THE SOLAR FOUNDATION

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.

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: 2017 84% · 2018 50% · 2019 76% · 2020 87% · 2021 97%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 5 reported years ran a deficit.

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2022: the base narrowed from 4 funders to 1 funder, grant income fell $302k → $68.

6 of 21 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 38% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.

Left out of every figure on this page: $385k from 4 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Energy Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money THE SOLAR FOUNDATION raised.

From the IRS filings of THE SOLAR FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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 SOLAR FOUNDATION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 35% of grant income and the top three 85%; half comes from just 2 funders.

72% 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 SOLAR FOUNDATION.

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 66% · 2018 55% · 2019 58% · 2020 67% · 2021 53% · 2022 100% — growing more concentrated.

“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

15% of THE SOLAR FOUNDATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 29% 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 FY2022, 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

THE SOLAR FOUNDATION draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside New York, across 9 states in all.

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $704k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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.