Michelson Philanthropies Inc.

Michelson Philanthropies Inc. (EIN 87-2298894) is the small, corporate parent-entity filing for a much larger family of foundations built around Dr. Gary K. Michelson and Alya Michelson — Michelson Medical Research Foundation, Michelson Found Animals, Michelson 20MM, the Michelson Center for Public Policy, and the Michelson IP Institute. This filing entity itself is compact: $4.04M in total assets (FY2024) and just 26 recorded grants totaling $717,138 (average $27,582), heavily concentrated in medical research and immigrant-community programming. Critically, the organization states outright that it does not accept unsolicited proposals or grant requests. Nearly every grantee identified in web research — the 2026 Spark Grants cohort, the Michelson Prizes winners — was either invited to apply through a defined competitive portal or sourced through the founders' existing networks (UCLA, the Human Immunome Project, national scientific societies). First-time applicants should not expect a general LOI process here. The one true open door is the Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants, a competitive, portal-based program (michelsonprizes.smapply.org) for early-career immunology/vaccine/immunotherapy researchers under 35, awarding $150,000 per winner annually. Outside that program, the realistic path in is relationship-based: getting invited into a Spark Grant cohort, being identified as a strategic partner in immunology/immunome research (as the Human Immunome Project was, receiving $471,028 across two grants — 66% of this entity's entire tracked grant dollars), or aligning with the FirstGen program supporting immigrant women through storytelling and career pathways ($89,725 in FY990 program spend). Grantees skew toward established, credentialed intermediaries — national scientific associations (AAAS, Keystone Symposia, ASGCT), university-adjacent nonprofits (Foundation for California Community Colleges), and workforce/refugee-services organizations (Upwardly Global, Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers) — rather than small grassroots groups, though a long tail of $125–$7,000 gifts to community organizations (Veggielution, Wags and Walks, Inner City Law Center) shows the founders also fund smaller, personally chosen causes directly. For most applicants, the realistic strategy is visibility and alignment rather than a cold application: publish research or program outcomes that intersect with immunology, animal welfare, education equity, or IP education, and pursue warm introductions through the sister foundations' existing grantee and advisor networks.

This filing entity's grantmaking is small and lumpy relative to its balance sheet. FY2023 (the last year with full detail) shows grants_paid of $913,938 against total_giving of $6,653,199 and contributions_received of $6,596,675 — meaning the bulk of that year's giving figure reflects flow-through to affiliated Michelson entities or program-related transfers rather than the 26 discrete third-party grants captured in the grantee list ($717,138 combined, averaging $27,582 per grant). Total assets have swung sharply: essentially $0-$1 in FY2021 (an apparent startup/reorganization year), $898,160 in FY2022, $2,983,715 in FY2023, and $4,037,394 in FY2024, with FY2024 revenue jumping to $8,224,722 — consistent with a pass-through vehicle that receives large contributions and redistributes them quickly rather than building an endowment. Officer compensation was $0 in FY2022 but $421,108 in FY2023, despite all three named officers (Gary Karlin Michelson, Geoffrey Baum, David Cohen) individually reporting $0 compensation in the people data — indicating compensation is booked at a shared-services or umbrella level. On the grantee side, the distribution is top-heavy: the Human Immunome Project alone captured $471,028 (66% of total tracked grant dollars) across 2 grants, and the next ten grants range from $50,000 (AAAS) down to $3,800 (Coro Southern California) — a steep drop-off. Below that, 11 grants cluster at $125–$1,000, mostly to local Los Angeles-area or animal-welfare/community groups, suggesting discretionary founder-directed giving rather than a structured program budget. Geographically, California dominates with 10 of 26 grantees, followed by New York with 7 (likely reflecting national scientific-society headquarters), and single grantees spread across CO, DC, MA, MD, MT, NC, WA, and WI. Program-level Form 990 spend breaks out as $549,357 for Michelson Medical Research and $89,725 for FirstGen (immigrant women's storytelling/career pathways), confirming medical research is this entity's dominant program line even though grantee dollars flow mostly to one recipient.

Among Philanthropy & Grantmaking (NTEE T23) organizations of similar asset size (~$4M), Michelson Philanthropies Inc. stands apart for its brand visibility and founder-driven, invitation-only model — most true asset-matched peers are small family or memorial funds with no public web presence or grant program at all.

