· Private foundation
Democracy Works
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sightline Institute | $200 |
| Valley and Mountain Fellowship | $150 |
| Am for Financial Reform Educa Fund | $100 |
| JUUstice Washington | $50 |
| UU Humanists Association | $35 |
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 (FY20–21, $500) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +9% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2022, 7 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (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 FY2022, 75% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $135 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
- VAValley and Mountain Fellowship2× · 2020–2022 · $3k
- SUSaltwater UU Church2× · 2020–2021 · $2k
- JWJUUSTICE WASHINGTON3× · 2020–2022 · $2k
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $2k
- LILOW INCOME HOUSING INSTITUTEgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $354 · revenue +241%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $257
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.
The Clean Energy Transition Institute (CETI) is an independent, nonpartisan research and analysis nonprofit whose mission is to accelerate an equitable clean energy transition in the Northwest.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities and the climate.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
ISET-International catalyzes transformative changes toward a more resilient and equitable future. Through research, training and implementation activities, we improve understanding and elevate the level of dialog and practice as society…
The institute for energy research (ier) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. ier maintains that freely functioning…
Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.
Seattle-based online publication seeking to examine and influence urban policies.
The center conducts research and engages with decision-makers and civil society on energy, water, and climate policy as well as on broader dimensions of development, sustainability, and equity. it builds capacity through training and…
Rogue Climate's mission is to empower Southern Oregon communities most impacted by climate change including low-income, rural, youth, seniors & communities of color, to win climate justice by organizing for clean energy, sustainable jobs &…
Advocate for tax policy in Washington State
EFIs mission is to transform the produce industry and the lives of farmworkers by facilitating collaboration among workers, agricultural employers, retail buyers and consumer advocates.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sightline Institute and the most unlike its peers is The Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 37 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 REED INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Sightline Institute ↗
- Who funds LOW INCOME HOUSING INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds SOUTH SEATTLE EMERALD ↗
- Who funds REAL CHANGE HOMELESS EMPOWERMENT PROJECT ↗
- Who funds Backbone Campaign ↗
- Who funds METAFOUNDATION DBA POST CARBON INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOODBANK OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Economic Opportunity Institute ↗
- Who funds HOMESIGHT ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES ↗
- Who funds THE TOMAQUAG INDIAN MEMORIAL MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
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: Seattle Foundation · Real Progress Foundation · The Bullitt Foundation · Medina Foundation · Gates Foundation · The Oregon Community Foundation · Impactassetsinc · Tides Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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 Democracy Works 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.
- Reed Institute — 1% 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 Works?
Find your warmest path to Democracy Works 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.