· Public charity
Fair Democracy
FAIR DEMOCRACY works to ensure that the roots of american democracy are healthy with strong voting rights and access, an engaged and informed electorate, an open and accountable government and trusted messengers engaging americans in civil discourse.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+2 grants · $1.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FORWARD MAJORITY ACTION | $1,065,000 |
| BARBED WIRE MEDIA | $315,000 |
| AMERICA VOTES | $50,000 |
| TEXAS FUTURE COOPERATIVE | $10,000 |
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 (FY23–24, $3.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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 +189% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 1 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, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $315k 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
- AIAMERICAN INDEPENDENT MEDIA2× · 2022–2023 · $200k · revenue ×11 · 89% of their budget
- TVTHE VOTER PARTICIPATION CENTER2× · 2021–2023 · $112k · revenue +432%
- AVAmerica Votes2× · 2022–2025 · $60k · revenue +189%
Funded once
- AFAB FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $3.0M · revenue ×12 · 50% of their budget
- VAVOTEVETS ACTION FUND INCgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $2.0M · revenue +49%
- NDNEW DAY NEVADAone grant, 2023 · $1.9M · revenue +2% · 98% of their budget
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.
Supports Measure to Remove Lawmakers Power to Set Their Own Pay
The organization's mission is to leverage web-technologies to improve civic engagement and voter education.
Organize general election presidential and vice-presidential debates
All Americans Vote aims to motivate underrepresented Americans to engage in the most patriotic of exercises - voting!
American for Tax Reform (ATR) is a national grassroots organization focused on increasing public awareness about the size and regulations of government and rallying support for lower taxes, smaller government and congressional…
Fair democracy works to ensure that the roots of american democracy are healthy with strong voting rights and access, an engaged and informed electorate, an open and accountable government and trusted messengers engaging americans in civil…
See schedule o.this organization seeks to build collective power to defend and advance a vibrant democracy that benefits all people.
Progress arizona is an arizona nonprofit corporation located in phoenix, arizona. progress arizona is an organization founded in 2018 to educate the public about key policy issues using digital organizing and communications.
American workers for progress works to ensure that leaders at every level are focused on reducing barriers to job growth and addressing economic challenges to guarantee a better future for all americans.
Texans for vaccine choice exists to directly influence vaccine choice public policy and legislation
To teach and disseminate educational materials to the public.
To sustain and support the prioritization of comprehensive voting rights and democracy reform legislation at all levels of government.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The American Independent Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Better Pennsylvania Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 24 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 NORTH STAR PROSPERITY ↗
- Who funds AB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VOTEVETS ACTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NEW DAY NEVADA ↗
- Who funds GUARDING AGAINST PANDEMICS ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR VOTER INFORMATION ↗
- Who funds BETTER PENNSYLVANIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE WISCONSIN INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN INDEPENDENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND RISE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDEPENDENT MEDIA ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE TO PROTECT HEALTH CARE ↗
- Who funds FUTURE FORWARD USA ACTION ↗
- Who funds THE VOTER PARTICIPATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds America Votes ↗
- Who funds Lead Texas Forward Inc ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA WINS ↗
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: Sixteen Thirty Fund · Hopewell Fund · Our American Future Action · Tides Foundation · Evidence for Impact · Way to Win Action Fund Inc · America Votes
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 Fair Democracy 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.
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 Fair Democracy?
Find your warmest path to Fair Democracy 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.