How much does American Civil Liberties Union Inc give?

American Civil Liberties Union Inc reported 57 grants totaling $10,308,032 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 42 and 51 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does American Civil Liberties Union Inc fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Civil Rights (77%), Public Benefit (13%), Crime & Legal (5%).

Who are American Civil Liberties Union Inc's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: American Civil Liberties Union of Florida Inc ($5.4M), Floridians for a Fair Democracy Inc ($5.0M), Reproductive Freedom for All ($5.0M).

Does American Civil Liberties Union Inc fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 32% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as American Civil Liberties Union Inc?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Sixteen Thirty Fund, Open Society Action Fund Inc, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc.

Where is American Civil Liberties Union Inc based?

American Civil Liberties Union Inc is based in NY.

American Civil Liberties Union Inc

American Civil Liberties Union Inc at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· 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.

$10M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$650k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Civil Rights$80MPublic Benefit$14MCrime & Legal$5.7MPhilanthropy$1.2MHealth$1.0MEnvironment$850kMembership Benefit$550kHousing & Shelter$65kOther$0

02FY2025 · 57 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k1 grant · $8k
$10k–50k4 grants · $83k
$50k–250k39 grants · $5.4M
$250k+13 grants · $5.0M

$141,228

Median grant

States reached

$243M

Total assets

Largest grants
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

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

79%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$82M · 67 repeat orgs$21M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +65% since the first grant, against 0% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$82M

$21M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+65%

Still filing today

87%

62%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $204k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Civil RightsHealthHuman ServicesCrime & LegalArts & CultureInternationalOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

AC
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF FLORIDA INC
8× · 2017–2025 · $5.4M · revenue +21% · 35% of their budget
AC
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF ARIZONA
9× · 2017–2025 · $4.7M · revenue +114% · 53% of their budget
AC
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MICHIGAN
9× · 2017–2025 · $4.4M · revenue +149% · 38% of their budget

Funded once

OF
OKLAHOMANS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM INC
one grant, 2017 · $3.0M
MF
MICHIGANDERS FOR FAIR LENDING
one grant, 2022 · $2.6M
OU
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights
one grant, 2024 · $2.1M

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon Inc

The aclu foundation of oregon is dedicated to preserving and defending civil liberties and civil rights.

Civil Rights

American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee Foundation Inc

To protect and expand individual liberties through public education; to provide legal assistance to aggrieved persons; to provide bill of rights protection.

—

American Civil Liberties Union Fund of the District of Columbia

Preservation of civil liberties through litigation and public education.

—

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Vermont Inc

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.

—

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Iowa

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…

Civil Rights

American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma Foundation Inc

Educate, advocate, defend, and protect the civil rights and liberties guaranteed by the united states and oklahoma constitutions.

Civil Rights

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Connecticut Inc

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.

Civil Rights

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Louisiana

To support the work of the amercian civil liberties union of louisiana through litigation, public education and limited lobbying in support of civil liberties.

Civil Rights

American Civil Liberties Union of West V

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…

Arts & Culture

American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma Inc

Educate, advocate, defend, and protect the civil rights and liberties guaranteed by the united states and oklahoma constitutions.

Community Improvement

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…

Civil Rights

American Civil Liberties Union of Washington Found

To protect and extend civil liberties and civil rights, and to take action to further those liberties and rights within the state of washington.

Civil Rights

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Civil Liberties Union Inc; 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.

04the grantee network

122 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 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.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

104/122

Grantees still filing

75/122

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$91,406,254Civil Rights$9,834,697Crime & Legal$1,031,744Health$1,024,000Human Services$299,948Arts & Culture$110,000Public Benefit$47,675

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Sixteen Thirty FundDC56.9× affinity28 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization American Civil Liberties Union Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from American Civil Liberties Union Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

19get no government money at all

2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on American Civil Liberties Union’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home