Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
The Becket Fund
The Becket Fund (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 114 organizations whose IRS filings report $36,720,224 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($3,659,700). 82 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $18M
- Funders on record
- 114
- Grants received
- $37M
- Net assets
- $29M
What The Becket Fund does
Mission
Public interest legal activities. Our mission is to protect the free expression of all faiths.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Public interest legal activities: Our mission is to protect the free expression of all faiths. We exist to vindicate a simple but frequently neglected principle that because the religious impulse is natural to human beings, religious expression is natural to human culture. See attached for case litigation list.
$11,656,566 spent$2,350,338 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $11,656,566.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 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 2022 to 2023, from $16M to $28M (+83%).
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 4%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
85% of The Becket Fund’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (82% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 7 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
Mark Rienzi
President & CEO
Board chair
William Mumma
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 19 funders to 66 funders, grant income rose $2.3M → $5.8M.
28 of 114 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 52% 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 The Becket Fund’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 114 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
The Becket Fund has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 10% of grant income, and it takes 8 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 8 funders to its left
69% 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 The Becket Fund.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 22% · 2018 15% · 2019 16% · 2020 12% · 2021 14% · 2022 11% · 2023 15% — 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
59% of The Becket Fund's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 72% 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
52% of The Becket Fund'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 $18M that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 31 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $19M arriving through sponsors registered in 19 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
The Becket Fund runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 27 social science nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 27 social science nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Organizations like The Becket Fund
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
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
76%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 29 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- The Becket Reserve · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for The Becket Fund: 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 The Becket Fund?
- The Becket Fund (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 114 organizations whose IRS filings report $36,720,224 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($3,659,700). 82 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does The Becket Fund have?
- IRS filings report 114 organizations giving $36,720,224 in grants to The Becket Fund, 82 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Becket Fund?
- NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC is the largest funder on record, with $3,659,700 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Becket Fund 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 Becket →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2019–2025), and the filings of 114 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