Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation operates as a predominantly invitation-driven funder — its `preselected_only` designation means the vast majority of grantmaking happens outside open competitions, through cultivated relationships with major research universities and institutions. For most external applicants, the actionable path runs through periodic Requests for Applications (RFAs) posted at apply.chanzuckerberg.com, which represent the few windows when outside organizations can apply without a pre-existing CZI relationship.

CZI's giving philosophy has undergone a decisive and public pivot since early 2025. The foundation has retrenched from K-12 school reform, affordable housing, climate change, and DEI programming, concentrating resources on what it now describes as its singular mission: using AI to cure, prevent, or manage all disease by the end of the century. The elimination of the DEIA team (February 2025), closure of The Primary School campuses (announced April 2025), and withdrawal from Bay Area housing and homelessness grants (reported May 2025) are not transitional moves — the February 2026 organizational restructuring and 70 job cuts confirm this as a permanent reorientation.

The grantee portfolio reveals a strong institutional bias toward elite research universities. Harvard leads with $249 million across 12 grants; UC Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, the University of Washington, and the University of Hawaii Foundation are all top-tier recipients. These relationships developed over time — often beginning with $5-10 million seed grants before scaling to nine-figure commitments. First-time applicants should not expect large awards; CZI's model is to validate a relationship at the RFA level before deepening it.

For science applicants, alignment with CZI's four operational grand challenges is critical: understanding biology at the cellular level, developing imaging tools for previously invisible biological processes, building open-source scientific data infrastructure, and applying AI/ML to accelerate biomedical discovery. The Biohub network (San Francisco, Chicago, New York) and Human Cell Atlas are flagship commitments that define what adjacent research will receive support. Community applicants are limited to San Mateo County and broader Bay Area organizations focused on economic access and workforce opportunity — not policy, advocacy, or social services broadly.

Across 457 recorded grants totaling $1.33 billion, the average grant is $2.91 million — but this figure conceals a profoundly bimodal distribution. The top five recipient relationships (Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Inc., Harvard, CZ Biohub SF LLC, University of Hawaii Foundation, and Gates Philanthropy Partners) account for approximately $647 million, roughly 49% of total documented giving. The remaining grants average closer to $1.5-2 million per award, though community grants at the lower end (e.g., $3.6 million for a CT scanner at Wilcox Hospital in Hawaii) can be much smaller.

Annual giving has been highly variable: $202M in fiscal 2019, $188M in 2020, $882M in 2021 (a peak year driven by $362.5M in new founder contributions), $403M in 2022, $128M in 2023, and $166M in 2024. The 2024 figure includes $235M in grants paid against $166M in total giving reported, reflecting timing differences in multi-year commitments. Total assets reached $7.5 billion in FY2024, supported by $1.49 billion in total revenue — including $690 million in new contributions and $1.21 billion in net investment income. CZI has committed $10 billion-plus to research over the next decade, so annual giving will likely grow from 2024 levels.

Geographically, California dominates with 138 top-tier grants, followed by Massachusetts (47), Washington D.C. (39), New York (37), Washington State (18), Texas (16), Hawaii (16), Minnesota (14), and Pennsylvania (10). This reflects CZI's concentration on major research university hubs and its Biohub network locations.

By program area, the science portfolio is dominant: the Biohub network alone has received over $350 million across grants to four entities. Open science and Human Cell Atlas grants add significant additional funding. Historical RFA-scale awards have ranged from approximately $150,000 for individual EOSS (Essential Open Source Software) grants to $500,000 for seed network grants, with multi-year science RFAs reaching $1-3 million. Education has historically claimed 15-20% of annual giving but is declining sharply. Community grants typically range from $500,000 to $5 million per recipient per year.

