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PA Alliance Foundation

PA Alliance Foundation ("paaf") is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is focused on civic engagement and democracy advancement across pennsylvania, working to expand access to the ballot through non-partisan voter education and mobilization.

$4.7M
Granted FY2024still arriving
72
Grants FY2024still arriving
9
States reached
$595k
Largest
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20202024.

Public Benefit$16MCivil Rights$1.3MCommunity Improvement$1.2MEmployment$498kHuman Services$342kCrime & Legal$262kYouth Development$120kEducation$70kOther$0
02FY2024 · 72 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k2 grants · $15k
  • $10k–50k44 grants · $930k
  • $50k–250k21 grants · $2.0M
  • $250k+5 grants · $1.7M
$25,000
Median grant
9
States reached
$2.0M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Project 26 Pennsylvania$595,000
The Voter Project Fund$400,000
Organize Pennsylania$250,000
Working Families Organization Inc$250,000
Pennsylvania United$250,000
Lead PA Institute$221,000
Commonwealth Communications$200,000
Project Keystone$186,000
Project 26 Pennsylvania$120,000
In This Together NEPA$100,000
Project 26 Pennsylvania$100,000
The Voter Project Fund$100,000
Working Families Organization Inc$100,000
Project 26 Pennsylvania$100,000
Pennsylvania United$91,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY20–24, $384k) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 94% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%WOORI CENTER: $21k → 7%Casa San Jose: $25k → 11%Casa San Jose: $20k → 11%CASA SAN JOSE: $20k → 11%CASA SAN JOSE: $17k → 11%Make The Road States Inc: $75k → 20%Make The Road States Inc: $36k → 20%Make The Road States Inc: $70k → 20%CAIR PENNSYLVANIA: $33k → 22%COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS PENNSYLVANIA: $16k → 22%Council on American-Islamic Relations: $10k → 22%Council on American-Islamic Relations: $10k → 22%Council on American-Islamic Relations: $10k → 22%Promote the Vote: $21k → 22%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

ME
IL
NY
MA
IN
PA
NJ
CA
WV
VA
MD
DC
FL

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

82%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$17M · 22 repeat orgs$3.7M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +49% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.

22 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 26 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

22
28

Total granted

$17M
$1.0M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%
+1%

Still filing today

95%
75%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 43% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.7M went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22’23’24
Civil RightsCommunity ImprovementHuman ServicesPublic BenefitArts & CultureEnvironmentOther

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

  • TV
    THE VOTER PROJECT FUND
    3× · 2022–2024 · $1.1M · revenue +441%
  • CC
    COMMONWEALTH COMMUNICATIONS
    3× · 2021–2024 · $687k · revenue +306%
  • PENNSYLVANIA VOICE
    5× · 2020–2024 · $637k · revenue +30%

Funded once

  • CENTER FOR POPULAR DEMOCRACY INC
    one grant, 2020 · $223k · revenue 0%
  • MT
    Make the Road New York
    one grant, 2020 · $212k · revenue -21%
  • KR
    Keystone Research Center Inc
    one grant, 2020 · $150k · revenue -29%

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

04Your field

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.

1
Lead Pa

Cultivating the next generation of progressive leaders across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

2
Keystone Democracy

Keystone Democracy's goal is to ensure that all Pennsylvania elections are implemented in a safe, secure, convenient and fair manner. We work to advance pro-democracy policies by informing elected officials, civic leaders, the media, and…

3
Pa Alliance Action

The PA Alliance Action seeks to advocate at the state level for democracy reform through grassroots activities and support of like-minded organizations on behalf of and in support of all Pennsylvanians, in particular historically…

Civil Rights
4
Philadelphia Area Jobs With Justice

Building support for the rights of working people through coalitions of labor and community and through public education.

Employment
5
Pa Alliance Foundation

Pa alliance foundation ("paaf") is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is focused on civic engagement and democracy advancement across pennsylvania, working to expand access to the ballot through non-partisan voter education and mobilization.…

Civil Rights
6
Ballot Pa Action

Informed and educated the public and lawmakers about the benefits of including independent voters in Pennsylvania's primary elections.

Civil Rights
7
Community Justice Project

To provide high quality civil legal assistance and other services to indigent individuals and families.

