· Public charity
Common Cause Education Fund
The COMMON CAUSE EDUCATION FUND employs research, outreach, educational programming, and coalition building to increase public understanding of how our democracy works, empower citizens to hold their government accountable, and promote broad and effective citizen engagement at federal, state, and local levels.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2024–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 89 grants below total $2,242,181 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $2,470,489 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $228,308 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k10 grants · $71k
- $10k–50k69 grants · $1.3M
- $50k–250k9 grants · $595k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BLUEPRINT NORTH CAROLINA INC | $250,000 |
| WASHINGTON COUNCIL OF THE BLIND | $100,000 |
| ASIAN AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE INC | $75,000 |
| ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOUNDATION | $75,000 |
| FLORIDA RISING TOGETHER | $65,000 |
| INLAND EMPIRE UNITED EDUCATION FUND | $60,000 |
| LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF CALIFORNIA EDUCATION FUND | $60,000 |
| WE ARE DOWN HOME | $57,500 |
| MIGRANT EQUITY SOUTHEAST INC | $52,500 |
| DISABILITY RIGHTS NORTH CAROLINA | $50,000 |
| INITIATE JUSTICE | $45,000 |
| ACTION INSTITUTE NC | $40,000 |
| BLUEPRINT NORTH CAROLINA INC | $32,000 |
| CHINESE PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION | $30,000 |
| GREATER AUGUSTA'S INTERFAITH COALITION INC | $30,000 |
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 (FY24–25, $245k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 69% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
5 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down; 77 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, 5% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.1M 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
- YPYOUNG PEOPLES ALLIANCE EDUCATION FUND2× · 2024–2025 · $75k
- NCNORTH CAROLINA BLACK ALLIANCE INC2× · 2024–2025 · $75k · revenue 0%
- LRLITTLE ROCK COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION2× · 2024–2025 · $50k · revenue 0%
Funded once
- NCNorth Carolina For The Peopleone grant, 2024 · $150k · 31% of their budget
PLANNED PARENTHOOD SOUTH ATLANTIC INCone grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue +0%- NCNORTH CAROLINA NAACP STATE CONFERENCEone grant, 2024 · $50k
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.
Forward Justice Action Network is a nonprofit with the purpose to engage in educational and advocacy activities to promote political and grassroots support for public policies that advance racial social and economic justice in North…
Action nc is a community organization and citizen action group that organizes residents of low-wealth communities and constituencies - most of whom are people of color- to represent their own interests on issues of social and economic…
North Carolinians for Redistricting Reform (NC4RR) is a bipartisan nonprofit working to improve North Carolina's representative democracy through redistricting reform. NC4RR's objective is to help pass a state constitutional amendment in…
New Virginia Majority is a grassroots organization that works with low income people in local communities through leadership development, trainings and workshops, issue education and advocacy.
The american civil liberties union of northern california (aclu nc union) defends and advances the principles of freedom, equality and justice contained in the united states constitution. aclu nc union, a california mutual benefit…
The american civil liberties union foundation of northern california (aclu nc foundation) defends and advances the principles of freedom, equality and justice contained in the united states constitution. aclu nc foundation, a california…
New Virginia Majority Education Fund is a grassroots organization that engages low income people and people of color in local communities through leadership development, trainings and workshops, issue education through grassroots…
Southern coalition for social justice partners with communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities across the south to defend and advance their political, social, and economic rights. through an intersectional and…
Igniting collective power. Transforming systems of oppression. Healing in community.
The mission of NC Latino Power is to build and expand political and civic participation among Latino citizens of North Carolina through leadership training, voter education, and organizing within faith and community institutions.
In collaboration with the legal community, NCEAJF empowers North Carolinians to navigate the civil justice system.
We elevate and empower people of color in New Hampshire by fostering connections, changing systems, and meeting community needs to make a better Granite State where all belong.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Southern Vision Alliance and the most unlike its peers is Sowega Rising. 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 13 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 17% of your grantees by number, and just 22% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
85 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. 85 of the 107 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 BLUEPRINT NORTH CAROLINA ↗
- Who funds North Carolina For The People ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON COUNCIL OF THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds YOUNG PEOPLES ALLIANCE EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds ASIAN AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE - AAJC INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINA BLACK ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FLORIDA RISING TOGETHER INC ↗
- Who funds LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF CALIFORNIA EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds INLAND EMPIRE UNITED EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds WE ARE DOWN HOME ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds Migrant Equity Southeast Inc ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD SOUTH ATLANTIC INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINA LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOU CAN VOTE ↗
- Who funds The League of Women Voters of North Carolina Inc ↗
- Who funds N C A PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Democracy North Carolina ↗
- Who funds LITTLE ROCK COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds DISABILITY RIGHTS NORTH CAROLINA ↗
- Who funds INITIATE JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds ACTION INSTITUTE NC ↗
- Who funds NC BUDGET & TAX CENTER ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR EMPOWERED POLITICS EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds NEO Philanthropy Inc ↗
- Who funds STARTING OVER STRONG ↗
- Who funds Community Water Center ↗
- Who funds CHINESE PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds MINKWON CENTER FOR COMMUNITY ACTION INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHEAST ASIAN MUTUAL ASSISTANCE ASSOCIATIONS COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR RACIAL EQUITY IN EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT CITIZEN RESEARCH GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINA ASIAN AMERICANS TOGETHER ↗
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: Blueprint North Carolina · NEO Philanthropy Inc · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Tides Foundation · Z Smith Reynolds Foundation Inc · New Venture Fund · Bvm Capacity Building Institute Inc · Windward Fund · Proteus Fund Inc · Common Counsel Foundation · Southern Coalition for Social Justice · The Prentice Foundation Inc
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 Common Cause Education Fund 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.
- Casa Inc — 8% of income from government
- Connecticut Citizen Research Group Inc — 0% 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.