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People for the American Way Foundation at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

People for the American Way Foundation

Conducts research, legal, and education work on behalf of first amendment freedoms and democratic values.

$183k
Granted FY2025still arriving
2
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$150k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
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 2025.

Civil Rights$4.0MPublic Benefit$555kReligion$65kArts & Culture$60kCommunity Improvement$20k
02FY2025 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k1 grant · $30k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $150k
$150,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$7.8M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
PEOPLE FOR THE AMERIAN WAY$150,000
WOKE VOTE$30,000
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 97% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 14%PITTSBURGH COALITION OF BLACK TRADE UNIONISTS: $5k → 11%ST JAMES AME: $10k → 15%BERACHAH BAPTIST CHURCH: $8k → 22%CENTER FOR ARTISTIC ACTIVISM: $60k → 11%THE CENTER FOR RACIAL EQUITY AND JUSTICE: $5k → 14%NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE: $50k → 14%LIBERTY TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH: $9k → 21%FIFTH EPISCOPAL: $5k → 16%VOTER EMPOWERMENT COLL INC: $5k → 13%ST PAUL'S CME: $5k → 16%SOUTHEAST SEVENTH DAY: $5k → 17%AME EIGHTH EPISCOPAL: $5k → 23%NEWARK DISTRICT MINISTER'S FELLOWSHIP: $5k → 16%WILLIAMS CHAPEL: $5k → 10%BERACHAH BAPTIST CHURCH: $5k → 22%PEOPLE OF THE AMERICAN WAY: $2.7M → 14%NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION: $15k → 14%LIBERTY TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH: $5k → 21%WOKE VOTE: $75k → 16%PHILLIPS SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY: $10k → 13%COMMUNITY OF FAITH ASSEMBLY: $14k → 17%PEOPLE OF THE AMERICAN WAY: $1.3M → 14%WOKE VOTE: $30k → 16%PHILLIPS SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY: $10k → 13%COMMUNITY OF FAITH ASSEMBLY: $5k → 17%PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: $195k → 14%PEOPLE FOR THE AMERIAN WAY: $150k → 14%NARAL PRO-CHOICE AMERICA FOUNDATION: $5k → 14%AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH: $5k → 14%LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL & HUMAN RIGHTS: $6k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
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

MI
NY
OH
PA
NJ
CA
VA
DC
MS
AL
GA
FL
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.
$4.6M · 8 repeat orgs$126k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue -19% since the first grant, against -21% for those funded once.

8 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

8
14

Total granted

$4.6M
$126k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

-19%
-21%

Still filing today

25%
36%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’20’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’20’22’23’24’25
Civil RightsReligionCommunity ImprovementArts & CultureOther
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

  • PF
    PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY
    4× · 2022–2025 · $4.3M · revenue -19% · 28% of their budget
  • WV
    Woke Vote
    2× · 2024–2025 · $105k · revenue -75%
  • NA
    NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
    2× · 2018–2020 · $65k

Funded once

  • CF
    CENTER FOR ARTISTIC ACTIVISM INC
    one grant, 2024 · $60k · revenue -21%
  • TL
    THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS INC
    one grant, 2018 · $6k · revenue -45%
  • DOLORES C HUERTA FOUNDATIONgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +290%
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
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 of the 22 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
2/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: $4,331,376 · OtherPEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY+17 more: $292,000 · Other+17 moreCENTER FOR ARTISTIC ACTIVISM INC: $60,000 · Civil RightsLIBERTY TEMPLE SENIOR PROJECT: $13,952 · ReligionDOLORES C HUERTA FOUNDATION: $5,170 · Community ImprovementCenter for Racial Equity & Justice: $5,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$4,623,376Civil Rights$60,000Religion$13,952Community Improvement$5,170Arts & Culture$5,000

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

25%50%75%100%$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetPEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: $4,331,376 over 4y, 28% of budgetWoke Vote: $105,000 over 2y, 5.0% of budgetCENTER FOR ARTISTIC ACTIVISM INC: $60,000 over 1y, 7.6% of budgetTHE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS INC: $6,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetDOLORES C HUERTA FOUNDATION: $5,170 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetREPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDATION: $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budget
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.

  • Who funds PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY ↗
  • Who funds Woke Vote ↗
  • Who funds CENTER FOR ARTISTIC ACTIVISM INC ↗
  • Who funds THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS INC ↗
  • Who funds DOLORES C HUERTA FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds Center for Racial Equity & Justice ↗
  • Who funds REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDATION ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization People for the American Way Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from People for the American Way Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%2%8%17%30%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 22 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its 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.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on People for the American Way’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