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Center for Growth and Opportunity at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Center for Growth and Opportunity

The CENTER FOR GROWTH AND OPPORTUNITY at utah state university explores the scentific foundations of the interaction between individuals, business, and government to improve well-being for individuals and society.

$163k
Granted FY2023
6
Grants FY2023
—
States reached
$65k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
0189% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2023.

Education$1.1MPublic Benefit$136kCommunity Improvement$82kCivil Rights$65kSocial Science$65kHealth$46kHuman Services$34kScience & Tech$19kOther$0
02FY2023 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2023

  • Under $10k1 grant · $8k
  • $10k–50k4 grants · $90k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $65k
$26,000
Median grant
—
States reached
$703k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
OMV$65,000
Individual grant recipient$30,000
JMI$26,000
ALEC$19,000
PELICAN INSTITUTE$15,000
Individual grant recipient$8,000
02The need
03

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 (FY18–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%BEACON CENTER: $34k → 14%SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT OF KIRIBATI: $5k → 6%LIBERTAS INSTITUTE: $25k → 8%UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION: $416k → 12%NCSL FOUNDATION: $20k → 12%STATE POLICY NETWORK: $15k → 7%PELICAN INSTITUTE: $25k → 23%UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION: $317k → 12%NCSL FOUNDATION: $18k → 12%UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION: $223k → 12%INDIPENDENCE INSTITUTE: $25k → 12%JON M HUNTSMAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: $77k → 12%UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION: $69k → 12%JON M HUNTSMAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: $65k → 12%USU CONFERENCE SERVICES: $20k → 12%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 grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

77%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.3M · 4 repeat orgs$384k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +130% since the first grant, against +50% for those funded once.

4 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2023, 3 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

4
11

Total granted

$1.3M
$236k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+130%
+50%

Still filing today

25%
45%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 9% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $148k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23
Public BenefitCivil RightsOther
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

  • US
    UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION
    4× · 2018–2021 · $1.0M
  • US
    UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
    2× · 2018–2019 · $162k
  • PI
    PELICAN INSTITUTE
    2× · 2022–2023 · $40k

Funded once

  • BC
    BEACON CENTER OF TENNESSEE
    one grant, 2021 · $34k · revenue +14%
  • BC
    BEACON CENTER OF TENNESSEE
    one grant, 2022 · $34k
  • LI
    LIBERTAS INSTITUTE
    one grant, 2022 · $25k
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
04the grantee network

6 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. 6 of the 20 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
5/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION: $1,024,145 · OtherUTAH STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATIONUTAH STATE UNIVERSITY: $162,300 · OtherUTAH STATE UNIVERSITYOMV: $65,000 · Other+11 more: $235,499 · Other+11 moreNCSL FOUNDATION FOR STATE LEGISLATURES: $37,500 · Public BenefitNCSL FOUND…BEACON CENTER OF TENNESSEE: $33,500 · Public BenefitBEACON CEN…Libertas Network: $25,000 · Public BenefitLibertas N…PELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY: $25,000 · Public BenefitPELICAN IN…INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE: $25,000 · Public BenefitINDEPENDEN…STATE POLICY NETWORK: $15,000 · Civil Rights
Other$1,486,944Public Benefit$146,000Civil Rights$15,000

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

25%50%75%100%$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetNCSL FOUNDATION FOR STATE LEGISLATURES: $37,500 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetBEACON CENTER OF TENNESSEE: $33,500 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetLibertas Network: $25,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetPELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY: $25,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetINDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE: $25,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetSTATE POLICY NETWORK: $15,000 over 1y, 0.1% 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.

  • Who funds NCSL FOUNDATION FOR STATE LEGISLATURES ↗
  • Who funds BEACON CENTER OF TENNESSEE ↗
  • Who funds Libertas Network ↗
  • Who funds PELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY ↗
  • Who funds INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE ↗
  • Who funds STATE POLICY NETWORK ↗

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.

The Roe FoundationState Policy NetworkCharles Koch InstituteThe Seminar Network I…Adolph Coors Foundati…The Lynde and Harry B…Donors Trust IncRenaissance Charitabl…American Endowment Fo…Vanguard Charitable E…Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …
The Roe FoundationSC13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Roe Foundation · State Policy Network · Charles Koch Institute · The Seminar Network Inc · Adolph Coors Foundation · The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc · Donors Trust Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Center for Growth and Opportunity funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Center for Growth and Opportunity. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%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
    0get 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 20 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 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2023, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Center for Growth and Opportunity’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