· Public charity
American Civil Liberties Union Inc
As noted in its articles of incorporation, the mission of the aclu is "to maintain and advance civil liberties, including, without limitation, the freedoms of association, press, religion and speech, and the rights to the franchise, to due process of law, and to equal protection of the laws for all people throughout the u.s.
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 $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $83k
- $50k–250k39 grants · $5.4M
- $250k+13 grants · $5.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KANSANS UNITED FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES | $650,000 |
| ACLU OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA | $468,862 |
| NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION | $446,266 |
| ACLU OF MICHIGAN | $430,811 |
| ACLU OF MASSACHUSSETTS | $427,175 |
| ACLU OF NEW JERSEY | $402,444 |
| ACLU OF NORTH CAROLINA | $384,694 |
| ACLU OF TEXAS | $347,042 |
| ACLU OF WASHINGTON | $298,838 |
| ACLU OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA | $283,694 |
| ACLU OF ILLINOIS | $279,649 |
| ACLU OF DELAWARE | $271,228 |
| ACLU OF OREGON | $268,495 |
| ACLU OF PENNSLYVANIA | $249,827 |
| ACLU OF MARYLAND | $243,539 |
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 (FY19–25, $300k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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
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 +65% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
67 repeat relationships — 52 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 4 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $204k 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 OF FLORIDA INC8× · 2017–2025 · $5.4M · revenue +21% · 35% of their budget
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF ARIZONA9× · 2017–2025 · $4.7M · revenue +114% · 53% of their budget
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MICHIGAN9× · 2017–2025 · $4.4M · revenue +149% · 38% of their budget
Funded once
- OFOKLAHOMANS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM INCone grant, 2017 · $3.0M
- MFMICHIGANDERS FOR FAIR LENDINGone grant, 2022 · $2.6M
- OUOhioans United for Reproductive Rightsone grant, 2024 · $2.1M
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.
The aclu foundation of oregon is dedicated to preserving and defending civil liberties and civil rights.
To protect and expand individual liberties through public education; to provide legal assistance to aggrieved persons; to provide bill of rights protection.
Preservation of civil liberties through litigation and public education.
The ACLU Foundation of Vermont is an organization that protects civil liberties. It provides legal representation, communication, and advocacy with regards to rights guaranteed by the U.S. and Vermont Constitutions.
The foundation works to defend and promote the constitution of the united states, focusing especially on the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and 14th amendments. the foundation also works to defend and promote the constitution of the…
Educate, advocate, defend, and protect the civil rights and liberties guaranteed by the united states and oklahoma constitutions.
To maintain and promote civil liberties and civil rights within the state of ct, including but not limited to the freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion, and the right to due process of law.
To support the work of the amercian civil liberties union of louisiana through litigation, public education and limited lobbying in support of civil liberties.
The american civil liberties union of west virginia (aclu-wv) is a non-partisan, non-profit membership organization whose mission is to fulfill the promise of the bill of rights for all west virginians and expand the reach of its…
Educate, advocate, defend, and protect the civil rights and liberties guaranteed by the united states and oklahoma constitutions.
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…
To protect and extend civil liberties and civil rights, and to take action to further those liberties and rights within the state of washington.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Civil Liberties Union Inc and the most unlike its peers is Newr Denver. 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 6% 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.
122 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. 122 of the 140 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 OF FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds Floridians for a Fair Democracy Inc ↗
- Who funds REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF ARIZONA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF GEORGIA INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF PENNSYLVANIA INC ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union of Texas Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NORTH CAROLINA INC ↗
- Who funds PROMOTE THE VOTE ↗
- Who funds Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights ↗
- Who funds YES ON 805 INC ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE TO ADVANCE CONSTITUTIONAL VALUES INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF KANSAS ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF OHIO INC ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF CONNECTICUT INC ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKANS FOR RESPONSIBLE LENDING ↗
- Who funds NEVADANS FOR SECURE ELECTIONS ↗
- Who funds Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom PAC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NH ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF KENTUCKY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MISSOURI ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL COALITION ↗
- Who funds Citizens Not Politicians ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NEW JERSEY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION INC ↗
- Who funds LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS INC ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION INC ↗
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: Sixteen Thirty Fund · Open Society Action Fund Inc · American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc · Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc · Planned Parenthood Action Fund Inc · The Fairness Project · Tides Advocacy · Advocacy Action Fund Inc · Global Impact Social Welfare Fund · Our American Future Action · Way to Win Action Fund Inc · Tides 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 American Civil Liberties Union 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.
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.