American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations

Q: What does American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Employment (54%), Civil Rights (30%), Social Science (5%).

Q: Who are American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Working America ($62M), National Labor College ($7.6M), Afl-Cio Technology Institute ($5.9M).

Q: Does American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 12% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Q: Which funders back the same organizations as American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Communications Workers of America Afl-Cio Clc, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

The organization is a federation of labor unions.

$33M

Granted FY2025still arriving

130

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$8.6M

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.

Employment$89MCivil Rights$48MSocial Science$8.2MPhilanthropy$5.8MMembership Benefit$4.4MPublic Benefit$3.4MHuman Services$1.0MRecreation & Sports$983kOther$0

02FY2025 · 130 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 130 grants below total $28,248,923, the rows itemized in this filing. The $33,433,481 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $5,184,558 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k8 grants · $64k
$10k–50k44 grants · $1.0M
$50k–250k57 grants · $5.5M
$250k+21 grants · $22M

$60,000

Median grant

States reached

$159M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
WORKING AMERICA	$8,555,000
AFL-CIO TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE	$1,700,000
STRATEGIC ORGANIZING CENTER	$1,487,502
NEIGHBORHOOD FUNDERS GROUP	$1,250,000
NORTH CAROLINA STATE AFL-CIO	$1,154,590
MINNESOTA AFL-CIO	$694,823
PROGRESSIVE WORKERS COALITION	$675,000
ALLIANCE FOR RETIRED AMERICANS	$625,000
NEW JERSEY STATE AFL-CIO	$605,000
NATIONAL LABOR COLLEGE	$600,000
GEORGIA STATE AFL-CIO	$595,449
WISCONSIN STATE AFL-CIO	$462,000
MICHIGAN STATE AFL-CIO	$461,539
ARIZONA AFL-CIO	$432,885
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR COUNTY LABOR COUNCIL	$385,000

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 (FY17–25, $1.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% 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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$157M · 157 repeat orgs$6.1M to everyone else

157 repeat relationships: 101 still active in FY2025, 56 since wound down; 27 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

157

Total granted

$157M

$2.9M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+17%

+19%

Still filing today

92%

60%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3.2M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Civil RightsEmploymentPublic BenefitCommunity ImprovementEducationHuman ServicesOther

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

WA
WORKING AMERICA
9× · 2017–2025 · $62M · revenue +187% · 49% of their budget
AT
AFL-CIO TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE
4× · 2022–2025 · $5.9M · revenue +76% · 100% of their budget
AF
ALLIANCE FOR RETIRED AMERICANS
9× · 2017–2025 · $5.8M · revenue +4%

Funded once

BI
BBT INC
one grant, 2021 · $500k · revenue -100%
AT
AMERICAN TENT
one grant, 2020 · $129k
WA
WE ARE MISSOURI
3× · 2017–2019 · $100k

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 Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations

The organization is a federation of labor unions. its mission is to improve the lives of working families - to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our nation.

—

American Federation of Labor & Alameda Labor Council

To protect, maintain, and advance the interests of all working people in its territory; to secure legislation in the interest of the working people; to promote the formation of a committee on political education; to promote recognition and…

—

Laborers' International Union of North America Laborers' Local #43

Promote and protect the interests of the members of the local

—

Afl-Cio Snohomish & Island County Labor Council

Member, affiliate, and community education for worker's issues - union and non-union

—

Laborers International Union of 341 Hcl

Union hall devoted to the betterment of members compensation and working conditions, to secure recognition of workers rights to engage in collective bargaining, and to promote the development and maintenance of on-the-job safety practices…

—

Laborers International Union of North America - Local 1076

The local is a nonprofit organization established to represent its members in wage and fringe benefits matters in the construction industry. the local's primary areas of jurisdiction are oakland and livingston counties.

—

Laborers International Union of State of Mi

Collective bargaining and representation

—

American Federation of Labor & Bldg & Construction Trades Council

To create a better working environment for the construction industry and its members.

—

Aft Massachusetts

State labor organization

—

American Federation of Labor & Cong of Industrial Orgs Nyc Bldg % Const

Liason for organized labor in the new york city area.

—

The Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition

to organize workers in the laborers international union of north America, afl-cio pacific southwest region through a coordinated program to maintain and improve employment opportunities for affiliated local union members and to recruit new…

Employment

Laborers Afl-Cio Local 1035

To organize all workers for the economic, moral, and social advancement of their condition and status.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Louis Labor Council Afl-Cio; the most unlike its peers is Skinner Leadership Institute Inc. 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

226 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. 226 of the 266 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)

223/226

Grantees still filing

148/226

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$133,939,241Civil Rights$14,034,029Social Science$8,198,750Employment$3,276,002Community Improvement$1,260,833Environment$1,063,150Human Services$1,001,200

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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.

American Federation of State County and Municipal EmployeesDC79.7× affinity39 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees · Communications Workers of America Afl-Cio Clc · United Food and Commercial Workers International Union · Int Union United Auto National Community Action Program · National Education Association of the United States · International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers · Unite Here · National Nurses United · Sixteen Thirty Fund · United Steel Paper and Forestry Rubber Manufacturing Energy Allied · International Brotherhood of Teamsters · Grand Lodge International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers

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 Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

21get no government money at all

13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations?

Find your warmest path to American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.

Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.

Play a game based on American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations’ 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