· Public charity
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc
As noted in its articles of incorporation, the mission of the aclu foundation is "to encourage, sponsor, and facilitate the cultivation and diffusion of knowledge and understanding of the various civil liberties and civil rights which are protected by the constitution and laws of the united states or of the various states to persons…
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $16k
- $10k–50k18 grants · $276k
- $50k–250k23 grants · $3.2M
- $250k+30 grants · $25M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF TEXAS | $2,422,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF FLORIDA | $2,322,500 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF WEST VIRGINIA | $1,733,800 |
| CITIZENS NOT POLITICIANS | $1,600,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF TENNESSEE | $1,417,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA | $1,322,500 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF ARKANSAS | $1,292,500 |
| MISSOURIANS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOM | $1,150,000 |
| ARIZONA FOR ABORTION ACCESS | $1,125,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF SOUTH CAROLINA | $1,034,500 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF MINNESOTA | $1,016,755 |
| FLORIDIANS PROTECTING FREEDOM INC | $1,000,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF MICHIGAN | $810,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF ALABAMA | $560,500 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF ALASKA | $530,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 81% of your 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
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.
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 +68% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
69 repeat relationships — 44 still active in FY2025, 25 since wound down; 27 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6.7M 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
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF FLORIDA INC6× · 2018–2025 · $7.1M · revenue +255% · 30% of their budget
ACLU Foundation of Texas Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $6.8M · revenue +153% · 38% of their budget- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF LOUISIANA7× · 2019–2025 · $4.9M · revenue ×23 · 56% of their budget
Funded once
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF SOUTH CAROLINA INCone grant, 2024 · $790k · revenue +4%
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $600k · revenue +54%
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF TENNESSEE INCone grant, 2024 · $400k · revenue -16% · 46% of their budget
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.
Preservation and promotion of civil rights and civil liberties.
The aclu of arkansas was organized for the purpose of advancing the cause of civil liberties, including free speech, free press, free assemblage, and equality before the law, without political partisanship.
To promote an defend civil liberties principles.
Mission - the aclu of maine works to support bills that advance civil rights and civil liberties and oppose bills that would curtail them. we also provide voter education about how to vote and voting rights at the polls. we do not endorse…
The ACLU of Vermont is a membership organization that protects civil liberties. Its work includes communication and advocacy with regards to rights guaranteed by the U.S. and State Constitutions.
Promote, defend, and extend civil liberties.
As noted in its articles of incorporation, the mission of the aclu foundation is "to encourage, sponsor, and facilitate the cultivation and diffusion of knowledge and understanding of the various civil liberties and civil rights which are…
The union works to advocate and advance a public policy agenda to support and protect the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of iowa. it works to maintain throughout the united states the rights of free…
The mission of the american civil liberties union of hawaii is to protect fundamental rights contained in the united states and state of hawaii constitutions through legislative advocacy.
The american civil liberties union of northern california (aclu nc union) defends and advances the principles of freedom, equality and justice contained in the united states constitution. aclu nc union, a california mutual benefit…
We believe that the freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and religion, and the rights to due process, equal protection and privacy, are fundamental to a free people. We advance civil liberties and civil rights by activities that include…
The organization exists to empower marylanders to exercise their rights so that the law values and uplifts their humanity.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Civil Liberties Union Inc and the most unlike its peers is Institute for Media Analysis Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 54 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.8% 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.
115 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. 115 of the 126 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 AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU Foundation of Texas Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF LOUISIANA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NEW MEXICO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF ALABAMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MISSISSIPPI FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU FOUNDATION OF GEORGIA INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU FOUNDATION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF WEST V ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES FOUNDATION OF PENNSYLVANIA INC ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Virginia ↗
- Who funds ACLU NEBRASKA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF SOUTH CAROLINA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF OHIO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ARKANSAS CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FUND OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF KS ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NORTH CAROLINA LEGAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NEVADA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU OF MONTANA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION - NJ FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU FOUNDATION OF ARIZONA ↗
- Who funds ACLU FOUNDATION OF SAN DIEGO & IMPERIAL COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MISSOURI FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF KENTUCKY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF KENTUCKY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Citizens Not Politicians ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF NEW HAMPSHIRE ↗
- Who funds THE ROGER BALDWIN FOUNDATION OF ACLU INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU OF UTAH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF ALASKA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NORTH CAROLINA INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF IDAHO INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU FOUNDATION OF MARYLAND INC ↗
- Who funds ACLU FOUNDATION OF COLORADO INC ↗
- Who funds THE INDIANA CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MAINE FOUNDATION ↗
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: American Civil Liberties Union Inc · Open Society Action Fund Inc · New Venture Fund · Sixteen Thirty Fund · The Ford Foundation · Planned Parenthood Action Fund Inc · Think Big America · The Fairness Project · Global Impact Social Welfare Fund · Advocacy Action Fund Inc · Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc · NEO Philanthropy Inc
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 American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc 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.
- The Trustees of the Smith College — 1% 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.