· Public charity
Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
The mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 4 grants below total $28,900 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,236,335 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $1,207,435 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Asbury Theological Seminary | $8,500 |
| Regent University | $8,000 |
| The Catholic University of America | $6,400 |
| iGen Consulting | $6,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY20–23, $180k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
Grants abroad, by region — $666k on the FY2024 return
Schedule F, as filed: 8 regions, $84k to organizations and $581k to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: Support for book project and research · Education and Travel Assistance
Stated purpose: The Acton Institute has established relationships with several international affiliate organizations that share our mission and seek to promote ideas of the Acton Institute. The affiliates are independent organizations that work with Acton to promote the ideas of a free and virtuous society in their own countries and within their own cultural context. Acton provides these affiliates with small grants for conferences, publications, website maintenance, translation, and other activities. · Support for book project · Support for conference
Stated purpose: Education and Travel Assistance
Stated purpose: Education and Travel Assistance
Stated purpose: Education and Travel Assistance
Stated purpose: Education and Travel Assistance
Stated purpose: Education and Travel Assistance
Stated purpose: Education and Travel Assistance
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +9% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 28% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $21k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- BWBETTER WAY DETROIT4× · 2020–2023 · $180k · revenue +0% · 46% of their budget
- CUCONCORDIA UNIVERSITY INC2× · 2019–2021 · $38k · revenue +9%
- FUFAULKNER UNIVERSITY4× · 2017–2023 · $34k · revenue +45%
Funded once
- SHSACRED HEART ACADEMY EDUCATION FOUNgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $155k · revenue +471%
- WFWOODLAWN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $57k · revenue -8%
- SHSACRED HEART OF JESUS PARISHone grant, 2021 · $30k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
John brown university (jbu) provides christ-centered education that prepares students to honor god and serve others by developing their intellectual, spiritual, and professional lives. (continued on schedule o)jbu serves traditional…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
As new york's leading university for character education, rwu is a community of learners committed to historic christianity which seeks to prepare thoughtful, spiritually mature, service-oriented people who will transform society.
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
The mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
Trinity international university is an institution of higher education that offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs. trinity international university educates men and women for faithful participation in god's redemptive…
Evangel is a comprehensive christian university that is committed to excellence in educating and equipping students to become spirit empowered servants of god who will impact the church and society globally.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
Saint martin's students learn to make a positive difference in their lives and in the lives of others through the interaction of faith, reason, and service. the university honors both the sacredness of the individual and the significance…
Xavier is a jesuit catholic university rooted in the liberal arts tradition. our mission is to educate each student intellectually, morally, and spiritually. we create learning opportunities through rigorous academic and professional…
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is California Baptist University and the most unlike its peers is Better Way Detroit. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 56 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
27 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 27 of the 32 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds Donors Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds BETTER WAY DETROIT ↗
- Who funds SACRED HEART ACADEMY EDUCATION FOUN ↗
- Who funds The King's College ↗
- Who funds WOODLAWN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds FAULKNER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Aquinas College ↗
- Who funds CONCORDIA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds PALM BEACH ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds Wheaton College ↗
- Who funds Cedarville University ↗
- Who funds REGENT UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ASBURY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ↗
- Who funds LINDENWOOD EDUCATION SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE JACKSONVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JOHN WITHERSPOON COLLEGE DBA BLACK HILLS BIBLICAL INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds REGIS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds OKLAHOMA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Grand Canyon University ↗
- Who funds FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY OF STEUBENVILLE ↗
- Who funds BETHEL UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds CALVIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MULTNOMAH UNIVERSITY ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Tulsa Community Foundation · Charles Koch Foundation · Folds of Honor Foundation · National Collegiate Athletic Association · Verizon Foundation · The Robert D and Patricia E Kern Family Foundation Inc · Lilly Endowment Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Ibm International Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Palm Beach Atlantic University Inc — 0% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.