Illinois · Nonprofit
Invisible Institute
Invisible Institute (Illinois) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,616,263 to it, the largest being JOHN D AND CATHERINE T MACARTHUR FOUNDATION ($1,782,770). 31 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.1M
- Funders on record
- 51
- Grants received
- $7.6M
- Net assets
- $3.7M
What Invisible Institute does
Mission
Enhancing the capacity of citizens to hold public institutions accountable through the practice of investigative journalism. The Organization adheres to the central principle that citizens have co-responsibility with the government for maintaining respect for human rights and, when abuses occur, for demanding redress.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Citizens Police Data Project CPDP - CPDP takes records of police interactions with the public - records that would otherwise be buried in internal databases - and opens them up to make the data useful to the public, thereby creating a permanent record for every police officer. The Organization utilizes its CPDP tool to present the underlying police data. In order to maximize the CPDP program coverage and effectiveness, the Organization makes the codebase for the CPDP tool and all underlying datasets plus data processing scripts and FOIA responses available to the public through the Organization's website.
$811,938 spent$166,786 earned by the program55% of program spendingJournalism - The Organization is a journalism organization at its core, and utilizes different mediums to employ such tactics that include human rights documentation, investigative reporting, civil rights litigation, the curating of public information, conceptual art projects and the orchestration of difficult public conversations.
$435,972 spent29% of program spendingYouth/Police - This program aims to build conversations with black teens about how their lives are affected by the character of the police presence in their neighborhoods. The program presents how teens describe their interactions with police in their own words, how those encounters make them feel, and how their experiences with the police shape their behavior.
$125,015 spent8% of program spendingLegal & Outreach - The program provides legal support and public strategy for ongoing work to make police records available to the public, including support for Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits.
$110,939 spent7% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,483,864.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 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 2024 to 2025, from $2.7M to $3.7M (+41%).
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 8%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
93% of Invisible Institute’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 20 funders, grant income rose $250k → $996k.
10 of 51 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 17% 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 Invisible Institute’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 51 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
Invisible Institute has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 23% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 96% · 2019 71% · 2020 27% · 2021 34% · 2022 34% · 2023 51% — 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
39% of Invisible Institute's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 61% 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
62% of Invisible Institute's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.3M 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
Invisible Institute runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 479 civil rights nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 479 civil rights nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Invisible Institute
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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
75% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
49%
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 Invisible Institute: 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 Invisible Institute?
- Invisible Institute (Illinois) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,616,263 to it, the largest being JOHN D AND CATHERINE T MACARTHUR FOUNDATION ($1,782,770). 31 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Invisible Institute have?
- IRS filings report 51 organizations giving $7,616,263 in grants to Invisible Institute, 31 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Invisible Institute?
- JOHN D AND CATHERINE T MACARTHUR FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,782,770 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Invisible Institute find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 2018–2025), and the filings of 51 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