· Public charity
The American Independent Foundation
The mission of the organization is to foster strong, independent journalism that helps create positive societal change through increased public awareness of progressive issues.
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.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
- $250k+4 grants · $33M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN INDEPENDENT MEDIA | $11,190,000 |
| DEMOCRACY MATTERS | $11,000,000 |
| DEMOCRACY MATTERS FOUNDATION | $10,100,000 |
| MEDIA MATTERS ACTION NETWORK | $1,000,000 |
| YALE UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| UTAH FILM CENTER | $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 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% 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 communications consortium media center (ccmc) is a public interest media center founded in 1988 in washington, dc. it is dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations use media and new technologies as tools for policy change. the…
Providing research, education and practical information all aimed at optimizing newspapers' business operations, deepening their community engagement and enhancing the quality of their journalism.
Inform the public by providing news
To foster freedom of speech, a competitive media and communications industry, and excellence in journalism.
Our team of experienced journalists, with the time and resources to dig deep, is committed to meaningfully informing Californians about the players, politics, and interests that shape the issues that affect their lives.
The organization is an association that defends the first amendment right to produce and distribute mainstream content; and protects the american public's first amendment right to have access to the broadest possible range of information,…
Organize general election presidential and vice-presidential debates
To facilitate collaboration, innovation, strategic growth and cultural impact for the media arts field. We are a network of networks; we embolden creative media organization and artists and connect them with the world.
The massachusetts media fund dba the boston institute for nonprofit journalism supports the development and production of independent news. binj achieves its mission by: providing organizational support to community publications; running…
To educate journalists and the public, and foster public debate, about improving political journalism to reflect public needs and hold the powerful accountable.
The texas tribune promotes civic engagement and public education across the state by producing and sharing for free public data interactives, statewide events and intensive and daily reporting on texas public policy, politics and current…
Center for media and democracy, inc. (cmd) is an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to investigating and publicizing the hidden influence of powerful special interests on america's media and democracy, and its impact on…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Media Matters for America and the most unlike its peers is Yale University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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 AMERICAN INDEPENDENT MEDIA ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY MATTERS ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY MATTERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEDIA MATTERS ACTION NETWORK ↗
- Who funds COUNTERACT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA ↗
- Who funds CounterAct Fund ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UTAH FILM CENTER ↗
- Who funds Yale University ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Ab Foundation
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 The American Independent 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.
- Yale University — 12% 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.