Edward P Evans

The Edward P. Evans Foundation operates as one of the most narrowly focused philanthropies in American science — by design. Following founder Edward P. Evans' death from acute myelogenous leukemia on December 31, 2010, the foundation restructured its entire grant-making apparatus around a single disease cluster: Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Its primary funding vehicle, EvansMDS, awards more than $9 million per year exclusively to research on these conditions. This is not a foundation that funds adjacent causes.

For MDS researchers, the foundation's approach reflects a deliberate bet on institutional relationships rather than broad solicitation. The top 10 grantees — Albert Einstein College of Medicine ($6.75M across 4 grants), Memorial Sloan Kettering ($8.32M combined), Washington University ($5.04M), and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ($5.45M combined) — have each received multiple awards over multiple cycles. First-time applicants should understand they are entering a competitive peer group of the top 30-40 MDS research programs in the country, not a general grant pool.

The foundation explicitly states it "does not accept and will not acknowledge unsolicited funding requests." Grant cycles open each November and close January 31, announced only to registered contacts via email. Register at evansmds.org and whitelist grants@epefoundation.org before doing anything else.

Two tracks exist for research applicants: EvansMDS Young Investigator Awards (for early-career researchers, full application required) and Discovery Research Grants (for established investigators, Letter of Intent required as first step, submitted via Proposal Central). A third stream — the Edward P. Evans Centers for MDS — provides longer-term institutional support with endowed faculty positions and fellowship programs at select anchor institutions.

The foundation's secondary missions — capital grants to educational institutions connected to Mr. Evans personally (Eaglebrook School, Yale, Harvard Business School) and modern American visual arts — are invitation-only and not accessible to outside applicants. If your work is not in MDS or AML research, there is no pathway in.

Across 146 recorded grants totaling $63.1 million in the foundation's database profile, the giving picture is concentrated and hierarchical. The average grant is $432,513 — but this figure is pulled upward by transformational awards like the $2.9M Columbia University single-grant Centers for MDS gift and the $6.75M spread across four Albert Einstein grants. The median individual grant sits at $200,000, and the typical grant range for project-based awards runs $150,000-$500,000 per year over two-year terms.

Annual total giving from 990 filings shows meaningful variation: $12.5M (2012), $17.5M (2013), $16.6M (2014 and 2015), $16.0M (2018), $16.3M (2019), $27.1M (2020), $21.4M (2021), and $24.7M (2022). The 2020 spike to $27.1M likely reflects pandemic-period portfolio distributions or accelerated grant cycles. The EvansMDS initiative reports awarding "over $9M annually" for basic, translational, and clinical research through two-year grants — the gap between this figure and the $21-27M annual total reflects educational capital grants (the $50M Yale Hall commitment was pledged in 2010 and paid over time) and arts funding.

Geographically, New York institutions dominate with 26 grants (Memorial Sloan Kettering, Albert Einstein, Columbia, NYU), followed by Massachusetts at 13 (Dana-Farber, Boston Children's, Massachusetts General), Texas at 13 (MD Anderson, UT Health San Antonio, Baylor), Ohio at 11 (Ohio State, Cincinnati Children's, Cleveland Clinic), and Florida at 9. This distribution mirrors the geography of major academic medical centers with established MDS programs, not regional grant-making strategy.

Total foundation assets have remained stable at $242M-$268M over the 2012-2023 period, with net investment income funding the grant program. With officer compensation at $1.4M annually and total assets of $254M, the foundation's payout rate has consistently exceeded the IRS minimum 5% requirement, typically running 8-10% of assets in high-giving years.

The foundation's database peers are matched by NTEE code (B82, Education) and asset size (~$250M) — a classification artifact that groups EPE with conventional education funders. For mission-based comparison, EPE is best understood alongside disease-focused research philanthropies and major education capital funders.

Two conclusions emerge from this comparison. First, EPE's giving volume ($21-27M annually) is exceptionally high for its asset base — a 9-10% annual payout — compared to typical private foundation minimums of 5%, reflecting the foundation's time-limited mission urgency around a specific disease. Second, EPE is the only foundation in its asset-size peer group with a scientific advisory board and a research-grant-specific application portal, making it structurally more similar to disease research organizations (Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, AML Research Foundation) than to its NTEE-matched education peers. Grant seekers in education or the arts should not mistake the NTEE code for an accessible application pathway.

January 2025 brought the foundation's most significant leadership change since its 2011 mission pivot: Timothy A. Graubert, MD joined as the second president, succeeding Michael Lewis, PhD. Dr. Graubert is himself an active MDS researcher, investigating the genetic and biologic bases of the disease with a focus on targeted therapy development. His appointment signals a shift toward deeper scientific leadership at the foundation level and likely a more hands-on engagement with grant portfolio strategy.

In June 2025, Dana-Farber Impact Magazine published a feature profile confirming $1.65 million in 2024 grants to three Dana-Farber researchers: Lachelle Weeks, MD, PhD (2024 Discovery Research Grant for therapy-related MDS and clonal hematopoiesis), Nicole Prutsch, PhD (2024 Young Investigator Award for TET2 mutation biology), and Michelle Robinette, MD, PhD (2024 Young Investigator Award for MDS-autoimmune disease connections). This brings the foundation's total Dana-Farber investment to more than $14 million since 2013.

The 2026 grant cycle (Young Investigator Awards and Discovery Research Grants) closed January 31, 2026, with the 2027 cycle scheduled to open in November 2026. No major program structure changes were announced for the 2026 cycle relative to 2025.

The Edward P. Evans Center for Myelodysplastic Syndromes at Columbia University's Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center remains an active anchor institution. No leadership departures, new Centers announcements, or arts/education grant announcements were identified in the 2025-2026 search period beyond the Dana-Farber awards.

The single most important action for any MDS researcher is registration: visit evansmds.org, complete the contact form, and whitelist grants@epefoundation.org. The foundation does not respond to cold outreach, and without being on the email list, you will miss the November cycle-open announcement entirely.

For Young Investigator Awards, you submit a full application directly — there is no pre-screening LOI. This track targets early-career researchers who can demonstrate an independent research focus in MDS or AML biology. Budget your award request in the $150,000-$300,000 per year range (two-year grants) based on the grantee dataset, though amounts are not publicly specified. Your research timeline must include annual milestones with explicit deliverables — the foundation treats milestone achievement as a precondition for subsequent-year disbursement, not a soft reporting requirement.

For Discovery Research Grants, submit a Letter of Intent first. Investigators invited to submit full proposals will receive further instructions. Frame your LOI around a specific mechanistic question in MDS biology (mutation, pathway, cell type, therapeutic target) rather than clinical outcomes or population studies — new president Timothy Graubert, MD is himself a bench researcher and the scientific advisory board reviews with that lens.

Collaboration language is non-negotiable. State explicitly in your proposal how you will make reagents available to other EvansMDS researchers, what data-sharing plan you will follow, and which other institutions or investigators you are coordinating with. Proposals that read as solo-PI projects without multi-institutional coordination are misaligned with the foundation's stated model.

Budget for mandatory travel to EvansMDS scientific meetings (location and frequency not publicly specified, but attendance is a funding condition). Include this in your grant budget and your IRB/compliance planning from the start.

Finally, review the grantee list carefully. If your institution has an existing EPE relationship (Albert Einstein, MSK, Washington University, Dana-Farber, Columbia), speak to your grants office about the institutional track record — a warm internal introduction to the foundation program staff, if available through existing grantees, is worth more than an unsolicited inquiry.