· Public charity
Informing America Foundation
Organized for the purpose of promoting the gathering and dissemination of information about important public-policy issues facing the us through investigative, explanatory, data-driven and multimedia journalism, and other forms of public-interest information.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $50k–250k3 grants · $310k
- $250k+9 grants · $5.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INSTITUTE FOR CITIZEN FOCUSED SERVICE | $1,696,667 |
| EMPOWER WHISTLEBLOWER CENTER | $1,180,000 |
| MICHIGAN NEWS SOURCE | $600,000 |
| BENTLEY MEDIA GROUP | $498,750 |
| STAR NEWS DIGITAL MEDIA | $300,000 |
| ACCURACY IN MEDIA | $300,000 |
| ULLOO MEDIA | $300,000 |
| FRANKLIN NEWS FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| NAPOLITAN INSTITUTE | $210,000 |
| DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| EDUCATION ACTION GROUP FOUNDATION (DBA AMERICA BACK TO BASICS) | $50,000 |
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 (FY21–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 71% 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.
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 +106% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $310k 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
- EOEMPOWER OVERSIGHT WHISTLEBLOWERS & RESEARCH4× · 2021–2024 · $3.0M · revenue +222% · 87% of their budget
- IFINSTITUTE FOR CITIZEN FOCUSED SERVICE3× · 2022–2024 · $2.8M · revenue +130% · 35% of their budget
- AIACCURACY IN MEDIA INC3× · 2022–2024 · $800k · revenue +225%
Funded once
- SNSTAR NEWS DIGITAL MEDIAone grant, 2021 · $1.0M
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $333k
- POPERFORMANCE ONE MEDIAone grant, 2021 · $60k
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.
To educate journalists and the public, and foster public debate, about improving political journalism to reflect public needs and hold the powerful accountable.
To teach and disseminate educational materials to the public.
Public education on contemporary social issues and protection of the 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution.
To educate and inform growing audiences with engaging content through distribution channels.
New york focus is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering state and local politics in the empire state.(continued on scheduleo)launched in october of 2020, new york focus aims to help make government more transparent by publishing…
Inform the public by providing news
Mission:To provide ideology-free media platforms representing balanced news and educational forums to inform and increase critical thinking and engagement.
The organization provides critical support to independent journalists to investigate news stories regarding corruption, malfeasance, exploitation, misappropriation of funds in the public and private sectors.
To educate the public on constitutional issues and public policy matters. We are dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, and the values embodied in the Declaration of…
Providing research, education and practical information all aimed at optimizing newspapers' business operations, deepening their community engagement and enhancing the quality of their journalism.
CEIR seeks to restore trust in the American election system and promote election procedures that encourage participation while ensuring election integrity and security.
The Congressional Integrity Projects focus is to root out hypocrisy and restore integrity to the congressional system.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Franklin News Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Conservative Clergy of Color Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 18 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 EMPOWER OVERSIGHT WHISTLEBLOWERS & RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR CITIZEN FOCUSED SERVICE ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN CONTENT AND ENTERTAINMENT ↗
- Who funds CONCERNED COMMUNITIES FOR AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds ACCURACY IN MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN NEWS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NAPOLITAN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds EDUCATION ACTION GROUP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Conservative Clergy of Color 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: Donors Trust Inc · The Searle Freedom Trust · The Dunn Foundation · Triad Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Informing America Foundation 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 Informing America Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Informing America Foundation 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.