· Public charity
Defending Democracy Together Institute
To elevate and assemble pro-democracy voices in an effort to educate the public about the essential function and value of american democracy and to encourage innovative thinking about how to solve the emerging challenges facing america.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $50k–250k5 grants · $525k
- $250k+5 grants · $14M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INDEPENDENCE INITIATIVE | $12,150,000 |
| THE LIBERAL PATRIOT INC | $1,000,000 |
| SOCIETY FOR THE RULE OF LAW & DEMOCRACY | $500,000 |
| PRINCIPLES FIRST FOR AMERICA FOUNDATION INC | $400,000 |
| ETERNAL VIGILANCE ACTION | $315,000 |
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY | $150,000 |
| MORMON WOMEN FOR ETHICAL GOVERNMENT FOUNDATION | $150,000 |
| THE FOUNDATION FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT INC | $100,000 |
| DEMOCRACY A JOURNAL OF IDEAS INC | $75,000 |
| CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY | $50,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY23–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 95% of your 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +14% since the first grant, against -2% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 14% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13M 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
- TLTHE LIBERAL PATRIOT INC2× · 2023–2024 · $2.3M · revenue -78% · 93% of their budget
- SFSOCIETY FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY INC2× · 2023–2024 · $950k · 86% of their budget
- PFPRINCIPLES FIRST FOR AMERICA FOUNDATION INC2× · 2023–2024 · $800k · 100% of their budget
Funded once
- GFGood Faith Network Incone grant, 2023 · $200k · revenue -29%
- CFCenter for a New American Security Incone grant, 2023 · $200k · revenue -2%
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.
To educate journalists and the public, and foster public debate, about improving political journalism to reflect public needs and hold the powerful accountable.
The Institute for New Global Politics is a California-based educational nonprofit corporation organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes. It is an independent and nonpartisan thinktank dedicated to educating the general…
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 open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
First Look Institute supports fearless investigative journalism, innovative and cinematic nonfiction filmmaking, and press freedom initiatives to protect the right to a free and open society and press.
To educate the public on constitutional issues and public policy matters. We are dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, and the values embodied in the Declaration of…
To provide thoughtful, conservative solutions to the challenges presented by education, workforce, labor and employment issues.
Research and education of United Nations activities
We are a nationwide grassroots movement of people who share a love of american democracy and concern for the direction of our existing leadership. we've watched as institutions on the right have been co-opted by bad-faith actors willing to…
To advance political evolution in america to outgrow the hyper-partisan polarization that threatens our democracy.
Disseminate information and education about pertinent economic, social and governmental topics, via print, web and other media to educate the public about the principles of LIbertarianism.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Principles First for America Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Center for Equal Opportunity. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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.
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 INDEPENDENCE INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds THE LIBERAL PATRIOT INC ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY INC ↗
- Who funds PRINCIPLES FIRST FOR AMERICA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Eternal Vigilance Action Inc ↗
- Who funds Mormon Women For Ethical Government Foun dation ↗
- Who funds Good Faith Network Inc ↗
- Who funds Center for a New American Security Inc ↗
- Who funds JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT INC ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY A JOURNAL OF IDEAS INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ↗
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: The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Defending Democracy Together Institute 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
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Defending Democracy Together Institute?
Find your warmest path to Defending Democracy Together Institute 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.