All six organizations sit within roughly $10,000 of each other in total assets, but Michelson Philanthropies is the clear outlier on activity: it is the only one with an active website, a named executive director (Phillip J. Kim, appointed Feb. 2026), affiliated competitive grant programs (the $150,000 Michelson Prizes), and documented seven-figure annual giving. The peer set's memorial and family trusts appear to be largely dormant or minimally active pass-through vehicles with no evidence of grant programs, websites, or public contact channels — meaning Michelson is effectively unbenchmarked at its asset tier and is better compared to its own much larger sister foundations (Michelson Medical Research Foundation, Michelson Found Animals) than to same-asset peers.

The most significant recent development is organizational: Michelson Philanthropies named Phillip J. Kim as its first Executive Director in February 2026. Kim has been part of the Michelson ecosystem since 2009 and most recently served as CEO of the Michelson 20MM Foundation and Managing Director of Michelson Impact Ventures — his appointment signals a shift toward centralized, professional management across the five-foundation network rather than direct founder-led operations. On the program side, the Michelson Medical Research Foundation announced its eighth cohort of Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants winners in early 2026, naming five early-career immunology researchers to receive $150,000 each; the 2026 application cycle opened March 30 and closed June 22, 2026, for applicants 35 or younger. Michelson 20MM introduced its 2026 Student Basic Needs Spark Community Advisors, a cohort of practitioners and people with lived experience who will help shape the next funding round, building on a prior $100,000 Spark Grants round that funded four invited organizations working on student food and housing insecurity (CSU Dominguez Hills, Elevate Community Services/Fresno City College, Higher Learning Advocates, and Young Invincibles). Michelson 20MM also closed out 2025 with a year-end highlights report and had earlier, in January 2025, published a digital-equity study documenting internet-access barriers for underserved Los Angeles communities. No major new capital gifts on the scale of the 2019 $120M UCLA immunology/immunotherapy commitment were identified in this research window; recent activity is concentrated in program continuity (Prizes, Spark Grants) and organizational maturation (the ED hire) rather than headline-grabbing new commitments.

Do not send an unsolicited LOI or proposal to Michelson Philanthropies Inc. directly — the organization explicitly states it does not accept unsolicited grant requests, and every documented recent grantee (Spark Grants cohort, Human Immunome Project, national scientific societies) was either invited or engaged through a defined competitive program run by an affiliated foundation. The single genuinely open, competitive channel is the Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants, administered by the affiliated Michelson Medical Research Foundation through a dedicated portal (michelsonprizes.smapply.org), with a fixed annual window historically running late March through late June. Eligibility is strict: applicants must be early-career (35 or younger as of the application deadline) and working in human immunology, vaccine discovery, or immunotherapy — but the foundation explicitly welcomes cross-disciplinary applicants from biochemistry, molecular biology, protein engineering, computer/data science, AI/ML, biophysics, and nanotechnology, so frame interdisciplinary work in immunology terms rather than assuming a narrow wet-lab focus is required. Practical mechanics: use your current institutional affiliation on the form (awards are made to the institution via legal agreement, not to the individual), and know that the application cannot be edited once submitted — have collaborators and mentors review before you click submit. For the separate reproductive-biology prize track (Michelson Prize & Grants in Reproductive Biology, under Found Animals), the required format is a strict letter of intent capped at three typed pages, 3/4-inch margins, 11-point Arial or Helvetica, submitted in English — deviation from these formatting rules is a common rejection trigger for LOI-based competitions generally, so follow the spec exactly. Outside the two competitive prize tracks, the realistic path to funding is relationship-building: get on the radar of program staff at Michelson 20MM (education/equity), Michelson Found Animals (animal welfare), or the Michelson IP Institute (IP education, including HBCU-focused programming) well before a funding cycle opens, since Spark Grants and similar rapid rounds are filled by invitation from advisors and existing networks, not open calls. For general inquiries or to explore alignment, use media@michelsonphilanthropies.org or the published grants contact (Kathryn Dunn, k.dunn@michelsonphilanthropies.org) rather than submitting a formal proposal cold — a brief, specific introduction explaining alignment with a named program is more likely to get a response than a generic funding request.