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Thousand Currents at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Thousand Currents

Through our grant making program, THOUSAND CURRENTS partners with organizations and movements in the global south that are creating lasting solutions to societal challenges.

$77M
Granted FY2021
10
Grants FY2021
7
States reached
$69M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead

Read this first · the figures below need context

88% of Thousand Currents’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Peace Development Fund, not to grantees.

Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year Thousand Currents named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $72M. It is dated, not current.

Organizations named directly on the return

5
’17
4
’18
2
’19
11
’20
8
’21
3
’22
3
’23
4
’24
3
’25

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Civil Rights$71MInternational$19MEnvironment$7.7MPhilanthropy$1.2MCommunity Improvement$260kEmployment$80kEducation$30kArts & Culture$25kOther$0
02FY2021 · 10 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 10 grants below total $71,759,086, the rows itemized in this filing. The $76,784,062 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $5,024,976 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2021

  • Under $10k1 grant · $5k
  • $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
  • $250k+7 grants · $72M
$250,000
Median grant
7
States reached
$28M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
BLACK LIVES MATTER GLOBAL NETWORK FOUNDATION INC$69,164,086
URGENT ACTION FUND$600,000
GRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL$600,000
GLOBAL GREENGRANTS FUND$600,000
BLACK ALLIANCE FOR JUST IMMIGRATION$250,000
COOPERATION JACKSON$250,000
ALLIANCE FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE$250,000
FRACTURED ATLAS$25,000
NEW VENTURE FUND$15,000
GRASSROOTS GLOBAL JUSTICE ALLIANCE$5,000
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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $332k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 96% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%Coleman Advocates: $6k → 10%ONE LOVE GLOBAL: $69k → 16%COOPERATION JACKSON: $250k → 23%US RIGHT TO KNOW: $7k → 10%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

MN
IL
MI
NY
MA
CA
CO
MD
AZ
TN
DC
MS
TX

Grants abroad, by region: $38M on the FY2025 return

Schedule F, as filed: 8 regions. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

Sub-Saharan Africa$10M · 27% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

South America$8.7M · 23% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

East Asia and the Pacific$8.4M · 22% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

Central America and the Caribbean$4.1M · 11% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

South Asia$3.1M · 8% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

Middle East and North Africa$1.7M · 4% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

Europe (including Iceland and Greenland)$1.1M · 3% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

North America (Canada and Mexico)$735k · 2% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: PROGRAM SUPPORT

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. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$84M · 6 repeat orgs$1.6M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +96% since the first grant, against -36% for those funded once.

6 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2021, 3 since wound down; 10 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
9

Total granted

$84M
$553k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+96%
-36%

Still filing today

83%
67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $90k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
InternationalHuman ServicesCivil RightsCommunity ImprovementArts & CultureEmploymentOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • UA
    URGENT ACTION FUND FOR FEMINIST ACTIVISM
    9× · 2017–2025 · $7.6M · revenue +311%
  • GI
    GRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL INC
    7× · 2018–2024 · $6.9M · revenue +392%
  • JC
    JEWISH COMMUNITY ACTION
    2× · 2017–2018 · $26k · revenue +96%

Funded once

  • CD
    CANGRESS DBA LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORK
    one grant, 2020 · $93k · revenue -51%
  • FC
    FOOD CHAIN WORKERS ALLIANCE
    one grant, 2020 · $69k · revenue -12%
  • OS
    ONE SQUARE WORLD INC
    one grant, 2020 · $69k · revenue -8%
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Justice Funders

Serve as a partner, educator, and guide for philanthropy in reimagining practices that advance a thriving and just world.

—
2
Fund for Justice

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…

Crime & Legal
3
Jobs with Justice San Francisco

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,…

Employment
4
Actionaid Usa

Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…

Social Science
5
Rules Foundation

/The Rules is a global network of activists, organizers, designers, coders, researchers, writers and others dedicated to changing the rules that create inequality, climate change, and poverty around the world.

—
6
Amazon Watch Inc

To protect the rainforest and advance the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. We partner with Indigenous communities in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability, and the preservation of the Amazon Basin's…

Environment
7
Corporate Accountability Lab

The Organization unleashes the creative potential of the law to protect people and the planet from corporate abuse.

International
8
Equal Justice Society

The Equal Justice Society (EJS) is transforming the nations consciousness on racethrough law, social science, and the arts. EJS works to dismantle structural andinstitutional racism to advance robust equal protection under the Fourteenth…

Civil Rights
9
Social Justice and Solidarity Fund

The Funds mission is to provide sustained support to grassroots organizing projects and movements rooted in the multi-racial working class which rely on their members and constituency to build power in the community.

—
10
Colorofchangeorg

Colorofchange.org works to strengthen the voice of black americans and increase the level of accountability and responsiveness of elected officials to underrepresented black constituencies using the internet as a lobbying and…

—
11
One Earth Philanthropy

One Earth connects thinkers, doers, activists, and knowledge holders from around the world to solve humanity's greatest ecological challenges--together. Our belief is simple: The solutions to the climate crisis already exist. By connecting…

Environment
12
Womens Funding Network

Our mission as a global alliance is to provide strategies, research, and resources that support the critical agency and influence of women's foundations and gender justice funders in the movement for equality, justice, and power for all.

Education
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Grassroots International Inc; the most unlike its peers is The Ceres Trust. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

29 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. 29 of the 30 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.

3
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
6
Early backer (in before they grew)
25/29
Grantees still filing
9/29
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

BLACK LIVES MATTER GLOBAL NETWORK FOUNDATION INC: $69,177,865 · Civil RightsBLACK LIVES MATTER GLOBAL NETWORK FOUNDATION INC+2 more: $30,520 · Civil RightsURGENT ACTION FUND FOR FEMINIST ACTIVISM: $7,615,750 · InternationalURGENT ACTION FUND FO…GRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL INC: $6,925,250 · InternationalGRASSROOTS INTERNATIO…Peace Development Fund: $4,000,000 · InternationalPeace Development Fun…+3 more: $523,850 · InternationalGLOBAL GREENGRANTS FUND: $7,715,750 · Environment+1 more: $15,000 · EnvironmentIMPACTASSETSINC: $1,200,000 · PhilanthropyBLACK LIVES MATTER FOUNDATION: $90,130 · OtherMid South Peace and Justice Center: $68,750 · OtherBLACK LIVES MATTER DC: $68,750 · OtherWOMENS ALL POINTS BULLETIN-WAPB INC: $60,000 · OtherTIDES ADVOCACY: $50,000 · OtherCANGRESS DBA LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORK: $92,950 · OtherONE SQUARE WORLD INC: $68,750 · OtherDESTINY BRIDGE BUILDERS: $80,000 · OtherFOOD CHAIN WORKERS ALLIANCE: $68,750 · OtherSOCIAL GOOD FUND INC: $45,000 · Other+2 more: $20,000 · OtherCOOPERATION JACKSON OF MISSISSIPPI: $250,000 · Human ServicesONE LOVE GLOBAL: $68,750 · Human Services+2 more: $13,330 · Human ServicesBLACK ALLIANCE FOR JUST IMMIGRATION: $250,000 · Arts & CultureFRACTURED ATLAS INC: $25,000 · Arts & Culture
Civil Rights$69,208,385International$19,064,850Environment$7,730,750Philanthropy$1,200,000Other$713,080Human Services$332,080Arts & Culture$275,000

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetBLACK LIVES MATTER GLOBAL NETWORK FOUNDATION INC: $69,177,865 over 2y, 87% of budgetGLOBAL GREENGRANTS FUND: $7,715,750 over 9y, 6.8% of budgetURGENT ACTION FUND FOR FEMINIST ACTIVISM: $7,615,750 over 9y, 19% of budgetGRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL INC: $6,925,250 over 7y, 22% of budgetPeace Development Fund: $4,000,000 over 1y, 32% of budgetBLACK ALLIANCE FOR JUST IMMIGRATION: $250,000 over 1y, 5.2% of budgetAlliance for Global Justice Corp: $250,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetCOOPERATION JACKSON OF MISSISSIPPI: $250,000 over 1y, 18% of budgetGLOBAL FUND FOR WOMEN INC: $200,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetCANGRESS DBA LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORK: $92,950 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetBLACK LIVES MATTER FOUNDATION: $90,130 over 2y, 27% of budgetROCKY MOUNTAIN PEACE & JUSTICE CENTER: $73,850 over 2y, 5.8% of budgetFOOD CHAIN WORKERS ALLIANCE: $68,750 over 1y, 5.7% of budgetONE SQUARE WORLD INC: $68,750 over 1y, 7.6% of budgetONE LOVE GLOBAL: $68,750 over 1y, 19% of budgetWOMENS ALL POINTS BULLETIN-WAPB INC: $60,000 over 1y, 20% of budgetTIDES ADVOCACY: $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSOCIAL GOOD FUND INC: $45,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetJEWISH COMMUNITY ACTION: $25,520 over 2y, 3.3% of budgetFRACTURED ATLAS INC: $25,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetNEW VENTURE FUND: $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetINQUIRING SYSTEMS INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTHE CERES TRUST: $10,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetUS RIGHT TO KNOW: $7,000 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetColeman Children and Youth Services dba Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth: $6,330 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetGRASSROOTS GLOBAL JUSTICE: $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% 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.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Amalgamated Charitabl…Tides FoundationImpactassetsincProteus Fund IncRsf Social Finance IncBorealis PhilanthropyCommon Counsel Founda…Novo FoundationLiberty Hill Foundati…The California Endowm…Black Lives Matter Gl…Willow Redistribution…
Amalgamated Charitable Foundation IncDC23.7× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Tides Foundation · Impactassetsinc · Proteus Fund Inc · Rsf Social Finance Inc · Borealis Philanthropy · Common Counsel Foundation · Novo Foundation · Liberty Hill Foundation · The California Endowment · Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Inc · Willow Redistribution Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Thousand Currents funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Thousand Currents. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 40%6%23%51%90%funder's share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    4get no government money at all
    6report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    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.

    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 30 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 2021, released 2021. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Thousand Currents’ filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home