Financials

On May 17, 2021, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World posted its 2020 financial reports on this site. The reports reflect our commitment to research and initiatives that expedite the end of toxic tobacco products. Key insights include:

• $25 million in grant expenditures in 2020.  From the Foundation’s inception through December 31, 2020, grant expenditures totaled $73 million and grant spending authorization was $124 million at the end of the period. Future grant payments for the authorized amounts are anticipated to be made through 2024.
• Resource allocation associated with charitable activities continued to focus on the Foundation’s strategic pillars: Health, Science, and Technology; Agriculture and Livelihoods; and Industry Transformation. The Foundation is demonstrating progress in six smoke-free purposes. A mapping of our grant activities to the purposes can be accessed here.
• Year-over-year decreases in operational expenses, such as: communications, legal, professional fees, occupancy, and travel costs. The Foundation’s restructuring of operations and refocusing of charitable activities were completed during the latter portion of 2020. Results of such actions are evident in our financial reports, while the full effect of these changes on the financials will materialize during 2021.

In the past year, we awarded grants to a number of world-renowned researchers who are spearheading innovative smoking cessation and harm reduction projects. Many have also published research reports and contributed to peer-reviewed articles. Reports and articles by the Foundation and its partners can be accessed here. Our grants facilitated research in several critical areas, including the identification of biomarkers of tobacco use, investigation of health outcomes, usage patterns, and behavioral changes associated with reduced risk products use among consumers and vulnerable populations, and study of risk perceptions and consumer demand for harm reduction products.

In 2020, we also continued our efforts to prepare farmers for an era of reduced tobacco demand by supporting agricultural transformation programs. In Malawi, we supported policy research that will assist smallholder farmers in the diversification of their production through science-based policy reform and crop diversification initiatives that may serve as models for other tobacco-dependent economies. Finally, we launched the first Tobacco Transformation Index™, which ranks the world’s 15 largest tobacco companies on their relative progress toward reducing risk of death and disease for smokers.

Through these and other initiatives, the Foundation is working hard toward its core mission of ending smoking in this generation.

Our Pledge Agreement with Philip Morris Global Services states that the Foundation will make the following documents publicly available by May 31: audited financial statements, Form 990-PF for the prior year, and an operations update. These documents are posted on this site.