· Private foundation
The Challenge Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k1 grant · $40k
- $50k–250k10 grants · $1.0M
- $250k+2 grants · $600k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YOUNG AMERICAN'S FOUNDATION | $350,000 |
| CENTER FOR RIGHTS OF ABUSED CHILDREN | $250,000 |
| MOVING PICTURE INSTITUTE | $200,000 |
| STATE POLICY NETWORK | $150,000 |
| HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $125,000 |
| GOLDWATER INSTITUTE | $100,000 |
| CENTER FOR AMERICAN RIGHTS | $100,000 |
| MT VERNON LADIES' ASSOCIATION OF THE UNION | $100,000 |
| PARENTS FOR EDUCATIONAL FREEDOM IN NC (PEFNC) | $100,000 |
| PACIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $70,000 |
| CASCADE POLICY INSTITUTE | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $40,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–22, $235k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +50% since the first grant, against -43% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). 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
- YAYoung America's Foundation9× · 2017–2025 · $2.6M · revenue +67%
- BGBARRY GOLDWATER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH9× · 2017–2025 · $1.6M · revenue +97%
- MPMOVING PICTURE INSTITUTE8× · 2018–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +44%
Funded once
- CSCHILDREN'S SCHOLARSHIP FUND-OR (CASCADE POLICY)one grant, 2018 · $162k
- FFFREEDOMWORKS FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2018 · $108k · revenue -87%
- CCCORNERSTONE CLASSICAL ACADEMY INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $78k · revenue ×74 · 41% of their budget
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
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 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…
Competitive enterprise institute (cei) is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. we believe that consumers are best helped not by government regulation but by being…
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
The center for american progress (cap) is an independent nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of all americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. our aim is…
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
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.
American press institute acts as a scout on the frontier of technology and audience behavior to identify where change is occurring and helps news organizations learn how to implement and scale that change successfully so they have a…
The Learning Policy Institute (LPI) conducts and disseminates independent, high-quality research to improve learning for all children. A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, LPI connects policymakers and stakeholders at the local, state,…
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.
Pro publica is an independent, non-profit, pulitzer prize-winning newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories. [see continuation on schedule o] we produce…
The National Constitution Center is America's leading platform for nonpartisan constitutional education and civil dialogue. We bring together people of all ages and perspectives, across America and around the world, to learn about, debate,…
To investigate, explore and focus public, legislative and judicial attention on all areas of individual freedom and individual rights as guaranteed by the u.s. and state constitutions and free market principles.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Freedomworks Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Barry Goldwater Institute for Public Policy Research. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 29 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
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 Young America's Foundation ↗
- Who funds BARRY GOLDWATER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds MOVING PICTURE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CORE KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds STATE POLICY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR THE RIGHTS OF ABUSED CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds EdChoice Inc ↗
- Who funds Pacific Research Institute For Public Policy ↗
- Who funds CASCADE POLICY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds LIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER ↗
- Who funds EDISON HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF COLUMBIA-WILLAMETTE ↗
- Who funds MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds VETERANS LEGACIES INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL OPPORTUNITY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds FREEDOMWORKS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND LIBERTY ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE CLASSICAL ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOMWORKS INC ↗
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: Donors Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Challenge 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Young Men's Christian Association of Columbia-Willamette — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Challenge Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Challenge Foundation 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.