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California · Nonprofit

COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION

COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 200 organizations whose IRS filings report $147,625,711 to it, the largest being FOUNDATION TO PROMOTE OPEN SOCIETY ($12,230,047). 109 of them have funded it in more than one year. COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.

Revenue FY2024
$51M
Funders on record
200
Grants received
$148M
Net assets
$64M
109/200 repeat funders

Hosts funds for others

COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION administers funds on behalf of other donors. The grants recorded as coming in are contributions into those funds, so they count custody rather than support for a programCOMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION runs itself. This page therefore states the flows and does not draw the comparisons it would draw for an operating charity: concentration, funder retention, grant dependency and the peer field are all left out, because each of them would read a vehicle as if it were a program.

Paid out

$206M

Recipients

896

Contributions on record

$148M

Donors on record

200

Payments out are 1.39x the contributions on record, so most of what arrives moves on within the period covered here.

01The organization over time

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($10M) Expenses 100 ($4.8M) Net assets 100 ($7.9M)2018 Revenue 186 ($19M) Expenses 153 ($7.3M) Net assets 250 ($20M)2019 Revenue 86 ($8.9M) Expenses 341 ($16M) Net assets 155 ($12M)2020 Revenue 400 ($41M) Expenses 276 ($13M) Net assets 500 ($39M)2021 Revenue 829 ($86M) Expenses 671 ($32M) Net assets 1182 ($93M)2022 Revenue 532 ($55M) Expenses 1128 ($54M) Net assets 1193 ($94M)2023 Revenue 988 ($102M) Expenses 1209 ($58M) Net assets 1751 ($138M)2024 Revenue 498 ($51M) Expenses 2628 ($126M) Net assets 807 ($64M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Revenue (498)Expenses (2628)Net assets (807)

Balance sheet

Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $141M to $67M (−52%).

$8.1M
$20M
$12M
$41M
$97M
$97M
$141M
$67M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Total assetsTotal liabilities

How it's funded, over time

Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.

$5.5M
’17
$12M
’18
−$7.5M
’19
$28M
’20
$53M
’21
$859k
’22
$44M
’23
−$75M
’24
4.5
months of
reserve

Leadership and staff

The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.

Chief executive

Sangeeta Chowdhry

Executive director

Board chair

Chandra Alexandre Phd

Chair

As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.

The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Listed1098915192016
Joined·+0+0+1+6+8+6+6
No longer listed·11004510
02Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 22 funders to 71 funders, grant income rose $3.6M → $33M.

46 of 200 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 37% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.

From the IRS filings of COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 200 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.

Where its funders are

COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION draws 66% of its grant income from funders outside California, across 22 states in all.

WA
MN
IL
MI
NY
MA
OR
OH
PA
NJ
CT
CA
CO
VA
MD
DE
AZ
NM
AR
DC
GA
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
California out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $54M arriving through sponsors registered in 18 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.

03Its place in the field
04Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

97% of spending goes to programs.

Program 97%Management 2%Fundraising 0%

Governance

5
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

Public support

69%

Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 2 states

MA
CA

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.

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Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf

Questions and answers

Who funds COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION?
COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 200 organizations whose IRS filings report $147,625,711 to it, the largest being FOUNDATION TO PROMOTE OPEN SOCIETY ($12,230,047). 109 of them have funded it in more than one year. COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
How many funders does COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION have?
IRS filings report 200 organizations giving $147,625,711 in grants to COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION, 109 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION?
FOUNDATION TO PROMOTE OPEN SOCIETY is the largest funder on record, with $12,230,047 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like COMMON COUNSEL FOUNDATION find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 200 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing