·The SETI Institute was founded in 1984 and is a 501(c) 3.

·The Institute employs about 130 people, primarily scientists, in a variety of fields including all science and technology aspects of astronomy and the planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the origin of life, biological evolution, and cultural evolution.

·The Institute conducts the world's most comprehensive work in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), including Project Phoenix, which has observing time each spring and fall through spring of 2004 at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The Institute has also sponsored several optical SETI experiments since 1999.

·The Allen Telescope Array will be the world's first professional-class radio telescope devoted to SETI observing. The array will be built using a novel combination of mass-production and specialized technology and, when completed in 2005, will be among the world's largest observing instruments. The Institute is building the Allen Telescope Array in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley.

·All SETI activities have been privately funded since 1993. There is currently no government funding of SETI in the United States. Since 1993, Institute projects have received more than $55 million in private support from individuals, corporations and foundations.

·The Institute currently hosts more than 40 research projects in areas other than the search for intelligent life, including the search for extra-solar planets, the study of life in extreme environments, and the exploration and study of planets and other objects in our solar system.

·The Institute is a leading producer of science education programs. Among such programs is Voyages Through Time, a comprehensive science curriculum project currently supported by the National Science Foundation and private funding, and the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a collaborative partnership involving NASA, the German space agency DLR, and several other partners.

·The Institute conducts an active outreach and public information program. In addition to numerous appearances on radio and television, SETI Institute scientists have taught and lectured at a variety of schools, museums and science centers throughout the United States and abroad. Recent host organizations include The National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, the American Museum of Natural History and Hayden Planetarium, New York, NY, the Museum of Science, Boston, MA and The Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, CA.