How much does Stiefel Freethought Foundation give?

Stiefel Freethought Foundation reported 21 grants totaling $412,250 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 18 and 29 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Stiefel Freethought Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (40%), Civil Rights (19%), Public Benefit (15%).

Who are Stiefel Freethought Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Center for Inquiry Inc ($1.6M), Americans United for Separation of Church and State ($367k), Public Concern Foundation Inc ($285k).

Does Stiefel Freethought Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 22% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Stiefel Freethought Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Stiefel Freethought Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Johnson James Hervey Char Ed Trust, Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc, Charter Charitable Foundation.

Where is Stiefel Freethought Foundation based?

Stiefel Freethought Foundation is based in DE.

Stiefel Freethought Foundation

Stiefel Freethought Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Stiefel Freethought Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$412k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$100k

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 2025.

Arts & Culture$1.8MCivil Rights$813kPublic Benefit$644kReligion$616kHealth$204kSocial Science$111kPhilanthropy$106kHuman Services$41kOther$0

02FY2025 · 21 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k13 grants · $17k
$10k–50k4 grants · $85k
$50k–250k4 grants · $310k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
RELIGION NEWS LLC	$100,000
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP ALLIES INC	$100,000
PUBLIC CONCERN FOUNDATION INC	$60,000
PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY FOUNDATION	$50,000
DISARMING LEVIATHAN MINISTRIES INC	$35,000
CENTER FOR INQUIRY INC	$20,250
ATHEISTS UNITED	$20,000
AMERICAN VALUES PROJECT	$10,000
AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE	$5,000
MILITARY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM FOUNDATION INC	$1,000
CAMP QUEST INC	$1,000
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC	$1,000
COMMON CAUSE EDUCATION FUND	$1,000
TRIANGLE FREETHOUGHT SOCIETY	$1,000
COMMON CAUSE EDUCATION FUND	$1,000

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 (FY17–23, $41k) land where the poverty rate runs at 4%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

89%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.9M · 40 repeat orgs$465k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +7% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

40 repeat relationships: 18 still active in FY2025, 22 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$3.9M

$345k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+7%

Still filing today

75%

64%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $120k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureReligionEducationScience & TechCivil RightsInternationalOther

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

AU
AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
9× · 2017–2025 · $367k · revenue +103%
RN
RELIGION NEWS FOUNDATION
2× · 2022–2023 · $200k · revenue +258%
CC
COMMON CAUSE EDUCATION FUND
8× · 2018–2025 · $136k · revenue +187%

Funded once

WM
WORLD MENTAL HEALTH COALITION
one grant, 2021 · $100k
TF
THE FILM COLLABORATIVE INC
one grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue 0%
EM
EMERGENCY MEDICINE FOUNDATION
one grant, 2021 · $100k · 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.

Secular Coalition for America Inc

To increase the visibility and respect for nontheistic viewpoints in the United States and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government.

Civil Rights

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

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…

Social Science

Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Research Center generates a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue and…

Social Science

American Political Science Association

The american political science association ("apsa") supports excellence in scholarship and teaching and informed discourse about politics, policy, and civic participation. the association promotes a lively, diverse community of scholars,…

Social Science

American Academy of Sciences and Letters Inc

The American Academy of Sciences and Letters (AASL) promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences, and learned professions. It encourages the fruitful exchange of ideas within academia and society at large…

Education

American Civil Liberties Union Fund of the District of Columbia

Preservation of civil liberties through litigation and public education.

—

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

The American Assembly

A national non partisan public policy forum to illuminate issues of public policy.

—

The Center for Freethought Equality

The center for freethought equality (cfe) is a sister organization of the american humanist association (aha) dedicated to lobbying and political advocacy. cfe will significantly increase humanist activity in key washington coalitions, and…

Civil Rights

American Foreign Service Association

American foreign service association (afsa) is both the principal advocate for the long-term institutional wellbeing of the professional career foreign service and responsible for safeguarding the interest of afsa members. (continued on…

—

American Anthropological Association

To advance anthropology as the science that studies humankind in all its aspects, through archeological, biological, ethnological, and linguistic research; and to further the professional interest of american anthropologist, including the…

Social Science

American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia

Preservation of civil liberties through advocacy and lobbying.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Americans United for Separation of Church and State; the most unlike its peers is Camp Quest Inc. 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

42 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. 42 of the 53 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)

39/42

Grantees still filing

21/42

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$1,770,250Other$1,157,000Civil Rights$483,000Community Improvement$385,000Religion$326,000Public Benefit$139,000Social Science$111,000

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.

Johnson James Hervey Char Ed TrustCA17.9× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Johnson James Hervey Char Ed Trust · Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc · Charter Charitable Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Texas Instruments Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Shell USA Company Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%

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 Stiefel Freethought’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