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Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc

The foundation for individual rights and expression's (fire's) mission is to defend and sustain the individual rights of all americans to free speech and free thought-the most essential qualities of liberty.(continued on schedule o)fire educates americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for…

$666k
Granted FY2025still arriving
16
Grants FY2025still arriving
13
States reached
$250k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2022 to 2025.

Education$464kCivil Rights$291kScience & Tech$282kArts & Culture$132kSocial Science$96kPublic Benefit$70kPublic Safety & Disaster$15kCommunity Improvement$14kOther$0
02FY2025 · 16 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 16 grants below total $566,744, the rows itemized in this filing. The $665,615 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $98,871 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k14 grants · $267k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
  • $250k+1 grant · $250k
$18,500
Median grant
13
States reached
$74M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
COSMOS INSTITUTE INC$250,000
PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE$50,000
THE FUTURE OF FREE SPEECH$35,144
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY$35,000
NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER$25,000
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA BOARD OF TRUSTEES$24,279
THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA$22,000
INSTITUTE FOR HUMANE STUDIES AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY$18,500
2WAY INTERACTIVE INC$17,500
ELENA VELEZ INDUSTRY INC$15,000
MOVIEGOER INC$15,000
TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY$13,846
BALAKER MEDIA FOUNDATION$12,425
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY$12,050
THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA$11,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY22–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 45% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 11%NEW TOLERANCE CAMPAIGN: $10k → 15%PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE: $50k → 8%MIT FREE SPEECH ALLIANCE: $10k → 16%MOVIEGOER INC: $15k → 9%THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $49k → 22%JUNIOR STATE OF AMERICA: $36k → 10%BALAKER MEDIA FOUNDATION: $37k → 11%REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $22k → 11%CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY LONG BEACH: $31k → 14%PEMBROKE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC: $33k → 13%ARTHUR L CARTER JOURNALISM INSTITUTE AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: $75k → 17%2WAY INTERACTIVE INC: $18k → 20%COSMOS INSTITUTE INC: $250k → 10%TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $14k → 11%CORNELL FREE SPEECH ALLIANCE: $19k → 16%ALUMNI FREE SPEECH ALLIANCE: $174k → 11%BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS: $34k → 14%GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: $35k → 14%HARVARD ALUMNI FOR FREE SPEECH: $8k → 10%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA BOARD OF TRUSTEES: $24k → 13%ELENA VELEZ INDUSTRY INC: $15k → 6%THE FUTURE OF FREE SPEECH: $35k → 14%BROWN UNIVERSITY: $14k → 14%THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: $12k → 15%RUTGERS THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY: $7k → 8%GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $25k → 6%UNC ALUMNI FREE SPEECH ALLIANCE: $10k → 6%MERCATUS CENTER: $20k → 7%JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: $10k → 19%THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $22k → 22%UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY: $22k → 10%BALAKER MEDIA FOUNDATION: $12k → 11%NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: $20k → 17%INSTITUTE FOR HUMANE STUDIES AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $19k → 7%THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $14k → 22%NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: $15k → 17%THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $11k → 22%THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $10k → 22%NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER: $25k → 22%NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER: $25k → 22%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

MT
IL
WI
NY
MA
OH
PA
NJ
RI
CA
VA
MD
AZ
AR
TN
SC
DC
TX
FL
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 20% of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inclessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address · 3.3% directed abroad (not shown)
How this is measured
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

17%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$210k · 3 repeat orgs$991k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +87% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

3 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 11 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
18

Total granted

$210k
$544k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+87%
0%

Still filing today

100%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 8% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $446k went to new ones.

50%100%’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’22’23’24’25
EducationCivil RightsArts & CultureSocial ScienceOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • NY
    New York University
    2× · 2022–2024 · $110k · revenue +21%
  • NC
    NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER
    2× · 2023–2025 · $50k · revenue +87%
  • BM
    BALAKER MEDIA FOUNDATION
    2× · 2023–2025 · $50k · revenue +139%

Funded once

  • AF
    Alumni Free Speech Alliance
    one grant, 2024 · $174k · revenue 0% · 39% of their budget
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
    one grant, 2024 · $37k
  • JS
    JUNIOR STATE OF AMERICAgraduated
    one grant, 2023 · $36k · revenue +31%
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education
2
Trustees of Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.

Education
3
Trustees of Tufts College

Education and Research

Education
4
President and Trustees of Bates College

Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…

Education
5
Lehigh University

The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…

Education
6
The George Washington University

The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…

Education
7
University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education
8
Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—
9
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education
10
Manhattanville University

To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.

Education
11
William Marsh Rice University

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…

Education
12
Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Georgetown University; the most unlike its peers is Balaker Media Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
05the grantee network

20 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 20 of the 35 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
20/20
Grantees still filing
9/20
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

COSMOS INSTITUTE INC: $250,000 · OtherCOSMOS INSTITUTE INCUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: $37,384 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTONJUNIOR STATE OF AMERICA: $36,000 · OtherJUNIOR STATE OF AMERICAUNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS FAYETTEVILLE: $33,593 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS FAYETTEVILLECSULB: $31,400 · OtherREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $25,177 · OtherGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $25,015 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA: $24,279 · OtherREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY: $22,000 · OtherREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT RIVERSIDE: $21,600 · Other+7 more: $92,050 · Other+7 moreAlumni Free Speech Alliance: $173,800 · EducationAlumni Free Speech AllianceNew York University: $110,000 · EducationNew York UniversityTRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $105,700 · EducationTRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIAPresident and Fellows of Harvard College: $50,000 · EducationPresident and Fellows of Harvard CollegeGEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: $35,000 · EducationGEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYPEMBROKE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC: $33,000 · EducationPEMBROKE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INCUNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $22,500 · Education+4 more: $52,646 · Education+4 moreNATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER: $50,000 · Arts & CultureBALAKER MEDIA FOUNDATION: $49,700 · Arts & CultureThe Future of Free Speech: $35,144 · Civil RightsMIT Free Speech Alliance: $10,000 · Civil RightsNEW TOLERANCE CAMPAIGN: $10,000 · Civil RightsMercatus Center Inc: $20,000 · Social ScienceBROWN UNIVERSITY: $13,860 · Community Improvement
Other$598,498Education$582,646Arts & Culture$99,700Civil Rights$55,144Social Science$20,000Community Improvement$13,860

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetAlumni Free Speech Alliance: $173,800 over 1y, 39% of budgetNew York University: $110,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetTRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: $105,700 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetPresident and Fellows of Harvard College: $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER: $50,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetBALAKER MEDIA FOUNDATION: $49,700 over 2y, 10% of budgetJUNIOR STATE OF AMERICA: $36,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetThe Future of Free Speech: $35,144 over 1y, 3.9% of budgetGEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: $35,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPEMBROKE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC: $33,000 over 1y, 16% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH: $22,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMercatus Center Inc: $20,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetInstitute for Humane Studies: $18,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetBROWN UNIVERSITY: $13,860 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: $13,846 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetUNC FREE SPEECH ALLIANCE INC: $10,000 over 1y, 6.7% of budgetMIT Free Speech Alliance: $10,000 over 1y, 2.7% of budgetJOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNEW TOLERANCE CAMPAIGN: $10,000 over 1y, 4.4% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Vanguard Charitable E…Fidelity Investments …
Vanguard Charitable Endowment ProgramPA8.5× affinity7 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%3%10%23%40%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →median 12%
  • Johns Hopkins University: 12% of income from government
  • President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
1get no government money at all
1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc?

Find your warmest path to Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc 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 from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 35 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its 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.

Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home