· Public charity
Impetus Fund
To operate exclusively for the purpose of promoting social welfare, including, but not limited to, providing public education, conducting advocacy, and encouraging civic engagement.
Read this first · the figures below need context
78% of Impetus Fund’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Sixteen Thirty Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 5 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year Impetus Fund named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $7M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $56k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $111k
- $250k+6 grants · $6.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WORKMONEY INC | $3,000,000 |
| NORTH FUND | $1,100,000 |
| FUTURE FORWARD USA ACTION | $1,000,000 |
| DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER | $1,000,000 |
| FAMILY FRIENDLY ACTION FUND | $500,000 |
| FAIR DEMOCRACY | $250,000 |
| THE ACT NOW PROJECT | $111,000 |
| CENTER FOR VOTER INFORMATION | $46,460 |
| ADLER UNIVERSITY | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 99% 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.
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.
5 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 68% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $692k 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
- FFFUTURE FORWARD USA ACTION2× · 2021–2024 · $57M · revenue ×47
- AVAmerica Votes3× · 2021–2023 · $7.1M · revenue -28%
- CFCENTER FOR VOTER INFORMATION2× · 2021–2024 · $4.0M · revenue ×12
Funded once
- VRVOTE REV ACTION FUNDgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $510k · revenue ×1,290
- AACRONYMone grant, 2021 · $500k
- TCTHE COOPERATIVE IMPACT LABone grant, 2021 · $450k · revenue -36% · 39% 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.
The organization's mission is to leverage web-technologies to improve civic engagement and voter education.
The mission of voteamerica is to strengthen united states democracy by increasing voter turnout.
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.
Strengthen democracy for all voters by promoting the responsible use of technology in all elections.
Upturn advances equity and justice in the design, governance, and use of technology.
To develop and promote innovative fundraising tools and practices that utilize internet technology among social welfare organizations for the purpose of increasing grassroots engagement in social welfare activities, as well as…
To sustain and support the prioritization of comprehensive voting rights and democracy reform legislation at all levels of government.
One for democracy unlocks resources to build a healthy democracy by fostering meaningful relationships between philanthropists and the democracy leaders of our time.
See schedule o.this organization seeks to build collective power to defend and advance a vibrant democracy that benefits all people.
Providing research, education and practical information all aimed at optimizing newspapers' business operations, deepening their community engagement and enhancing the quality of their journalism.
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.
All voting is local (avl) focuses its nonpartisan programming in three core ways: 1) fighting voter suppression against american citizens and opening up pathways to registration and voting - at every turn and for eligible voters; 2)…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Work for America Inc and the most unlike its peers is Adler University. 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.
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 FUTURE FORWARD USA ACTION ↗
- Who funds SIXTEEN THIRTY FUND ↗
- Who funds America Votes ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR VOTER INFORMATION ↗
- Who funds WORKMONEY INC ↗
- Who funds DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER ↗
- Who funds NORTH FUND ↗
- Who funds FORWARD ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds WORK FOR AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds VOTE REV ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds ACRONYM ↗
- Who funds THE COOPERATIVE IMPACT LAB ↗
- Who funds FAIR DEMOCRACY ↗
- Who funds VOTO LATINO INC ↗
- Who funds THE ACT NOW PROJECT ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR STATES ↗
- Who funds Adler University ↗
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 · Future Forward USA Action · Advocacy Action Fund Inc · Bright Future Fund · Way to Win Action Fund Inc · America Votes · Open Society Action Fund Inc · Fund for a Better Future Inc · Oakw Fund · Pacific Environmental Coalition · American Future Republic
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 Impetus Fund 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 Impetus Fund?
Find your warmest path to Impetus Fund 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.