California · Nonprofit
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (California) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $37,216,611 to it, the largest being ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC ($20,456,369). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 67% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $8.2M
- Funders on record
- 41
- Grants received
- $37M
- Net assets
- $3.7M
What Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives does
Mission
GAIAs mission is to strengthen grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution, working towards a just, zero waste world where people are free from toxic pollution.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
GLOBAL PROGRAMS: GAIAs movement-building network model empowered members to build their own capacity, facilitated international solidarity, and coordinated collective research and initiatives around the issues of waste, pollution, climate and the environment, building critical linkages at local, regional and global levels. Zero Waste: Zero Waste Month activities in January 2025 engaged more than 46,000 people, 104 organizations, 92 cities, and 20 countries in efforts to advance real solutions together, with 72 schools integrating zero waste learning while 86 government entities engaged in meaningful dialogue and commitments. GAIA facilitated member engagement, capacity building and cross-programmatic and cross-regional learning through a variety of international and regional webinars and events. Notably, GAIA and member Nipe Fagio organized the International Zero Waste Cities Conference in Tanzania in July 2024, the first time this event was held in Africa.Climate: GAIA increased awareness of zero waste as a strategy for reducing methane emissions from landfills through improved organic waste management, organizing a Methane and Justice Summit to foster deeper alignment among GAIA…
$2,390,778 spentof which $401,472 as grants$4,250 earned by the program33% of program spendingUNITED STATES/CANADA REGIONAL WORK: GAIA supported members across the U.S. and Canada through technical support, regranting (including both larger grants and microgrants), skill-building and networking to challenge waste incineration and advance zero waste solutions with notable successes. Our Failing Incinerators Project, a multi-year cohort program aimed at building grassroots capacity to advocate for replacing aging incinerators across the U.S. with effective zero waste systems, celebrated two more incinerator closures (one led by a cohort member in Oregon and the other by a cohort affiliate in California). Another cohort member successfully advocated to change Maryland state policy so that incinerators could not qualify for state renewable energy tax credits. GAIA co-created a mini-documentary on another cohort member city, Breathing Free: Detroits Journey to Zero Waste, which launched in January 2025. As we wound down the Failing Incinerators Project, GAIA advanced new cohort work, seizing the energy of the Methane Moment to focus on organic waste management as a critical part of both zero waste and climate work. We supported frontline communities facing waste incineration…
$1,742,996 spentof which $976,500 as grants$450 earned by the program24% of program spendingHOSTED PROGRAMS BREAK FREE FROM PLASTIC & URBAN MOVEMENT INNOVATION FUND:Break Free From Plastic Global: BFFP, a fiscally-sponsored project of GAIA, is aglobal movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution. Launched inSeptember 2016, the movement has attracted more than 13,000 organizations and individuals worldwide to call for massive reductions in single-use plastics and push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis.Break Free From Plastic U.S. & Canada: GAIA continued as fiscal sponsor of the Break Free From Plastic movement of nearly 200 member organizations in the U.S. and Canada working across the plastics value chain for systemic change. This work includes challenging the petrochemical buildout, pushing for corporate accountability, promoting systemic solutions, building zero waste communities, and leveraging grassroots support to drive plastic pollution reduction policies at the local, state, and federal level. BFFP-U.S. & Canada has worked to shift the narrative about plastic, foster an enabling policy environment, and build a strong, intersectional, and resilient movement, ensuring connections between zero waste strategy and implementation and…
$1,731,427 spentof which $198,175 as grants$7,500 earned by the program24% of program spendingINTERNATIONAL REGIONAL: GAIA worked with locally-based staff to directly coordinate regional work in Africa and Latin America and also provided support and collaboration to sister networks in the Asia/Pacific region and in Europe. Africa: Zero waste cities work took off in numerous cities across the continent, with technical assistance and regranting support from GAIA. We sustained regional working groups on climate and on plastics, as well as a Youth Task Force, recognizing the powerful role of youth in environmental movements. We successfully launched the African Journalists Network to provide a deep-dive conversation on a specific issue monthly to support informed reporting. We organized a series of webinars on zero waste cities, enabling practical information sharing between groups in various countries. Co-hosting the International Zero Waste Cities Conference in Tanzania allowed us to showcase successful implementation of solutions on the continent, as well as to learn from experts, practitioners, and policymakers worldwide. The development and publication of our Life Before Plastic report around traditional practices helped to advance the regional conversation about…
$1,316,405 spentof which $657,000 as grants18% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $7,181,606.
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. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $3.0M to $5.2M (+76%).
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.
Government-grant reliance: 2021 2% · 2024 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $1.3M → $7.4M.
12 of 41 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 67% 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 Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 41 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.
How concentrated its funding is
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives leans on a few funders — its largest provides 55% of grant income and the top three 77%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
74% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 83% · 2018 68% · 2019 67% · 2020 59% · 2021 72% · 2022 52% · 2023 42% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. 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.
How long its funders stay
29% of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
67% of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $12M that is directly attributable, 53% of it comes from funders outside California, across 8 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $25M arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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.
Against its field
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives has grown faster than half of the 1,074 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,074 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
82%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives: 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.
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 Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives?
- Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (California) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $37,216,611 to it, the largest being ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC ($20,456,369). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 67% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives have?
- IRS filings report 41 organizations giving $37,216,611 in grants to Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, 24 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives?
- ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC is the largest funder on record, with $20,456,369 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives 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 FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 41 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