The following table compares CZI to four peer foundations of similar asset scale, all classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking:

CZI's $7.5 billion asset base places it squarely within a peer group of mega-philanthropies. Structurally, Good Ventures (Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz) is the closest analog — both are LLC-foundation hybrid vehicles making transformational-scale bets rather than traditional grant cycles, and both are deeply influenced by effective altruism and tech-sector epistemics. CZI stands distinctly apart from Hilton and Helmsley by operating as a science builder as much as a funder: the Biohub network, CZ Imaging Institute, and proprietary AI models (GREmLN) represent operating infrastructure CZI controls directly. Sophisticated applicants should understand that CZI's goal is often to create knowledge-sharing infrastructure the entire field uses — proposals that embed results into open-data ecosystems (Human Cell Atlas, bioRxiv/medRxiv) resonate far more strongly than proposals with siloed outputs.

The defining development of 2025-2026 is CZI's structural reorientation. In February 2026, the foundation eliminated approximately 70 positions (~8% of its workforce), with leadership framing the cuts as necessary to fully commit to AI-powered biomedical research. This restructuring follows a cascade of program withdrawals: the DEIA team was disbanded in February 2025 after COO Marc Malandro's announcement; The Primary School's East Palo Alto and San Leandro campuses were slated for closure at the end of the 2025-26 school year in April 2025; and by May 2025, Bay Area nonprofits reported devastating funding cuts affecting affordable housing and homelessness programs.

On the science front, the pace of investment accelerated sharply. In July 2025, CZI committed $20 million over three years to UCSF and UC Berkeley to develop personalized CRISPR-based treatments for eight children with severe rare genetic immune disorders — CZI's first publicly announced investment in treatment-focused (not basic) research. In October 2025, CZI partnered with NVIDIA to scale virtual cell model development to petabyte-level biological data processing. The GREmLN AI model, which identifies cellular control networks relevant to cancer detection, launched in July 2025.

In September 2025, CZI announced its annual Community Fund recipients for San Mateo County organizations focused on economic access. In February 2026, Mark Zuckerberg separately pledged $50 million to a Sacramento STEM facilities and tech talent pipeline program, demonstrating continued California community investment despite the broader funding retreat. The Biohub network's Human Cell Atlas commitment deepened throughout 2025-2026, with Medscape reporting CZI's long-term bet on cellular mapping as the foundational data layer for AI-medicine.

The most important strategic insight for any CZI applicant is that this is not a traditional open-competition funder. The foundation's preselected-only status means most of its $166+ million in annual giving flows through invited relationships — not unsolicited applications. External applicants who win CZI funding through RFAs typically spend years building credibility in the field before CZI reaches out proactively.

The primary actionable path is monitoring apply.chanzuckerberg.com for open RFAs. Sign up for CZI's mailing list immediately — RFAs are not widely advertised and typically close within six to eight weeks of opening. Create your SurveyMonkey Apply account in advance and use Google Chrome exclusively.

Content alignment is non-negotiable in 2026. High-priority areas include: AI applications in basic cell biology and biomedical research; open-source scientific software supporting shared data infrastructure (the EOSS program has funded 219 projects to date); rare disease research led by patient-led nonprofit organizations (the Rare as One program); single-cell and multicellular biology research aligned with the Human Cell Atlas; and AI-powered K-12 learning tools explicitly designed for classroom implementation within The Learning Commons framework. Do not submit proposals centered on DEI, affordable housing, climate change/carbon removal, or social advocacy — CZI has publicly withdrawn from these areas and has not signaled re-engagement.

Language alignment is critical. Mirror CZI's mission language: proposals should describe work that will 'cure, prevent, or manage all disease,' 'accelerate scientific discovery,' 'build shared infrastructure for the field,' or 'enable biological measurements that were previously impossible.' Avoid generic impact language. CZI evaluates science proposals on scientific rigor, team technical capacity, and the degree to which results will be shared openly.

For community grants (San Mateo County and Bay Area), Community Fund RFAs typically open in March-April and announce awards in September. Grant sizes typically range from $100,000 to $1 million per recipient annually, focused on economic opportunity and workforce access — not advocacy or policy change.