Crime & Legal
8
Power Coalition for Electoral Justice

We created the power coalition for electoral justice with our partners because this is a moment of opportunity; a time to dig in and become internationally strategic; in short, to use this movement to create a true paradigm shift. to plant…

Civil Rights
9
The Public Interest Law Center

The Public Interest Law Center uses high-impact legal strategies to advance the civil, social, and economic rights of communities in the Philadelphia region facing discrimination, inequality, and poverty. We use litigation, community…

Crime & Legal
10
Philly Black Worker Project

) to lead and engage in campaigns that empower Black workers to advance our rights and improve job quality in key employment sectors

Civil Rights
11
Philadelphia for All

Our mission is to empower and engage communities of color in Philadelphia through voter education, community outreach, and civic engagement initiatives. We are committed to ensuring every voice is heard by providing accessible information…

12
Pennsylvanians for Fair Courts

To develop and advocate for legislation, regulations, and government programs to protect against judicial gerrymandering and other legislative barriers to fair courts, and to conduct research about and publicize the positions of elected…

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Pirg New Voters Project Inc and the most unlike its peers is 1 Vote Counts. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyImmigrant Worker SupportYouth Development ServicesChristian Missionary Organi…Women & Girls Leadership De…Community FoundationsEnvironmental Conservation …Child Abuse Advocacy Servic…Policy Research and Advocacy
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.

Your grantees are a median of 12 years old; the field is 19. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number18%17%<5yr13%25%5–10yr19%25%10–20yr17%20%20–35yr15%9%35–55yr17%3%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value18%24%<5yr13%23%5–10yr19%34%10–20yr17%14%20–35yr15%5%35–55yr17%1%55yr+

The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 17% of your grantees by number, and just 24% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close 7% lost their exemption, against 9% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
7%
5/76
the rest of the field
9%
7,125/78,086

Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.

04the grantee network

63 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 63 of the 76 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.

3
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
16
Early backer (in before they grew)
63/63
Grantees still filing
33/63
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

The Voter Project — $10,682,834 · OtherThe Voter ProjectPROJECT 26 PENNSYLVANIA — $990,000 · OtherPROJECT 26 PENNSYLVANIACOMMONWEALTH COMMUNICATIONS — $686,765 · Other+32 more — $1,245,359 · Other+32 moreTHE VOTER PROJECT FUND — $1,116,000 · Civil RightsTHE VOTER PROJECT FUNDPENNSYLVANIA VOICE — $636,627 · Civil RightsPENNSYLVANIA VOICEPennsylvania United — $436,671 · Civil RightsPennsylvania UnitedWORKING FAMILIES ORGANIZATION INC — $415,000 · Civil RightsWORKING FAMILIES ORGAN…ORGANIZE PENNSYLVANIA — $250,000 · Civil RightsORGANIZE PENNSYLVANIAProject Keystone — $200,200 · Civil RightsFair Elections Center — $200,000 · Civil RightsNew Pennsylvania Project — $177,000 · Civil Rights+13 more — $697,865 · Civil Rights+13 morePOWER INTERFAITH INC — $1,025,000 · Community ImprovementPittsburgh United — $111,000 · Community Improvement+4 more — $60,000 · Community ImprovementLead PA Institute — $497,802 · EmploymentMake The Road States Inc — $181,000 · Human ServicesCASA SAN JOSE — $82,201 · Human ServicesCAIR-PENNSYLVANIA — $78,917 · Human ServicesWOORI CENTER — $21,159 · Human ServicesPROMOTE THE VOTE PA — $21,000 · Human ServicesCASA INC — $20,000 · Human ServicesCENTER FOR POPULAR DEMOCRACY INC — $222,720 · Public BenefitPUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE INC — $30,000 · Public BenefitNEO Philanthropy Inc — $10,000 · Public BenefitEmgage Foundation Inc — $10,000 · Public Benefit+1 more — $8,000 · Public BenefitMake the Road New York — $211,621 · Crime & LegalABOLITIONIST LAW CENTER — $25,000 · Crime & Legal
Other$13,604,958Civil Rights$4,129,363Community Improvement$1,196,000Employment$497,802Human Services$404,277Public Benefit$280,720Crime & Legal$236,621

