Broad Foundation

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation operates as one of Los Angeles' most consequential private funders, with $1.86 billion in assets and annual giving that reached $147.5 million in fiscal year 2024. Understanding this foundation begins with a fundamental constraint: it does not accept unsolicited proposals. All grantmaking is preselected and invitation-driven, managed through long-term relationships cultivated by President Gerun Riley (21+ years at the foundation), Vice President of Programs Isabel Acosta, and Senior Program Officer Porsha Cropper, Ph.D.

The foundation's strategy is dual-track. The first track consists of flagship institution stewardship — the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, The Broad museum in downtown Los Angeles, and the Broad Center at Yale School of Management. These entities have received hundreds of millions of dollars over time and represent the foundation's primary philanthropic identity. New organizations cannot realistically compete for this tier of funding.

The second track is the Los Angeles community portfolio, organized around three pillars: Skills for the New Economy, Pathways to Good Jobs, and Civic Partnerships. This is where the 60+ community organizations receive grants typically ranging from $500,000 to $3 million. These grantees share a clear profile: Los Angeles-based, serving historically marginalized communities, with demonstrated systems-level impact and a theory of change that connects education, workforce development, or civic engagement to tangible economic mobility.

First-time applicants should not approach the foundation cold. Instead, the path in runs through the foundation's existing grantee network — organizations like California Community Foundation, Community Partners, and Alliance College-Ready Public Schools that have deep relationships with Broad program officers. Being referred or co-presented by an existing grantee is far more effective than any direct outreach. Track the foundation's annual grants reports (published each September) to identify which organizations are being re-funded and which new entrants they're testing, as these signal active areas of interest. Organizations working in aviation and aerospace career training, justice-involved populations, multilingual learner education, or post-wildfire small business recovery should note that all four are active 2025 priorities.

The Broad Foundation's grantmaking data across 587 recorded grants totaling $637.4 million reveals a highly concentrated portfolio. The average grant is $1,085,799 — but this figure is skewed by the foundation's enormous flagship institution grants. The Broad Art Foundation alone received $84 million; the Broad Institute received grants totaling over $221 million across multiple tranches ($75M, $60M, $50M, $36M); and Yale University received $43 million for the Broad Center.

Stripping out the foundation's proprietary flagship institutions, the community organization grant range runs from approximately $500,000 to $5 million per grant, with most community grants landing in the $750,000–$2.5 million band. Grant counts per grantee in the community portfolio typically run 2–5 grants over time, suggesting the foundation prefers multi-year relationships over one-time gifts.

Geographic concentration is extreme: 491 of 587 tracked grants (84%) went to California-based organizations, with the overwhelming majority in Los Angeles. DC-based organizations (18 grants, mostly national policy orgs like Everytown for Gun Safety) and Massachusetts-based organizations (15 grants, dominated by MIT and Harvard) are the only meaningful out-of-state categories.

Annual giving trend: FY2022 was an outlier low at $87.3 million in total giving. FY2023 rebounded to $141.8 million, and FY2024 reached $147.5 million — the highest in recent years. Investment income drives the payout capacity; FY2024 net investment income was $64 million, supplemented by asset appreciation on the $1.86 billion portfolio.

Program area breakdown (from grant purpose language): Science & Medical Research accounts for the largest single category by dollar volume (dominated by Broad Institute grants). Education (K-12, workforce, higher ed) represents the largest number of individual grants. Arts receives fewer but typically large grants. The newer LA pillars — Skills, Pathways, Civic — together account for the majority of the community-facing grant count.

The Broad Foundation operates in a peer cohort of large, private, single-family foundations in the $1.7–2.0 billion asset range with place-based or thematic concentration strategies. The comparison below uses publicly available financials and reported giving patterns.

The Broad Foundation stands out among this peer group for the scale and concentration of its annual giving — $147.5 million in FY2024 represents a substantially higher payout ratio than several peers. Unlike the Barr Foundation (which funds outside Los Angeles and has a more accessible LOI process) or the Weinberg Foundation (which maintains an open application portal for some programs), the Broad Foundation has no open application pathway whatsoever. The Wallace Foundation is the closest structural analog — both are invitation-only, systems-change-oriented, and fund at similar scale — but Wallace is explicitly national while Broad is LA-anchored. Organizations seeking accessible entry points into this asset tier would find Barr Foundation or Weinberg Foundation comparatively more accessible.

The foundation's most significant recent activity is its 2025 Los Angeles wildfire response. Following fires that displaced over 205,000 residents and caused up to $8.9 billion in economic losses, the foundation funded the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation for direct technical assistance to fire-impacted small businesses, and Inclusive Action for the City for small business coaching. This emergency track ran alongside — not instead of — the core grantmaking portfolio.

In September 2025, the foundation released its annual grants and partners report, listing 14+ new or continuing grantee organizations including Building College Success (Futures Project for 400+ STEAM students), Cambiar Education (micro-internships for 1,400 LA students), and Fly Compton Aeronautical Education Foundation (aviation for 2,000+ youth annually). A second tranche of 2025 grants was disclosed in February 2026.

In September 2024, the foundation announced the appointment of Greg Outcalt as Chief Investment Officer, taking oversight of more than $2 billion in combined foundation and family office assets — a significant operational appointment that signals continued professionalization of the investment management function.

In November 2024, the foundation backed the largest guaranteed basic income program for community college students in U.S. history, focused on healthcare workforce development. In August 2024, it announced a partnership between the News Literacy Project and LAUSD, framing civic information literacy as a public education priority.

The foundation's prior landmark was the April 2021 death of founder Eli Broad at age 87, followed by a $150 million unrestricted endowment gift to the Broad Institute's Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center. Edythe Broad remains on the board as trustee.

Do not attempt to submit an unsolicited proposal or LOI. The Broad Foundation explicitly lists `preselected_only` as its operating model and its website provides no application portal, deadline, or submission instructions. Any organization that sends a cold proposal to the foundation's Los Angeles office (300 S. Grand Ave., Suite 1800) is unlikely to receive a response.

Build relationships through the grantee ecosystem. The most reliable path to Broad consideration is a warm introduction from an existing grantee or intermediary. Organizations such as Community Partners, California Community Foundation, the Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles, and Silicon Schools Fund have all received multiple Broad grants. Engaging their leadership and appearing in shared convenings, coalitions, or co-authored publications puts you in the field of view of Broad program officers.

Study the annual grants report obsessively. Published each September on broadfoundation.org, the grants and partners report is the foundation's primary public signal. Track which organizations are funded for the first time (new relationships being tested) and which are receiving repeat grants (deepening partnerships). Organizations listed as new entries in 2024 or 2025 represent the clearest evidence of where the foundation is actively expanding its portfolio.

Align language to the three LA pillars. Every community-facing proposal concept should be expressible in terms of Skills for the New Economy, Pathways to Good Jobs, or Civic Partnerships. These labels are not cosmetic — they represent how program officers categorize grant purpose in their own tracking systems (confirmed in grant purpose language from IRS filings).

Demonstrate Los Angeles rootedness and community accountability. The foundation has explicitly shifted away from national organizations with LA sub-offices toward organizations that are genuinely embedded in historically marginalized LA communities (South LA, Compton, East LA, Boyle Heights). Having board members, leadership, or staff from the communities you serve is increasingly expected, not optional.

Prioritize measurable systems impact over program delivery. Broad funds organizations that change conditions — charter management systems, workforce pipeline architectures, civic infrastructure. Pure service delivery without a demonstrated ecosystem impact theory is unlikely to succeed.