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· Public charity

The Center for Election Innovation & Research

CEIR seeks to restore trust in the American election system and promote election procedures that encourage participation while ensuring election integrity and security.

$225k
Granted FY2023
2
Grants FY2023
1
States reached
$200k
Largest
01What it funds
0197% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2023.

Public Benefit$65MEducation$1.3MPhilanthropy$500kOther$0
02FY2023 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2023

  • $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $200k
$200,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$17M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Defending Democracy Together$200,000
Individual grant recipient$25,000
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 (FY21–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 96% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%Arizona Secretary of State: $5.0M → 11%MA Secretary of the Commonwealths: $200k → 16%Office of the Minnesota Secretary o: $1.2M → 14%Pennsylvania Department of State: $13.0M → 12%The Temple University: $50k → 22%Stanford University: $1.3M → 8%Social Good Fund: $500k → 9%New York State Board of Elections: $4.8M → 14%New Mexico Office of the Secretary: $760k → 12%South Carolina State Election Commi: $1.1M → 16%DC Board of Elections: $812k → 14%Florida Department of State: $287k → 19%Iowa Office of the Secretary of Sta: $1.1M → 10%Michigan Center for Election Law an: $11.9M → 21%CT Secretary of the State: $2.1M → 11%Rhode Island Department of State: $632k → 14%Georgia Secretary of State: $5.6M → 13%Ohio Secretary of State: $954k → 15%Washington Secretary of State Elect: $405k → 9%Illinois State Board of Elections: $2.8M → 11%NJ Department of StateDivision of: $6.2M → 11%Maryland Board of Elections: $575k → 6%Kentucky State Board of Elections: $1.6M → 14%Office of the Minnesota Secretary o: $1.1M → 14%Pennsylvania Department of State: $831k → 12%Committee of Seventy: $50k → 22%Defending Democracy Together: $200k → 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

VT
WA
MN
IL
MI
NY
MA
IA
OH
PA
NJ
CT
RI
CA
KY
MD
AZ
NM
NC
SC
DC
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 field
04the grantee network

5 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. 5 of the 28 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
4/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Pennsylvania Department of State: $13,855,291 · OtherPennsylvania Department of StateMichigan Center for Election Law an: $11,939,365 · OtherMichigan Center for Election Law anNJ Department of StateDivision of: $6,180,001 · OtherNJ Department of StateDivision ofGeorgia Secretary of State: $5,591,800 · OtherGeorgia Secretary of StateArizona Secretary of State: $4,962,489 · OtherArizona Secretary of StateNew York State Board of Elections: $4,794,743 · OtherNew York State Board of ElectionsIllinois State Board of Elections: $2,762,777 · OtherOffice of the Minnesota Secretary o: $2,345,687 · Other+16 more: $12,151,031 · Other+16 moreTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $1,250,000 · EducationSOCIAL GOOD FUND INC: $500,000 · Education+1 more: $50,000 · EducationCOMMITTEE OF SEVENTY: $50,000 · Civil Rights
Other$64,583,184Education$1,800,000Civil Rights$50,000

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

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $1,250,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSOCIAL GOOD FUND INC: $500,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetDEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER: $200,000 over 1y, 4.5% of budgetCOMMITTEE OF SEVENTY: $50,000 over 1y, 2.6% of budgetTemple University - Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education: $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% 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 THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds SOCIAL GOOD FUND INC ↗
  • Who funds DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER ↗
  • Who funds COMMITTEE OF SEVENTY ↗
  • Who funds Temple University - Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Center for Election Innovation & Research funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Center for Election Innovation & Research. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%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 · 0–20%
    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.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Center for Election Innovation & Research?

    Find your warmest path to The Center for Election Innovation & Research 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 from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 28 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 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2023, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

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