REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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.

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.

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 6 reported years ran a deficit.

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 32 funders, grant income rose $11k → $7.9M.

12 of 60 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 71% 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 REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 60 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

REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 59% of grant income and the top three 67%; half comes from just 1 funder.

77% 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 REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION.

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 100% · 2019 89% · 2020 32% · 2021 61% · 2022 68% · 2023 74% — 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

67% of REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION'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

71% of REAL CLEAR FOUNDATION'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 $8.5M that is directly attributable, 96% of it comes from funders outside Illinois, across 21 states.

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $21M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 statesis 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.