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetThe Voter Project — $10,682,834 over 3y, 53% of budgetTHE VOTER PROJECT FUND — $1,116,000 over 3y, 14% of budgetPOWER INTERFAITH INC — $1,025,000 over 3y, 23% of budgetPROJECT 26 PENNSYLVANIA — $990,000 over 1y, 14% of budgetCOMMONWEALTH COMMUNICATIONS — $686,765 over 3y, 13% of budgetPENNSYLVANIA VOICE — $636,627 over 5y, 4.6% of budgetLead PA Institute — $497,802 over 4y, 61% of budgetPennsylvania United — $436,671 over 2y, 5.1% of budgetWORKING FAMILIES ORGANIZATION INC — $415,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetORGANIZE PENNSYLVANIA — $250,000 over 1y, 4.0% of budgetCASA INC — $232,190 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetCENTER FOR POPULAR DEMOCRACY INC — $222,720 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetMake the Road New York — $211,621 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetProject Keystone — $200,200 over 1y, 5.3% of budgetFair Elections Center — $200,000 over 3y, 2.0% of budgetMake The Road States Inc — $181,000 over 1y, 1.0% of budgetNew Pennsylvania Project — $177,000 over 3y, 18% of budgetKeystone Research Center Inc — $150,000 over 1y, 7.6% of budgetIN THIS TOGETHER NEPA INC — $130,000 over 2y, 23% of budgetFOR OUR FUTURE EDUCATION FUND — $121,404 over 2y, 21% of budgetONE PENNSYLVANIA ACTIVISTS UNITED — $116,000 over 1y, 1.8% of budgetPittsburgh United — $111,000 over 2y, 2.2% of budgetNEW VOICES PITTSBURGH INC — $110,067 over 3y, 2.2% of budgetURBAN AFFAIRS COALITION — $88,503 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetCASA SAN JOSE — $82,201 over 3y, 2.1% of budgetASIAN AMERICANS UNITED INC — $79,183 over 2y, 6.5% of budgetCAIR-PENNSYLVANIA — $78,917 over 3y, 2.5% of budgetFAIRNESS WV INSTITUTE INC — $75,000 over 1y, 11% of budgetCENTER FOR EMPOWERED POLITICS EDUCATION FUND — $61,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetNEXTGEN EDUCATION FUND — $50,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetCITIZENS FOR PENNSYLVANIA'S FUTURE — $50,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetNEW VOTERS ORG — $40,000 over 1y, 5.8% of budgetBHUTANESE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION OF PITTSBURGH — $37,513 over 2y, 5.0% of budgetNew PA Project Education Fund — $36,000 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetFISCAL SPONSORSHIP ALLIES INC — $30,000 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetPUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE INC — $30,000 over 1y, 3.3% of budget1 VOTE COUNTS — $29,530 over 1y, 7.7% of budgetPUBLIC DEMOCRACY AMERICA — $27,500 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetBLACK MEN VOTE — $25,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budget412 JUSTICE — $25,000 over 1y, 3.4% of budgetRISE EDUCATION FUND — $25,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetBLACK GIRLS VOTE 4 HER INC — $25,000 over 1y, 3.9% of budgetABOLITIONIST LAW CENTER — $25,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetPROMOTE THE VOTE PA — $21,000 over 1y, 2.2% of budgetVOTER EMPOWERMENT EDUCATION & ENRICHMENT MOVEMENT — $20,000 over 1y, 23% of budgetCASA INC — $20,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budget1HOOD MEDIA ACADEMY INC — $20,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetFRANKLIN & MARSHALL COLLEGE — $20,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Pennsylvania VoicePA47.4× affinity20 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Pennsylvania Voice · Tides Foundation · New Venture Fund · The Heinz Endowments · Hopewell Fund · Bvm Capacity Building Institute Inc · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · All Hands on Deck Network Inc · The Pittsburgh Foundation · United States Energy Foundation · The Philadelphia Foundation · Pa Alliance Action

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 PA Alliance 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 40%5%19%42%75%your share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from governmentmedian 8%
  • Casa Inc8% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
4get no government money at all
13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
typical government reliance, FY2025

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to PA Alliance Foundation?

Find your warmest path to PA Alliance 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 76 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph