· Public charity
Democracy at Work Institute
The mission of the DEMOCRACY AT WORK INSTITUTE is to expand the worker cooperative model to reach communities most directly affected by social and economic inequality, specifically people of color, recent immigrants, and low-wage workforces.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 6 grants below total $759,678 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $956,429 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $196,751 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 · FY2024
- $10k–50k5 grants · $161k
- $250k+1 grant · $599k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GUILDED LCA | $598,709 |
| PILIPINO WORKERS CENTER | $37,765 |
| COOPERACION SANTA ANA (V) | $34,063 |
| APIS & HERITAGE MANAGING MEMBER LLC | $32,000 |
| UNITED TAXI WORKERS OF SAN DIEGO | $31,091 |
| COOPERATION LA | $26,050 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 74% 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.
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.
10 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 3 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, 13% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $662k 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
- PWPILIPINO WORKERS CENTER OF SOUTHERN3× · 2021–2024 · $172k · revenue +29%
- CLCooperation L A4× · 2021–2024 · $146k · revenue +246%
- CSCooperacin Santa Ana2× · 2023–2024 · $64k · revenue +17%
Funded once
- AHApis Heritage Capital Partnerone grant, 2021 · $150k
- SCStaffing Cooperativeone grant, 2018 · $143k
- CVCharitable Ventures of OCone grant, 2021 · $102k
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.
Community Cooperative's mission is to support entrepreneurs and organizations advancing the cooperative and solidarity economy through connection to funding, training, workshops, networks, and resources that foster leadership in the…
Fuerza Laboral is a workers' rights center whose mission is to shift the balance of power in our economy in favor of workers by educating, training, and organizing workers to become community leaders; taking direct action to recover unpaid…
Creating a cooperative culture
The Central Ohio Worker Center is a non-profit organization that educates, empowers, and advocates for and with low-wage and immigrant workers in Central Ohio.
Building a movement of diverse, upwardly mobile college grads overcoming underemployment through digital skills and peer connections.
The NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives is dedicated to sharing and cultivating the educational, financial, and technical resources of its members and supporting the growth of worker cooperatives for social and economic justice. We offer…
Chicago Workers' Collaborative's mission is to promote full employment and equality for the lowest wage-earners, primarily temporary staffing workers, in the Chicago region through leadership and skills training, critical assistance and…
To build a thriving ecosystem for worker-owned and controlled businesses - and their cooperative leaders - to power movements for racial justice and economic democracy.
To promote and develop cooperatives to improve economic opportunities for all.
COLLECTIVE REMAKE: Art, Business, Education, Jobs, News, People, and Recycling for Sustainability is a unique social co-operative-in Los Angeles County-designed to support the creation of worker-owned businesses and other kinds of…
The CO-OP ED Center NFP is an organization committed to building democratic worker-owned businesses in Chicagoland that contribute to a strong local economy and invest in community development. Its a purpose is to train, develop and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Center for Community Self-Help and the most unlike its peers is United Taxi Workers of San Diego. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 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 PILIPINO WORKERS CENTER OF SOUTHERN ↗
- Who funds Cooperation L A ↗
- Who funds KOREAN IMMIGRANT WORKERS ADVOCATES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL IMPACT PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds Cooperacin Santa Ana ↗
- Who funds UNITED TAXI WORKERS OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Center for Community Self-Help ↗
- Who funds MULTIPLIER ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI UNION COOPERATIVE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds THE WORKING WORLD INC ↗
- Who funds WORCESTER ROOTS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT CENTER ↗
- Who funds Vermont Employee Ownership Center ↗
- Who funds LONG ISLAND PROGRESSIVE COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds PHILADELPHIA AREA COOPERATIVE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds LEGACY LAW SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
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: Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · The California Endowment · Cooperacin Santa Ana · Weingart Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · California Community Foundation · Impactassetsinc · Tides Foundation · Local Initiatives Support Corporation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Democracy at Work 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.
- Cooperative Development Institute Inc — 58% of income from government
- Vermont Employee Ownership Center — 31% of income from government
- Worcester Roots Project — 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 Democracy at Work Institute?
Find your warmest path to Democracy at Work 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.