· Private foundation
Liberty Ears Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
50% of Liberty Ears Inc’s FY2024 grant dollars went to The Denver Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 5 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Liberty Ears Inc named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $2M. 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 FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- $50k–250k11 grants · $1.6M
- $250k+2 grants · $700k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LUDWIG VON MISES FOUNDATION | $400,000 |
| FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND EXPRESSION | $300,000 |
| AMERICAN TINNITUS ASSOCIATION | $200,000 |
| AMERICAN BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | $200,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $200,000 |
| FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION | $200,000 |
| ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION | $200,000 |
| THE REASON FOUNDATION | $124,356 |
| CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT | $100,000 |
| MIKE ROWE WORKS FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| AMERICAN FEDERATION FOR CHILDREN GROWTH FUND INC | $100,000 |
| RANDOLPH BOURNE INSTITUTE DBA ANTIWAR | $100,000 |
| HEARING HEALTH FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
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 (FY22–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 73% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 34% of Liberty Ears Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
7 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2023, 1 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, 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 FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- FFFOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND EXPRESSION INC2× · 2023–2024 · $500k · revenue +11%
- EFElectronic Frontier Foundation Inc2× · 2023–2024 · $400k · revenue +20%
- ABAMERICAN BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE2× · 2023–2024 · $354k · revenue +5%
Funded once
- AFAdvocates for Self-Government Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $104k · revenue +128%
- RFREASON FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $100k
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 american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
Competitive enterprise institute (cei) is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. we believe that consumers are best helped not by government regulation but by being…
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…
The council on foreign relations (cfr) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and…
The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Disseminate information and education about pertinent economic, social and governmental topics, via print, web and other media to educate the public about the principles of LIbertarianism.
American institute for economic research (aier) educates people on the value of personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights, limited government and sound money. aier's ongoing scientific research demonstrates the importance of these…
The fund for american studies (tfas) seeks to create a brighter, more prosperous future by preparing young people for leadership and teaching them the ideas of freedom and a free-market economy. founded in 1967, tfas organizes programs for…
Free press action fund fights for your rights to connect and communicate. we fight to save the free and open internet, curb runaway media consolidation, protect press freedom, and promote digital civil rights. we believe that change…
Free press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. we believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Foundation for Economic Education Inc and the most unlike its peers is Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 12 of the 17 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 THE DENVER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND EXPRESSION INC ↗
- Who funds Electronic Frontier Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT ↗
- Who funds Foundation for Economic Education Inc ↗
- Who funds THE REASON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Advocates for Self-Government Inc ↗
- Who funds MIKEROWEWORKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FEDERATION FOR CHILDREN GROWTH FUND INC ↗
- Who funds HEARING HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLORADO JAPANESE SCHOOL ↗
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 · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Liberty Ears Inc 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.