Legal Standing
Metanoia is a registered 501(c)(3) public charity in California. Every figure below is independently verifiable, through the IRS, the California Attorney General, and public nonprofit databases.
The IRS classified Metanoia as a public charity under section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi), the category for organizations that are publicly supported. For federal income tax purposes, contributions to Metanoia may be deductible under IRC Section 170, and Metanoia is qualified to receive tax-deductible bequests and gifts under federal law. Whether and how much a donor can deduct depends on that donor's own tax situation, including whether they itemize deductions and the percentage-of-income limits that apply, as explained in IRS Publication 526. Our donation disclosure gives the California position. Our determination letter is public. You can read it yourself.
Download IRS determination letter (PDF)
You can also verify us independently in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and on ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer using EIN 39-2328100.
Where Your Donation Goes
Metanoia funds research and free public education on natural psychedelics for the wellbeing of healthy adults. That is the whole mission, and the whole budget.
Gathering and verifying the global science, neuroscience, chemistry and ethnobotany, genetics, therapeutic practice, cultivation and gender, and building the open knowledge infrastructure the field is missing: a verified research database, a safe-use research digest, and a structured record of lived experience.
See the research agenda.
Turning that research into things anyone can understand and use: starting with our free illustrated book, our Psychedelics 101 guide, and safe-use resources, all published at no cost to the reader.
Browse the education hub.
Our Commitments
Metanoia is early and deliberately lean. We would rather make a small number of real commitments and keep them than publish a glossy report we can't yet stand behind. Here is what we commit to, plainly.
As a 501(c)(3) we are required to file an annual return with the IRS, a Form 990, 990-EZ, or 990-N depending on our size, and to register and report to the California Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trusts. Those filings are public records. We filed our first one, a Form 990-N for tax year 2025, with the IRS on September 23, 2026. It was due on May 15, 2026, so this first filing was late. The IRS states there is no penalty for a late Form 990-N, and our compliance calendar now carries every filing date. As of today, Metanoia holds two bank accounts and has not yet received any donations.
We keep overhead low by design: no paid executive team, no offices beyond what the work needs, and volunteer effort wherever it's possible. It's part of why you won't find a roster of names and titles on this site, staying lean means more of every donation reaches the research and the education, not the org chart. More on why we work this way
Metanoia is a single entity: the California public charity described above. It has no subsidiary and no commercial affiliate. Our published long-term plan contemplates a separate for-profit research affiliate, limited in scope to contracted institutional research and funded by investment capital rather than donations. It has not been formed, and no agreement with any such entity exists. If and when it is, the two will be kept legally distinct, separate boards, separate finances, and this page will be updated to say so. All public education and all fundraising on this site benefit the nonprofit mission. Donations go to Metanoia, the public charity.
Our board has also stated, openly, that it may in the future set incentives for whoever leads such an affiliate, potentially including a small equity stake for our founder. Any such step would first require independent-committee review, a fair-market valuation, a cap kept below the federal "disqualified person" threshold, disclosure on our public Form 990, and the founder's abstention from the vote, approved only by a supermajority of the full board after legal and jurisdictional review. No affiliate exists today, no incentive has been proposed, and no equity has been granted.
Metanoia is a research and education nonprofit. We do not provide, sell, or source any controlled substance, run ceremonies, or offer therapy or medical advice. Everything we publish is educational material written to harm-reduction standards, always within the law. Read our ethics & legality position
Our editorial rule is simple: real sources, checked to match their claims. Nothing fabricated, nothing exaggerated. Where the evidence is strong we say so, where it's thin or contested, we say that too. An honest map of the open questions is part of the product, not a footnote to it.
If this is the kind of organization you want to see in the world, help us build it, gifts may be deductible for federal income tax purposes, depending on your own tax position, and go straight to the work.