Donor vs. federal grant funding
Folding@home receives significant federal research funding through the labs that participate in the Consortium — mostly via NIH and NSF grants to the individual research groups. Those grants are essential, but they come with strict rules about what the money can be spent on. Donor money fills the gaps. Even a small amount of unrestricted funding lets us buy hardware, run servers, and pay for infrastructure that grant money simply cannot cover.
How does federal research funding work?
In the U.S., biology and chemistry research is funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). These agencies issue Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for specific research topics. University groups, medical schools, and some industrial researchers compete for those grants by submitting written proposals.
It's a competitive process: an agency may receive five to ten proposals for every grant it can actually fund. Researchers spend a significant fraction of their time writing proposals.
What won't federal grants pay for?
To stretch the limited budget, agencies are reluctant to fund:
- Capital equipment — scientific instruments costing more than a couple of thousand dollars (centrifuges, microscopes, chromatographs, etc.).
- Infrastructure — lab construction, autoclaves, built-in cold rooms, books and journals.
- General computer hardware and software — servers, workstations, software licenses, and other IT.
- Professional services — legal, accounting, and similar overhead.
The implication for Folding@home: the very thing the project needs most — reliable server infrastructure to assign work units, collect results, and run the stats system — is exactly what federal grants are designed not to cover.
What do federal grants pay for?
Grants typically cover the human side of research: PhD student stipends and tuition, post-doc and technician salaries, faculty summer salaries, consumable lab supplies, and travel to scientific conferences and field sites. These are called restricted funds: the money has to be spent on the categories the grant was awarded for, and not on anything else.
Where does the rest of the money come from?
We piece it together from several sources:
- Donor contributions through the Folding@home Foundation — the biggest reason this page exists. Donor money is unrestricted, so we can spend it on the servers and infrastructure grants won't touch.
- University capital funds — the host university or state occasionally makes equipment money available.
- Leftover funds from fixed-cost research contracts — rare but useful when they appear.
- In-kind donations from hardware companies — servers, GPUs, and developer time donated directly to the project.
The donor share is the most flexible piece of that mix, which is why it has an outsized effect on what we can do.
How do I donate?
The donate page has the options — credit card, cryptocurrency, donor-advised funds, and merchandise. Donations made through the Folding@home Foundation are tax-deductible in the United States. For the boring questions (tax receipts, recurring donations, how to cancel), see the donation FAQ.