Skip to content
Big Tent Project Fund at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Big Tent Project Fund

Educatingthepubliconcurrenteventsandissuessuchashealthcare,tax,energy,andeducationpolicy.

$7.0M
Granted FY2020
8
Grants FY2020
5
States reached
$3.0M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01FY2020 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2020

  • $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
  • $250k+6 grants · $7.0M
$750,000
Median grant
5
States reached
$69k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
CENTER ACTION NOW$2,950,000
THE THIRD WAY FOUNDATION INC$1,250,000
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE$750,000
FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL IMPACT$750,000
NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CITIZENSHIP$750,000
AZ CENTER FOR EMPOWERMENT$500,000
CITIZENS FOR STRENGTH & SECURITY FUND$50,000
THE WELCOME PARTY$25,000
02The need
02

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 93% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%AZ CENTER FOR EMPOWERMENT: $500k → 11%THE WELCOME PARTY: $25k → 16%FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL IMPACT: $750k → 17%CENTER ACTION NOW: $3.0M → 14%NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE: $750k → 19%CITIZENS FOR STRENGTH & SECURITY FUND: $50k → 14%THE THIRD WAY FOUNDATION INC: $1.3M → 14%NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CITIZENSHIP: $750k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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 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.

1
Changing the Conversation for Progress Corp

To engage unlikely voters in authentic conversations in order to strengthen democracy and promote justice through the use of deep canvassing.

Civil Rights
2
Center for Equity Effectiveness & Effici

At C3E, we believe strong, resilient communities start with equitable, effective, and efficient governanceour mission is to empower state and local leaders to drive lasting change through organizational transformation and performance…

Public Benefit
3
The Center for Civic Alternatives

The Corporation has been organized to operate for charitable and educational purposes, including, but not limited to, research and educational projects to help citizens, municipalities, state governments, other organizations participate…

Civil Rights
4
Northwest Progressive Institute

The Northwest Progressive Institute is a social welfare organization working to raise everyone's equality of life through insightful research and imaginative advocacy. NPI's projects and publications promote policy development based on…

Civil Rights
5
The National Foundation for American Policy Inc

The national foundation for american policy is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to public policy research on trade, immigration, and other issues of national importance. the organization seeks to expand the debate over the…

Public Benefit
6
Citizens Commission On National Security
Public Benefit
7
Center for Public Enterprise Inc

Improving public sector capacity to reduce the burdens of government.

Public Benefit
8
Citizen Awareness Project Inc

Citizen Awareness Project exists to educate citizens and public officials on issues of public policy and to give them the tools necessary to make a difference in their community on issues affecting the public at large. Specifically, it…

Civil Rights
9
New North Carolina Project Action First Inc

The new north carolina project's mission is to make politics represent the needs of north carolinians by investing in communities of color, expanding the engaged electorate and creating #lifelongvoters.

Civil Rights
10
The Center for Election Innovation & Research

CEIR seeks to restore trust in the American election system and promote election procedures that encourage participation while ensuring election integrity and security.

Civil Rights
11
Fund for States

Fund for states is dedicated to building a democracy that works for every voter. we work with state and local election officials and community organizations to educate the public, combat disinformation, and restore trust in the electoral…

Public Benefit
12
Election Reformers Network Inc

To strengthen democracy in the United States through an assessment of US voting systems and US election administration from the perspective of global best practices.

Civil Rights
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Naacp Empowerment Programs Inc; the most unlike its peers is Citizens for Strength and Security Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
03the grantee network

8 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.

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

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/8
Grantees still filing
3/8
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

CENTER ACTION NOW: $2,950,000 · Public BenefitCENTER ACTION NOWThe Third Way Foundation Inc: $1,250,000 · OtherThe Third Way Foundation IncNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CITIZENSHIP: $750,000 · OtherNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CITIZENSHIPFoundation for Social Impact: $750,000 · OtherFoundation for Social Impact+2 more: $75,000 · OtherNAACP EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS INC: $750,000 · Civil RightsNAACP EMPOWERMENT PR…ARIZONA CENTER FOR EMPOWERMENT: $500,000 · Civil RightsARIZONA CENTER FOR E…
Public Benefit$2,950,000Other$2,825,000Civil Rights$1,250,000

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

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetCENTER ACTION NOW: $2,950,000 over 1y, 70% of budgetThe Third Way Foundation Inc: $1,250,000 over 1y, 9.1% of budgetNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CITIZENSHIP: $750,000 over 1y, 11% of budgetFoundation for Social Impact: $750,000 over 1y, 32% of budgetNAACP EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS INC: $750,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetARIZONA CENTER FOR EMPOWERMENT: $500,000 over 1y, 8.3% of budgetTHE WELCOME PARTY INC: $25,000 over 1y, 17% of budget
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Fidelity Investments …
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA4.7× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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 Big Tent Project Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Big Tent Project Fund. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 20%5%19%42%75%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    2get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 8 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2021) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2020, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Big Tent Project’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