California · Nonprofit
The Workers Lab
The Workers Lab (California) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,673,498 to it, the largest being TIDES FOUNDATION ($1,805,669). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 59% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $3.2M
- Funders on record
- 16
- Grants received
- $5.7M
- Net assets
- $896k
What The Workers Lab does
Mission
The Workers Labs purpose is to give new ideas about increasing worker power a genuine changce to succeed and flourish. We envison a society where workers are powerful drivers of economic, social, and political transformation. To bring about that vision, we invest flexible dollars in a national network of leaders accross sectors to test new ideas.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Technology - Joined in 2024, WorkIt Labs was born out of the vision of worker leaders who recognized the need for technology built for and with those on the frontlines of worker organizing. From these early conversations, our mission was born - to design, develop, and deliver technology that puts power in the hands of workers. Today, we reach over 500K workers worldwide through our 25 partnerships with unions and worker organizations.
$859,829 spent$880,986 earned by the program38% of program spendingInnovation Fund - The Innovation Fund is our signature program and the primary way we source and fund experiments. It is a national prize competition that we host up to three times a year. We leverage a fellowship model where fellows include entrepreneurs, worker organizers, non-profit leaders, and/or public sector leaders who receive a monthly stipend and support resources. At the end of the fellowship, winners are selected for up to 200,000 in additional funding for their new ideas about work and workers.
$682,783 spentof which $361,200 as grants30% of program spendingDesign Sprint - In 2023, The Workers Lab ran a design sprint to explore how flexible work can be quality work. All work, whether it is standard employment or gig and contract work, should allow workers flexibility without sacrificing quality. We invested over 1 million to demonstrate how to make this possible. In 2024, this Design Sprint on Quality Flexible Work will begin to sunset as we ideate on both the possibility of scale long-term and a new design sprint.
$351,085 spent15% of program spendingProgram Service Expenses 235,243, Grants and allocations 500, Revenue 0 Learning Hub - Our Learning Hub is a tool that helps make sense of everything were learning across our activities. It is meant to inform future activities and to show audiences what it means to give new ideas that increase power for workers a chance to succeed. The Learning Hub curates and houses our learning, offers resources and mentorship, and showcases the most promising ideas aimed at increasing power for workers. Program Service Expenses 155,454, Grants and allocations 0, Revenue 0 Participatory Research - This project seeks to center workers and their experiences in the national understanding of work and workers so that worker-leaders and other decision-makers across the country can make more informed decisions about how to better serve workers. We build worker-centered knowledge by engaging frontline workers as researchers, undertaking projects to better understand the realities of work, challenges faced by workers, and ideas for solutions.
$390,697 spentof which $500 as grants17% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,284,394.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $4.7M to $1.7M (−65%).
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 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
72% of The Workers Lab’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (61% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 5 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
Adrian Haro
CEO
Board chair
Keesha Gaskins-Nathan
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2018 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 3 funders, grant income fell $760k → $300k.
10 of 16 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 59% 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: $227k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Workers Lab INC). These are real filings, and they are not money The Workers Lab raised.
From the IRS filings of The Workers Lab’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 15 of 16 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 Workers Lab has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 32% 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
100% 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 Workers Lab.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 100% · 2019 80% · 2020 54% · 2021 87% · 2022 59% · 2023 83% — 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
9% of The Workers Lab's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 31% 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
59% of The Workers Lab'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 $2.3M that is directly attributable, 98% of it comes from funders outside California, across 4 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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 Workers Lab's revenue fell 57% between 2020 and 2024.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,203 community improvement nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like The Workers Lab
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 California
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
51%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 2 related entities
- The Workers Lab INC · exempt
- The Workers Lab Action Fund · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for The Workers Lab: 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 Workers Lab?
- The Workers Lab (California) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,673,498 to it, the largest being TIDES FOUNDATION ($1,805,669). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 59% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does The Workers Lab have?
- IRS filings report 16 organizations giving $5,673,498 in grants to The Workers Lab, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Workers Lab?
- TIDES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,805,669 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Workers Lab find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2020–2024), and the filings of 16 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing