Grantmakers › District of Columbia
Common Cause Education Fund
Washington, DC · EIN 31-1705370. Reported 31 grants totalling $944,700 to 27 organizations across tax years 2023, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Common Cause Education Fund, the IRS classifies it under public & societal benefit rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE W20) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 27 distinct organizations, with 16% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $25,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $50,000; the smallest was $7,000 and the largest $150,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Carolina for the People | Durham, NC | $150,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Democracy North Carolina | Morrisville, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| N C a Philip Randolph Institute Inc | Raleigh, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| NAACP North Carolina | Raleigh, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| National Association for the Advancement of Colored People | Baltimore, MD | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| North Carolina Black Alliance Inc | Raleigh, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| North Carolina League of Conservation Voters Foundation Inc | Raleigh, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Planned Parenthood South Atlantic | Raleigh, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The League of Women Voters of North Carolina Inc | Raleigh, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| You Can Vote | Durham, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Young Peoples Alliance Education Fund | Raleigh, NC | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Center for Empowered Politics Education Fund | Oakland, CA | $32,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| Minkwon Center for Community Action Inc | Flushing, NY | $30,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| CASA Azul De Wilson | Wilson, NC | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Inquiring Minds of New York City Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $25,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| Little Rock Cdc | Charlotte, NC | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Mission House | Salisbury, NC | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Valores | Burlington, NC | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Ohio Voice | Columbus, OH | $15,600 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| League of Women Voters of New York State Education Foundation Inc | Albany, NY | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Neo Philanthropy Inc | New York, NY | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| New York Immigration Coalition Inc | New York, NY | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Livingstone College | Salisbury, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of North Carolina at Asheville Foundation Inc | Asheville, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Western Carolina University Research Administration | Cullowhee, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Greater Augusta Interfaith Coalition Inc | Augusta, GA | $9,600 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Nc Budget & Tax Center | Durham, NC | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Nc for the People
ELECTION PROTECTION WORK DURING NOV 2024 ELECTION
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 17 of 27 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Where its money goes
78% of its giving went to organizations in North Carolina. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $25,000 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in North Carolina.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Common Cause Education Fund's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 3 returns (tax years 2021-2023). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 30 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 3 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 805 15TH Street 800, Washington, DC, 20005.
EIN 31-1705370 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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