfires.
$1.5M
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center · New York, NY · 2024
To understand how a neuronal communication pathway also functions in the immune system
$1.5M
University of Oregon Foundation · Eugene, OR · 2024
To understand parameters that govern transcriptional adaptation to enable novel rna-based therapeutics
$1.5M
University of Utah · Salt Lake City, UT · 2024
To understand the genetic and epigenetic control of aging
$1.4M
George Washington University · Ashburn, VA · 2024
To investigate terrestrial locomotion in vertebrates
$1.4M
The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University · Stanford, CA · 2024
To develop bioluminescent probes for visualizing gpcr ligands
$1.4M
University of Minnesota Twin Cities · Minneapolis, MN · 2022
To fabricate topological quantum architectures through dna programmable molecular assembly.
$1.4M
University of North Texas · Denton, TX · 2022
To test whether tobacco plants can support production of bioactive fungal products.
$1.3M
La Jolla Institute for Immunology · La Jolla, CA · 2024
To validate a novel function of histones as reservoirs of cellular energy
$1.3M
Northwestern University · Evanston, IL · 2024
To test for violation of quantum linearity due to gravity
$1.3M
University of California San Francisco · San Francisco, CA · 2024
To understand t cell immune-education outside of the thymus
$1.3M
University of California Santa Barbara · Santa Barbara, CA · 2024
To decipher coral regenerative biology
$1.3M
University of Central Florida Foundation · Orlando, FL · 2024
To develop magnetic topological insulators for lossless electronics
$1.3M
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · Chapel Hill, NC · 2024
To understand network switching to rescue damage in the central nervous system
$1.3M
University of Wisconsin Madison · Madison, WI · 2024
To experimentally study nitrogen-fixing enzymes
$1.3M
Vanderbilt University · Nashville, TN · 2024
To understand the neural circuits that link oral sensation to feeding behavior
$1.3M
The J David Gladstone Institutes · San Francisco, CA · 2023
To identify hallmarks of neuronal aging that are sensitive to oxygen levels.
$1.3M
The J David Gladstone Institutes · San Francisco, CA · 2023
To develop a pipeline of tools to reveal the functions of key non-protein-coding human genome sequence variants, in health and disease.
$1.3M
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies · La Jolla, CA · 2023
To map and characterize the effects of ribosubstitution events into the dna of long-lived human cells as a possible cause of aging
$1.3M
University of California Los Angeles · Los Angeles, CA · 2023
To develop more efficient gene editors.
$1.3M
University of California San Diego · La Jolla, CA · 2023
To develop novel genetic tools that antagonize neural circuits of addiction.
$1.3M
University of California San Francisco · San Francisco, CA · 2023
To investigate cetacean adaptations to extreme environments.
$1.3M
University of California Santa Barbara · Santa Barbara, CA · 2023
To explore quantum interactive matter.
$1.3M
University of Michigan · Ann Arbor, MI · 2023
To develop targeted protein degradation in the endoplasmic reticulum.
$1.3M
University of Michigan · Ann Arbor, MI · 2023
To study the electrochemistry of single-atom alloys.
$1.3M
University of Washington · Seattle, WA · 2023
To perform multiplexed single-cell proteomics with combinatorial indexing.
$1.3M
Michigan State University · East Lansing, MI · 2022
To develop diffraction-less optical imaging: achieving the resolution of electron microscopy with light in living systems.
$1.3M
Salk Institute for Biological Studies · La Jolla, CA · 2022
To test a novel probe that enables dynamic imaging of molecular interactions on genes that determine cell fate.
$1.3M
Seattle Children'S Hospital · Seattle, WA · 2022
To exploit viral induced cellular vulnerabilities to combat infectious diseases.
$1.3M
University of California San Diego · La Jolla, CA · 2022
To develop targeted protein degradation, advanced imaging, and supercomputing methods to study the biological effects of tau aggregates in human neurons.
$1.3M
University of Washington · Seattle, WA · 2022
To develop novel probes to label cellular structures in live cells for super-resolution optical and electron microscopy.
$1.2M
Emory University · Atlanta, GA · 2024
To study how heterogeneity contributes to the spread of pathogens
$1.2M
Regents of the University of California at Riverside · Riverside, CA · 2024
To decipher social communication in stress-tolerant honeybees
$1.2M
Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York · New York, NY · 2024
To study the causes of genome instability
$1.2M
Trustees of Princeton University · Princeton, NJ · 2024
To develop tools to measure neural signal propagation at the scale of a whole brain
$1.2M
Trustees of Purdue University · West Lafayette, IN · 2024
To realize a quantum spin liquid using strain
$1.2M
Trustees of Tufts College · Medford, MA · 2024
To understand and replicate living optical networks inspired by orchid leaves
$1.2M
William Marsh Rice University · Houston, TX · 2024
To harness superradiance in molecular aggregates for super-resolution imaging
$1.2M
Colorado State University · Fort Collins, CO · 2023
To study the chemistry of indoor air quality.
$1.2M
Johns Hopkins University · Baltimore, MD · 2023
To create an energy-efficient cell-to-cell communication system using synthetic proteins.
$1.2M
Oregon State University · Corvallis, OR · 2023
To study the worlds oldest ice.
$1.2M
Purdue University · West Lafayette, IN · 2023
To generate attosecond entangled light for quantum spectroscopy.
$1.2M
Vanderbilt University · Nashville, TN · 2023
To study human proteins with low tolerance for genetic variation.
$1.2M
Emory University · Atlanta, GA · 2022
To perform mechanistic studies of wind-borne microbes in the laboratory.
$1.2M
New York University · New York, NY · 2022
To understand one-shot learning in the human brain and replicate that function in silico.
$1.2M
Ohio State University · Columbus, OH · 2022
To uncover a feedback loop between the central nervous system and adipose tissue.
$1.2M
Rice University · Houston, TX · 2022
To realize theoretically predicted intrinsic and macroscopic quantum squeezing in materials.
$1.2M
University of Kansas · Lawrence, KS · 2022
To develop a method to improve the design of molecules that target specific rnas.
$1.1M
University of Texas at Austin · Austin, TX · 2023
To stabilize novel quantum phases of matter through vacuum fluctuations.
$1.1M
California Institute of Technology · Pasadena, CA · 2022
To create a novel ultrafast electron pump, electron probe instrument.
$1.1M
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey · New Brunswick, NJ · 2022
To control topological quantum magnetism using vortex light beams.
$1.0M
Compton Community College District · Compton, CA · 2024
To create education and clinical training pathways to pursue careers in the healthcare professions
$1.0M
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History Foundation · Los Angeles, CA · 2024
To equip the discovery theater
$1.0M
Loyola Marymount University · Los Angeles, CA · 2024
Engineering complex at lmu
$1.0M
Montana State University Bozeman · Bozeman, MT · 2024
To define the role of inflammation in vertebrate bone fusion
$1.0M
Regents of the University of California at Berkeley · Berkeley, CA · 2024
To develop molecular tools to probe and manipulate cytokine signaling in immune cells
$1.0M
Regents of the University of Colorado · Denver, CO · 2024
To understand molecular vulnerabilities in cells that produce large amounts of a single protein
$1.0M
Regents of the University of Colorado · Denver, CO · 2024
To test the role of extreme conditions in early animal adaptation
$1.0M
Trustees of Boston University · Boston, MA · 2024
To study how trees thrive in the urban biome
$1.0M
Albert Einstein College of Medicine · Bronx, NY · 2023
To perform multiplexed fluorescence spectroscopy of biological samples.
$1.0M
UCLA Foundation · Los Angeles, CA · 2023
To support pulmonary research in honor of robert a. Day.
$1.0M
University of Colorado Boulder · Boulder, CO · 2023
To develop a new frequency comb enabled detector for infrared phased-array astronomy.
$1.0M
University of Southern California · Los Angeles, CA · 2023
To develop methods to engineer yeast mitochondria.
$1.0M
University of Texas at Austin · Austin, TX · 2023
To develop an artificial neurotransmission system using synthetic enzymes, pumps, and receptors.
$1.0M
Brandeis University · Waltham, MA · 2022
To understand the brain-body interface in physiology and disease.
$1.0M
Cornell University · Ithaca, NY · 2022
To develop the next generation high speed atomic force microscope.
$1.0M
Fox Chase Cancer Center · Philadelphia, PA · 2022
To use deep learning to rationally design molecular glues that can eliminate targeted proteins.
$1.0M
Santa Monica College · Santa Monica, CA · 2022
Expanding the training capacity of the equity-centered biotechnology workforce program at santa monica college.
$1.0M
University of California Berkeley · Berkeley, CA · 2022
To detect dinitrogen fluxes from terrestrial ecosystems.
$1.0M
University of California Berkeley · Berkeley, CA · 2022
To develop a carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance probe to study the chemistry of confined systems.
$1.0M
University of California Irvine · Irvine, CA · 2022
To develop a method to engineer regulating ligands for g-protein coupled receptors.
$1.0M
University of Oklahoma · Norman, OK · 2022
To explore self-organization across the classical to quantum transition.
$1.0M
University of Utah · Salt Lake City, UT · 2022
To predict the kinetics of molecular crystallization based on solution species.
$970,000
University of California Berkeley · Berkeley, CA · 2023
To develop new methods for medicinal plant suspension cell cultures.
$500,000
Able Arts Work · Long Beach, CA · 2024
To renovate a facility for the agencys first permanent home
$500,000
Da Vinci Schools · El Segundo, CA · 2024
To provide new opportunities for students to gain in-demand stem skills by creating a career and technical education studio

View all 757 grants →

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Similar grant size

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Grants already paid are the record; PaperOrbit reads your paper and finds the funders whose record matches it — then explains why.

Search funders like this one

Source: IRS Form 990-PF, Part XV, as filed by the foundation. These are grants already paid — a record of what this funder backs, not an open call.