· Public charity
Project Liberty Institute
To create a new civic architecture for the digital world that returns the ownership and control of personal data to individuals, embeds ethical values into technology, and expands economic opportunities for web users and developers alike.
Read this first · the figures below need context
56% of Project Liberty Institute’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
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 FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 3 grants below total $215,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $285,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $70,000 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $190k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $120,000 |
| MEDIATORS FOUNDATION INC | $70,000 |
| RADICALXCHANGE FOUNDATION LTD | $25,000 |
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 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 65% 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.
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.
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 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.
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
Advocating for public policies that advance democratic values in the digital age.
Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.…
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
To improve the lives of people through innovative scientific and engineering research.
Organization mission the observer research foundation america orf america is an independent, non-partisan, and nonprofit organization in washington dc dedicated to addressing policy challenges facing the united states, india, and their…
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.
The primary exempt purpose of the mitre corporation is to conduct scientific research activities in the public interest that ensure the safety and security of the united states, enabling solutions and decisions related to complex…
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mediators Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Radicalxchange Foundation Ltd. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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.
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 Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds CORTICO CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds US Sciences PO Foundation ↗
- Who funds HETERODOX ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds ISSUE ONE ↗
- Who funds COMMON SENSE MEDIA ↗
- Who funds MEDIATORS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds RADICALXCHANGE FOUNDATION LTD ↗
- Who funds HOPEWELL FUND ↗
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: National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Project Liberty Institute 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Cortico Corporation — 0% of income from government
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 Project Liberty Institute?
Find your warmest path to Project Liberty Institute 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.