· Public charity
Center for the Study of Democratic Institution
Organization of events and contributions to various charitable organizations to foster and encourage dialogues, discussions and contributions in public health, public policy, national security, foreign affairs, democracy, and human rights; also to contribute to youth education and outreach in art and music in Los Angeles County.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k8 grants · $140k
- $50k–250k10 grants · $1.1M
- $250k+3 grants · $1.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Davidson College | $1,000,000 |
| Atlantic Council | $400,000 |
| Brookings Institution | $300,000 |
| New America Foundation | $200,000 |
| Music Center | $200,000 |
| Johns Hopkins University | $160,000 |
| Truman Center for National Policy | $110,000 |
| International Refugee Assistance Program | $100,000 |
| Los Angeles Philharmonic | $100,000 |
| RAND Corporation | $100,000 |
| Sun Valley Writers Conference Inc | $50,000 |
| Meridian International Center | $50,000 |
| Los Angeles World Affairs Council | $50,000 |
| Los Angeles Free Clinic | $25,000 |
| Human Rights Watch | $25,000 |
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 (FY20–20, $100k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
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.
24 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 2 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, 59% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.2M 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
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY6× · 2020–2025 · $2.0M · revenue +42%- ACATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES INC5× · 2020–2025 · $1.9M · revenue +84%
- TBTHE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION6× · 2020–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +46%
Funded once
- TFTHE FREE IRAQ FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue -99%
- CECARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACEone grant, 2022 · $100k · revenue -24%
- CTCENTER THEATRE GROUP OF LOS ANGELESone grant, 2024 · $20k · revenue -15%
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.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…
The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
Crisis group works to prevent and resolve deadly conflict around the world by informing and influencing the perceptions and actions of policymakers and other key conflict actors. to this end, we endeavour to talk to all sides and provide…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The manhattan institute is a community of scholars, journalists, activists, and civic leaders dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in america and its great cities.
Cna is a non-profit research organization that operates the center for naval analyses, a federally funded research center that has supported the navy and marine corps for nearly seventy years, and the institute for public research that…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New America Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Citizens for Democracy Inc. 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 34 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
32 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. 32 of the 35 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 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES INC ↗
- Who funds THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Davidson College ↗
- Who funds PERFORMING ARTS CENTER OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE ASSISTANCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY A JOURNAL OF IDEAS INC ↗
- Who funds TRUMAN CENTER FOR NATIONAL POLICY ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL AND TOWN HALL ↗
- Who funds SUN VALLEY WRITERS' CONFERENCE INC ↗
- Who funds MERIDIAN INTERNATIONAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds The Rand Corporation ↗
- Who funds TURNOUT ACTIVISM INC ↗
- Who funds INTER-AMERICAN DIALOGUE ↗
- Who funds THE LOS ANGELES FREE CLINIC ↗
- Who funds TRUMAN NATIONAL SECURITY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE FREE IRAQ FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds VENICE FAMILY CLINIC ↗
- Who funds ENDOWMENT OF THE US INSTITUTE OF PEACE ↗
- Who funds REDONDO BEACH EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA SCIENCE CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER THEATRE GROUP OF LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE AZADI PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS FOR DEMOCRACY INC ↗
- Who funds THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES - US ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY ↗
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: Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Endowment Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile 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 Center for the Study of Democratic Institution 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.
- Johns Hopkins University — 12% of income from government
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% of income from government
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.
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Find your warmest path to Center for the Study of Democratic Institution 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.