· Public charity
The Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives
The commonwealth foundation transforms free-market ideas into public policies, empowering all pennsylvanians to thrive.
Read this first · the figures below need context
58% of The Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Donors Trust Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 5 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year The Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives named its own grantees at scale: 6 organizations, $137k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 6 grants below total $136,856 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $153,296 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $16,440 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 · FY2021
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $67k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE ROCK CHURCH | $65,110 |
| PELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY | $25,000 |
| HARRISBURG FAMILIES UNITED | $20,500 |
| BROAD AND LIBERTY INC | $11,246 |
| PA COALITION OF PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS | $10,000 |
| THE JOSHUA GROUP | $5,000 |
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 (FY21–23, $44k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 53% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 84% of The Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 47% of the giving stays in PA; read by stated purpose it is 14% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
4 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2021, 1 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2024, 12% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $76k 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
- TJTHE JOSHUA GROUP2× · 2021–2022 · $25k · revenue +11%
- BABROAD AND LIBERTY INC2× · 2019–2021 · $21k · revenue ×37 · 41% of their budget
- TRTHE REASON FOUNDATION2× · 2022–2024 · $20k · revenue +50%
Funded once
- AFAMERICANS FOR FAIR TREATMENT INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $100k · revenue +308% · 27% 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 philadelphia school educates children for a future that is impossible to know but not impossible to shape. learn here. go anywhere.
Building support for the rights of working people through coalitions of labor and community and through public education.
Cultivating the next generation of progressive leaders across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Foundations is dedicated to improving the quality of education for our nation's most vulnerable children by strengthening the skills of educators through professional learning. foundations, inc. is a not-for-profit educational service…
With over 20 years of experience and over 30,000 scholarships awarded, csfp provides philadelphia children with eight-year, needs-based scholarships to attend safe, quality, k-8th grade schools. continued on schedule o.supporting…
The mission of the friends council on education is to provide leadership in drawing friends schools together in unity of spirit and cooperative endeavors. the council's work nurtures the quaker life of schools, strengthens the network of…
The mission of the philadelphia electrical and technology charter high school is to develop students who will be employable in the emeraging high-tech industries; while giving students a strong foundation in the core academic…
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…
Support public interest litigators by leveraging resources and creating opportunities for collaboration to advance freedom under the rule of law.
The mission of the philadelphia education fund (pef) is to create equitable access to opportunities for students by providing resources and expertise that build paths to college and career success. pef focuses on philadelphia public school…
Philadelphia works, inc. develops and manages smart workforce solutions that respond to business needs and increases economic opportunity for all philadelphia residents.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Families United Network Inc and the most unlike its peers is Friends of Little Flower Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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 Donors Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds AMERICANS FOR FAIR TREATMENT INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES UNITED NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds THE JOSHUA GROUP ↗
- Who funds PELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY ↗
- Who funds IMMANUEL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds LIFE MALE SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds BROAD AND LIBERTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE REASON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FOUNDING FORWARD (FORMERLY THE UNION LEAGUE LEGACY FOUNDATION) ↗
- Who funds BLACK PASTORS UNITED FOR EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds PA FAMILIES FOR EDUCATION CHOICE ↗
- Who funds PENNSYLVANIA COALITION OF PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds CITRS 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: Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives 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.
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.