Blackstone Charitable Foundation
ActivePhilanthropy & VoluntarismFunds Individuals
About Blackstone Charitable Foundation
The Blackstone Charitable Foundation concentrates on scaling campus-based entrepreneurship and innovation programs (notably Blackstone LaunchPad) through multi-year institutional grants to universities, while also using large pass-through gifts to international charities and grantmaking intermediaries. Their support is high-dollar and targeted, favoring repeat investments in a small set of strategic partners that can deliver programmatic scale and global reach.
Focus Areas
Campus-based entrepreneurship programs (Blackstone LaunchPad) at public universitiesHigher education partnerships to build student innovation and venture supportInternational relief and child-focused humanitarian funding (via UNICEF/US Fund for UNICEF)Philanthropic intermediaries and donor-advised/pass-through grantmaking (CAF America)
Giving Approach
Concentrated, high-value grants with repeat funding to a few institutional grantees; mix of direct program support to universities and large pass-through gifts to international NGOs and intermediaries.
Funding Style
general operating supportprogrammatic (project-specific) support
About Blackstone Charitable Foundation
The Blackstone Charitable Foundation’s largest recent grants show a pattern of backing platforms that can move money or scale programs across institutions: a $3.5 million general operating support grant to Charities Aid Foundation America in 2024 and a $3.05 million general operating support grant to United States Fund for UNICEF in 2023. Alongside those pass-through gifts, the foundation repeatedly funds campus-based entrepreneurship infrastructure through Blackstone LaunchPad, with multiple seven-figure programmatic awards to university partners. That mix of strategic intermediaries and direct institutional support points to a funder that uses large, targeted grants to reach both broad humanitarian causes and specific workforce-building programs. The foundation’s higher-education work is especially visible in its LaunchPad-related grants, where it backs universities and university-affiliated research foundations over multiple years. The same approach appears in its support for veteran-serving organizations and other community partners, where general operating support is used for organizations that can carry out established programs. Across the recent grants list, the foundation favors sizable commitments rather than small, one-off gifts, and it often returns to the same partners in successive years.
What Blackstone Charitable Foundation Funds
A major thread in the foundation’s giving is campus entrepreneurship. It awarded $2,215,824 in 2023 to the Research Foundation of the City University of New York for programmatic support for LaunchPad, then followed with another $1,984,961 in 2024 for the same purpose and $1,286,292 in 2025 for programmatic support for LaunchPad. The same program appears at other universities. The University of Texas at Dallas received $1,714,066 in 2023 and $1,519,868 in 2023 for programmatic support for LaunchPad, while Arizona State University Foundation received $683,334 in 2025 for the same initiative. Beyond higher education, the foundation also funds workforce and mobility-oriented partners. Year Up Inc received $1,000,000 in 2024 as general operating support and another $1,000,000 in 2025 as a general grant, and Per Scholas received $500,000 in 2025 as a general grant.
How Blackstone Charitable Foundation Gives
Typical grant size sits at $25,000 at the 25th percentile, $60,000 at the median, and $125,000 at the 75th percentile, though the recent list also includes multi-million-dollar awards. The foundation gives through a regular funder structure rather than a DAF and is not a program-related investor. Its recent grants show repeat support to the same organizations across multiple years, including several recurring LaunchPad partners and repeat general operating support to intermediaries. Application mode is not described in the data, and the recent record suggests a mix of general operating support, general grants, and programmatic support.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$19.2M
Total Assets
$142M
Total Revenue
$18.1M
Total Expenses
$20.5M
Typical Grant Size
Most grants fall between $25K and $125K, with a median of $60K.
25th Percentile
$25K
Median
$60K
75th Percentile
$125K
Geographic Reach
National20 states funded
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Where Blackstone Charitable Foundation Funds
Top 2 recipient countries by grant volume for Blackstone Charitable Foundation.
| Rank | Country | Grants | Total | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United StatesDomestic | 488 | $70M | 99.2% |
| 2 | Ireland |
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