Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
Groundswell International Inc
Groundswell International Inc (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,473,516 to it, the largest being WK Kellogg Foundation ($3,282,919). 36 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $5.1M
- Funders on record
- 56
- Grants received
- $17M
- Net assets
- $4.1M
What Groundswell International Inc does
Mission
Groundswell International strenghtens communities to build healthy farming and food systems from the ground up.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Groundswell International, Inc. (Groundswell) strengthens communities to build healthy farming and food systems from the ground up. Groundswells global network includes 16 non-governmental organizations supporting 865 community-based organizations groups organized into three Regional Programs for action-learning and amplification: Latin America and the Caribbean (Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico), South Asia (India, Nepal), and West Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Senegal). In 2025, collectively, the Groundswell network supported 273,771 smallholder farmers to strengthen their production, resilience, and wellbeing. Our work improved the lives of 2,148,203 people from 1,320 marginalized communities by addressing the root causes of environmental degradation, food insecurity, poverty, climate vulnerability, and social marginalization. We support
$4,169,506 spentof which $3,135,768 as grants100% of program spendinga practical approach that builds participants capacities to experiment with ecological farming strategies, spread effective solutions, and develop complementary strategies to meet their basic needs and lead ongoing processes to improve human and social wellbeing and environmental regeneration. While programming in each region, as well as at the country level, is designed to respond to the local context, Groundswell programs everywhere: -Work with farmer leaders to test and adopt agroecological methods and spread them to more people through farmer-to-farmer training, allowing these farmers to produce more healthy food and restore hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded land. -Empower women farmers to participate in savings and credit groups, improve ecological
production, gain access to productive assets, and diversify their livelihoods, which in turn improves their families food security, incomes, and resilience. -Strengthen local markets and increase farmers incomes through savings and credit groups and community-based agricultural enterprises that add value to locally grown crops. -Nourish vulnerable families by explicitly integrating gender equity and nutrition into agricultural programs. Our holistic approach links agroecological farming to family nutrition. -Support citizens to engage with local decision-makers on enabling local policies and produce influential case studies, policy briefs, and impact reports based on learning across our network, to share with other stakeholders to expedite the necessary transition to agroecology. West Africa -- We continued to work with our partners Agrecol Afrique in Senegal; Association Nourrir Sans Detruire (ANSD) in Burkina Faso; the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Organizational Development (CIKOD) in Ghana; and Sahel Eco in Mali. In 2025, we added two new partners to our network both based in Northern Ghana, Urbanet and Center for Ecological Agriculture and Livehoods. Our West Africa…
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $4,169,506.
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 $2.8M to $3.7M (+32%).
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: 2018 4% · 2019 5% · 2020 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of Groundswell International Inc’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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.
Chief executive
Steve Brescia
Executive Director
Board chair
David Conner
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 30 funders, grant income rose $942k → $2.5M.
18 of 56 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 36% 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 Groundswell International Inc’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 56 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
Groundswell International Inc has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% 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
37% 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 Groundswell International Inc.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 55% · 2018 54% · 2019 20% · 2020 23% · 2021 21% · 2022 17% · 2023 20% — 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
57% of Groundswell International Inc's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% 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
Groundswell International Inc draws 98% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 18 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $6.3M arriving through sponsors registered in 12 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
Groundswell International Inc holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 798 international nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 798 international nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Groundswell International Inc
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
89% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
62%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Groundswell International Inc: 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 Groundswell International Inc?
- Groundswell International Inc (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,473,516 to it, the largest being WK Kellogg Foundation ($3,282,919). 36 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Groundswell International Inc have?
- IRS filings report 56 organizations giving $17,473,516 in grants to Groundswell International Inc, 36 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Groundswell International Inc?
- WK Kellogg Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $3,282,919 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Groundswell International Inc 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 Groundswell International →
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 56 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