· Public charity
The Heising-Simons Action Fund
The action fund engages primarily in legislative and other public policy activities, including but not limited to making contributions to ballot measure campaigns and to other policy and legislative advocacy efforts, to promote the common good and general welfare of the general public in california and elsewhere.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k4 grants · $95k
- $50k–250k41 grants · $5.8M
- $250k+28 grants · $10M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ALLIANCE FOR SAFETY AND JUSTICE ACTION FUND | $645,000 |
| CHILDREN'S FUNDING ACCELERATOR INC | $550,000 |
| CLIMATE EQUITY ACTION FUND | $500,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE ACTION FUND | $400,000 |
| ENERGY ACTION FUND | $400,000 |
| MOMSRISING TOGETHER | $400,000 |
| PARENT VOICES ACTION | $400,000 |
| CHILD CARE PROVIDERS UNITED CALIFORNIA | $400,000 |
| CARE IN ACTION INC | $400,000 |
| CAROLINA FEDERATION | $400,000 |
| IMPACT FELLOWS ACTION FUND | $400,000 |
| LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS INC | $400,000 |
| CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE ACTION | $400,000 |
| FIRST FIVE ACTION FUND | $400,000 |
| CLIMATE POWER | $400,000 |
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 (FY21–24, $4.7M) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 26% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 8% of The Heising-Simons Action Fund’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, 25% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 30% — more 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +29% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
70 repeat relationships — 54 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.4M 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
- WFWORKING FAMILIES ORGANIZATION INC5× · 2020–2024 · $4.1M · revenue +57%
- EAENERGY ACTION FUND5× · 2020–2024 · $2.3M · revenue +98%
- CFCHILDREN'S FUNDING ACCELERATOR INC5× · 2020–2024 · $2.1M · revenue +27% · 50% of their budget
Funded once
- FFFUND FOR A BETTER FUTURE INCone grant, 2021 · $2.8M · revenue -89%
- SUSTATES UNITED ACTIONgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $700k · revenue +335% · 60% of their budget
- WTWAY TO WIN ACTION FUND INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $500k · revenue +116%
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.
Fund for Justice is a nationally connected social impact research and advocacy organization that works to achieve fundamental, systemic reform by addressing policies and practicies that prevent individuals from reaching their full…
See schedule oaclu california action advocates for the defense and advancement of civil liberties and civil rights in the california state capitol. we work to secure greater equality, equity, justice, and freedom for all californians. our…
Our mission is to fight against fossil fuel executives and industries that have turned our communities into dumping grounds for toxic waste, poisoning our air, water, lan, and bodies. We organize to oppose giant oil refineries, dirty…
Powerswitch action is a national network forging collective democracy and economies in our cities and states, together with our 21 grassroots affiliates.
Ca fwd drives action to identify solutions that can be taken to scale to meet the challenges the state is facing. the organization is driven by the belief that regional solutions across the state will help ensure economic, environmental,…
Six action realizes a bold policy agenda that secures and sustains meaningful racial, gender, social and economic justice outcomes that center the people most impacted by systemic and structural oppression. we support values-aligned state…
350.org action fund mobilizes progressive voters, gets climate champions elected, holds fossil-fueled politicians accountable, supports frontline partners, trains young movement leaders through creative campaigning to advocate for…
Electoral Collective Action coordinates a broad-based coalition of existing entities active in the climate justice and community organizing space to raise public awareness and educational opportunities.
The mission of the Corporation is to promote the common good and general welfare of citizens of the United States by advocating in favor of reforms to criminal justice policy that will maximize the effective and fair use of limited public…
A long-term, strategic alliance of labor, community, faith-based, and student organizations working together to build greater economic power for workers and community members through employee rights at work and access to good jobs,…
The PICO Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that works with multi-racial faith-based community organizations to build power and impact systemic change. We work at the state and local level to build capacity for civic…
La voice action's mission is to build multi-racial, interfaith power to win policies that transforms los angeles into a county that reflects the human dignity of all people, with racial equity and abundance for all.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Economic Security Project Action Inc and the most unlike its peers is Care for Monterey County Kids. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 7 years old; the field is 16. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 30% of your grantees by number, and just 13% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
107 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. 107 of the 112 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 WORKING FAMILIES ORGANIZATION INC ↗
- Who funds TIDES ADVOCACY ↗
- Who funds SIXTEEN THIRTY FUND ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE ACTION ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR A BETTER FUTURE INC ↗
- Who funds ENERGY ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S FUNDING ACCELERATOR INC ↗
- Who funds The Partnership Project Action Fund ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds NRDC ACTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds FIRST FIVE ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds IMPACT FELLOWS ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds MOMSRISING TOGETHER ↗
- Who funds Save the Children Action Network ↗
- Who funds Care in Action Inc ↗
- Who funds LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS INC ↗
- Who funds NEW LEFT ACCELERATOR ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds COLOROFCHANGEORG ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE JOBS NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER ACTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE POWER ↗
- Who funds STAND FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE EQUITY ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER ACTION INC ↗
- Who funds TEXAS ORGANIZING PROJECT ↗
- Who funds MILLION VOTERS PROJECT ACTION FUND FOR SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES FIRST ↗
- Who funds CAROLINA FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds Counterspark Inc ↗
- Who funds MIJENTE ↗
- Who funds BlueGreen Alliance Inc ↗
- Who funds Parent Voices Action ↗
- Who funds STATES UNITED ACTION ↗
- Who funds NEW GEORGIA PROJECT ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds ASIAN AMERICAN ADVOCACY FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN NOW ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds WORKERS DEFENSE ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds WE ACT 4 CHANGE INC ↗
- Who funds Alliance for Safety and Justice Action Fund dba Action for Safety and Justice ↗
- Who funds NEO Philanthropy Action Fund 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: Sixteen Thirty Fund · Tides Advocacy · Open Society Action Fund Inc · NEO Philanthropy Action Fund Inc · All Hands on Deck Network Inc · Way to Win Action Fund Inc · Women Donors Network Action · America Votes · Democracy Fund Voice Inc · Center for Community Change Action · Instructional Telecommunications Foundation Inc · League of Conservation Voters Inc
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 Heising-Simons Action Fund 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.
- Ceres Inc — 0% 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 Heising-Simons Action Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Heising-Simons Action Fund 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.