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Focus for Democracy Action

FOCUS FOR DEMOCRACY ACTION is dedicated to empowering donors to make the most impactful contributions possible to strengthen democracy.

$9.7M
Granted FY2024still arriving
11
Grants FY2024still arriving
4
States reached
$6.1M
Largest
01What you fund
01FY2024 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $50k–250k5 grants · $458k
  • $250k+6 grants · $9.3M
$300,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$4.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
WORKING AMERICA ACTION$6,067,659
RAPID RESIST ACTION$1,500,000
ACCELERATE ACTION INC$671,404
FOCUS FOR DEMOCRACY FUND$400,000
VOTEVETS ACTION FUND$325,000
COURIER NEWSROOM$300,000
COMMON SENSE NEW YORK$100,000
GENBLUE PAC$100,000
FAIR DEMOCRACY$100,000
WORKING AMERICA$86,596
SIXTEEN THIRTY FUND$71,844
02The need
02

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY24–24, $671k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%ACCELERATE ACTION INC: $671k → 16%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your field

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.

1
Fair Fight Action Inc

Fair fight action promotes fair elections in georgia and around the country, encourages voter participation in elections, educates voters about elections and their voting rights, and advocates for progressive issues.

Education
2
Focus for Democracy Action

Focus for democracy action is dedicated to empowering donors to make the most impactful contributions possible to strengthen democracy.

3
America Votes

The Organization was established to coordinate and promote progressive issues, policies, initiatives, and referenda, and to pursue electoral reform that expands access to the ballot.

Community Improvement
4
Defend the Vote Action Fund

To sustain and support the prioritization of comprehensive voting rights and democracy reform legislation at all levels of government.

5
Fdd Action

FDD Action is a non-profit, non-partisan 504(c)4 organization established to advocate for effective policies to promote U.S. National Security and defend free nations.

Community Improvement
6
Workers Defense Action Fund

Workers defense action fund is a member-led organization that mobilizes latine voters in texas to build governing power and fight for worker and immigrant justice.

Civil Rights
7
One for Democracy Action Fund

One for democracy unlocks resources to build a healthy democracy by fostering meaningful relationships between philanthropists and the democracy leaders of our time.

8
Register America

The organization is founded for social welfare purposes, including assisting with voter registration and advocating for policies which lead to increased voter registration in the united states.

9
Network for Civic Action

Network for civic action advocates for the protection of democracy and encourages civic engagement. it evaluates programs and educates donors about how their donations can best serve those goals.

10
Democracy Works Inc

The organization's mission is to leverage web-technologies to improve civic engagement and voter education.

Civil Rights
11
Employ America

To promote macroeconomic policies that ensure the sustained advancement of labor market outcomes for all american workers, i.e. tight labor markets, higher wages and better quality employment.

Employment
12
Organize for Justice

Organize for justice develops diverse campaign leadership by passing on innovations and relationships from one generation of organizers to the next. the organization strives to create public support on issues affecting working americans.

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Working America and the most unlike its peers is Rapid Resist Action. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

03the grantee network

8 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 11 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
4/8
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

WORKING AMERICA ACTION — $6,067,659 · OtherWORKING AMERICA ACTIONVOTEVETS ACTION FUND INC — $325,000 · OtherCOURIER NEWSROOM INC — $300,000 · Other+3 more — $286,596 · OtherRAPID RESIST ACTION — $1,500,000 · Civil RightsRAPID RESIST ACTIONFOCUS FOR DEMOCRACY FUND — $400,000 · Civil RightsFOCUS FOR DEMOCRACY FUN…FAIR DEMOCRACY — $100,000 · Civil RightsACCELERATE ACTION INC — $671,404 · Human ServicesSIXTEEN THIRTY FUND — $71,844 · Environment
Other$6,979,255Civil Rights$2,000,000Human Services$671,404Environment$71,844

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetRAPID RESIST ACTION — $1,500,000 over 1y, 8.3% of budgetACCELERATE ACTION INC — $671,404 over 1y, 5.5% of budgetFOCUS FOR DEMOCRACY FUND — $400,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetVOTEVETS ACTION FUND INC — $325,000 over 1y, 2.7% of budgetFAIR DEMOCRACY — $100,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetWORKING AMERICA — $86,596 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetSIXTEEN THIRTY FUND — $71,844 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Network for Civic ActionDC17.9× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Network for Civic Action · Hopewell Fund · Bright Future Fund · Tides Foundation · Future Forward USA Action · Tides Advocacy · Sixteen Thirty Fund · Evidence for Impact · Brick by Brick Foundation · Our American Future Action · 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 Focus for Democracy Action 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 10%6%25%56%100%your share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Focus for Democracy Action?

    Find your warmest path to Focus for Democracy Action 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 11 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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