How much does National Farmers Union Foundation give?

National Farmers Union Foundation reported 17 itemized grants totaling $424,821, out of $445,869 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 7 and 22 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does National Farmers Union Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Food & Nutrition (97%), Education (3%), Community Improvement (1%).

Who are National Farmers Union Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: National Young Farmers Coalition Inc ($675k), Cornell University ($441k), The United Christian Community Ass0 ($408k).

Does National Farmers Union Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 15% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as National Farmers Union Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Farm Aid Inc, Earth Island Institute Inc, Patagoniaorg.

Where is National Farmers Union Foundation based?

National Farmers Union Foundation is based in DC.

National Farmers Union Foundation

National Farmers Union Foundation at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

National Farmers Union Foundation

The NATIONAL FARMERS UNION FOUNDATION's (nfuf) mission is to empower people to educate our youth, neighbors, media and policymakers on the social, economic and cooperative contributions of family agriculture.

$446k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$65k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Food & Nutrition$4.0MEducation$110kCommunity Improvement$32k

02FY2024 · 17 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 17 grants below total $424,821, the rows itemized in this filing. The $445,869 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $21,048 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 · FY2024

Under $10k3 grants · $22k
$10k–50k12 grants · $287k
$50k–250k2 grants · $116k

$17,961

Median grant

States reached

$1.5M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CORNELL UNIVERSITY	$64,809
THE UNITED CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY ASSOC	$50,830
IOWA FARMERS UNION	$46,332
CAROLINA FARM STEWARDSHIP ASSOCIATION	$33,592
LEAN & CLEAN LLC	$32,802
KENTUCKY HORTICULTURE COUNCIL	$31,683
MONTANA FARMERS UNION	$28,574
HAWAII FARMERS UNION	$25,000
TILTH ALLIANCE	$17,961
KEEP GROWING DETROIT	$16,181
MISSOURI FARMERS UNION	$16,044
AUBURN UNIVERSITY	$14,291
KANSAS FARMERS UNION	$12,675
COMMUNITY ALLIANCE WITH FAMILY FARMERS	$11,782
NEW ENGLAND FARMERS UNION	$8,976

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $408k) land where the poverty rate runs at 33%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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

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.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

97%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$4.0M · 32 repeat orgs$118k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +121% since the first grant, against +9% for those funded once.

32 repeat relationships: 15 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$4.0M

$79k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+121%

+9%

Still filing today

69%

50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $38k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationFood & NutritionCommunity ImprovementHuman ServicesHealthEnvironmentOther

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
NATIONAL YOUNG FARMERS COALITION INC
4× · 2017–2021 · $675k · revenue +355%
Cornell University
7× · 2017–2024 · $441k · revenue +59%
TU
THE UNITED CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY ASS0
8× · 2017–2024 · $408k · revenue +234% · 65% of their budget

Funded once

LC
LAKE COUNTY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
one grant, 2017 · $27k
PF
PENNSYLVANIA FARMERS UNION
one grant, 2017 · $25k
NF
NEBRASKA FARMERS UNION FOUNDATION INC
one grant, 2019 · $9k · revenue +9%

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.

Farming for the Future Foundation

Philanthropy

Black Urban Farmers Association

Food & Nutrition

Organic Farmers Association

The mission of the Organic Farmers Association is to provide a strong and unified national voice for domestic certified organic producers so that organic agriculture will become the basis of a viable United States food and agricultural…

Food & Nutrition

Us Farming and Ranching Foundation

MISSION: bring all of American agriculture together, with farmers and ranchers at the center, to collectively identify and tackle critical, long-term issues. We collaborate, communicate, educate, advocate and utilize science to advance the…

Food & Nutrition

Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation

The federation educates and supports current and future farmers and ranchers in nebraska.

—

August West Foundation for Sustainable Ag

Food & Nutrition

Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America - North Dakota Division

North dakota farmers union, guided by the principles of cooperation, legislation and education, is an organization committed to the prosperity of family farms, ranches and rural communities.

—

Us Farmers and Ranchers Alliance

Community Improvement

Mississippi Farm Bureau Young Farmer Scholarship Foundation

—

National Corn Growers Association Foundation

Advance the interests of us corn farmers through research and education.

Food & Nutrition

Rising Farmworker Dream Fund

Recreation & Sports

Farm Action Fund

To promote social welfare by protecting americas family farmers and rural economies from the abusive practices of global agribusiness monopolies.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Farmers Educational & Co-Op Union of America - Wi Division; the most unlike its peers is Cornell University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

26 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. 26 of the 40 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

26/26

Grantees still filing

23/26

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,781,532Food & Nutrition$920,498Education$660,217Human Services$408,403Community Improvement$189,463Environment$123,984Health$30,264Employment$5,485

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

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.

Farm Aid IncMA28.2× affinity11 shared granteesties to 10 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Farm Aid Inc · Earth Island Institute Inc · Patagoniaorg · The Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America · UNFI Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · Windward Fund · The McKnight Foundation · Tides Foundation · Network for Good · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc

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 National Farmers Union Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from National Farmers Union Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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.

Play a game based on National Farmers Union’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