Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
Government Accountability Project
Government Accountability Project (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $16,938,356 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($2,605,000). 44 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 61% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $4.4M
- Funders on record
- 70
- Grants received
- $17M
- Net assets
- $1.5M
What Government Accountability Project does
Mission
Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a 48-year-old non-profit public interest organization that promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistleblowers, and empowering citizen activists. GAP is the worlds leading whistleblower protection organization.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
FOOD INTEGRITY & CORPORATE/GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY Under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), we represent two contract farmers who have raised concerns about the unfair practices of Purdue Farms, the company for which they once worked. On their behalf we filed a complaint with the US Department of Labor and during the resulting administrative law proceedings, the Administrative Law Judge found that the FSMA did apply to these farmers and that their whistleblowing through non-governmental organizations qualified for protection under the act. During 2024 while the parties were pursuing discovery, Perdue sued Craig Watts, one of the farmers, and the Department of Labor in federal district court alleging that his 7th Amendment right to a jury trial was violated by the FSMA. We are actively opposing this attempt to cripple an important protection for food safety whistleblowers. We were able to push back against efforts to weaken the Packers and Stockyard Act and able to share our recommendations for the implementation of the laws final rules. Three of the four suggestions we offered were included included in the final regulations. We also supported legislation to increase…
$2,448,871 spent84% of program spendingENVIRONMENT, ENERGY & CLIMATE CHANGE In April 2024, we released the fourth installment of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Report that reveals terrifying consequences of cleanup with the use of the chemical Corexit. The report, released just before before the 14th memorial of the oil disaster, features nearly two dozen new affidavits from whistleblowers including cleanup workers, residents, journalists, medical personnel, filmmakers, BP contractors and an EPA official. As a whole, they reveal the devastating long-term and ongoing effects of oil and a toxic chemical dispersant on their bodies and the environment. In August, along with the ALERT Project we filed a petition to the EPA and the UN to delist Corexit and ban the use of its stockpiles. This follows our successful push to get the manufacturer to stop producing the toxic chemical. Our efforts to investigate the catastrophic train derailment from early 2023 have continued, and in July 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) opened an investigation into the Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology (ASPECT) flight missions, policies, procedures, and quality…
$221,380 spent8% of program spendingINTERNATIONAL In 2024 the first Spanish-language whistleblower website launched in Chile, where whistleblower rights are a novelty among the legal community. The website, Whistleblower Chile, gives people access to resources and creates awareness about whistleblowing, including Chilean case law, statutes,and profiles of whistleblowers from Chile and other Spanish-language countries. This project was created by our Senior International Fellow for Latin America, Jorge Martnez Rivera. In 2024, Government Accountability Project wrapped up its three-year project in Serbia with Pitaljka/Eutopia Association to help increase the capacity of future lawyers to practice anti-corruption and whistleblower law and provide legal services to whistleblowers through increasing University of Belgrade Law School students knowledge of whistleblower law and teaching them lawyering skills. The project was funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. In July 2024, Government Accountability Projects International Director and Senior International Fellow for Latin America attended Transparency Internationals Anti-Corruption Conference in Lithuania.…
$236,923 spent8% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,907,174.
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 2023 to 2024, from $921k to $1.9M (+108%).
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 9%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
71% of Government Accountability Project’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 8 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.
Chief executive
Louis Clark
Executive Director &CEO
Board chair
Richard Salzman
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 19 funders to 28 funders, grant income rose $1.8M → $2.1M.
24 of 70 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 61% 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 Government Accountability Project’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 70 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
Government Accountability Project has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 15% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
63% 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 Government Accountability Project.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 29% · 2018 35% · 2019 31% · 2020 25% · 2021 28% · 2022 22% · 2023 28% — broadly stable.
“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
40% of Government Accountability Project's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
61% of Government Accountability Project'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 $6.5M that is directly attributable, 71% of it comes from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 16 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10M arriving through sponsors registered in 14 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
Government Accountability Project runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 1,003 public benefit nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,003 public benefit nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like Government Accountability Project
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 Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
83%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 38 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Government Accountability Project: 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 Government Accountability Project?
- Government Accountability Project (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $16,938,356 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($2,605,000). 44 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 61% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Government Accountability Project have?
- IRS filings report 70 organizations giving $16,938,356 in grants to Government Accountability Project, 44 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Government Accountability Project?
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $2,605,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Government Accountability Project find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Government Accountability Project →
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 70 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing