US grantmaking by cause

Every cause, by share of grant dollars

All tracked US grant dollars, split by the recipient's cause and sized by area. Pick a cause for its funders and the organizations they back.

The specialists

The funder most committed to each cause, measured by the share of its giving against the national rate and shrunk toward that rate, so this is not the biggest funder but the most concentrated.

Questions and answers

How is a cause defined here?

Each organization is classified by its NTEE code in the IRS Business Master File, the recipient's own authoritative cause category. Grants are grouped by the recipient's NTEE major group, then totaled by where the money lands.

Does this count money parked in foundations and donor-advised funds?

No. Grants to the philanthropy layer, foundations and donor-advised funds, are netted out, so a dollar is counted where it reaches a working charity rather than at every hop between funders.

What does it mean for a funder to specialize in a cause?

A specialist gives a cause a far larger share of its budget than funders do on average. We measure that share against the national rate and shrink it toward the average, so a small focused funder needs real volume to rank, not a single large gift.

Are transfers within the same institution counted?

No. Grants between two arms of the same institution, a funder to itself or to a related entity it shares governance with (for example a university's endowment vehicle to the university), are netted out as internal transfers rather than philanthropy. $149.3B was excluded on that basis. Detection relies on shared EINs and shared boards, so it catches the large institutional cases and under-counts rather than over-counts.

How recent is this funding data?

It is read from IRS Form 990 and 990-PF e-file filings across recent fiscal years. US charity filings lag 12 to 24 months, so the most recent year is always partial.