The five affiliated 501(c)(3) nonprofits which comprise Tides—one of the largest and most prominent left-of-center funding and fiscal sponsorship networks in the country—have posted their 2024 Form 990s. This follows the release of the associated (though legally separate) 501(c)(4) Tides Advocacy’s Form 990 several weeks ago.
Combined, the six Tides nonprofits saw total revenues increase from $701,420,523 to $785,605,823, total expenses decrease from $1,144,670,565 to $905,752,771, and net assets drop from $908,690,437 to $784,274,816. Here is a table comparing the groups’ top-line financials from 2023 to 2024.
When considering these numbers, it is important to keep in mind that the operations of these six groups overlap considerably. This includes significant intra-network cash transfers. For instance, in 2024 the Tides Foundation reported making $9,579,887 in grants to the Tides Center and $28,164,447 to Tides Advocacy. The Tides Center in turn reported making $8,837,683 in grants to the Tides Foundation, alongside $13,095,792 to Tides Advocacy.
The Tides Network functions as the controlling entity for the other Tides nonprofits (except Tides Advocacy), providing “executive leadership, HR resources, financial management and accounting, legal and compliance, communications, and administrative services to advance the programming of the other Tides entities.” The executive officers of the other four Tides 501(c)(3)s are legally employed (and paid) by the Tides Network, which also appoints directors to their respective boards.
The two largest and most interesting entities in the Tides 501(c)(3) family are the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center. In contrast to Tides Advocacy (whose 2024 financials are covered here), both reported significant drops in grantmaking despite modest bumps in revenue.
Tides Foundation
The Tides Foundation primarily acts as a pass-through funder, making grants via donor-advised funds and other philanthropic vehicles such as collective action funds, which pool resources from multiple contributors and then re-grant them for a common purpose under the oversight of an advisory committee. It was the original Tides nonprofit, founded by Drummond Pike in 1976.
In 2024, the Tides Foundation reported making $442,511,391 in grants, which was down markedly from the $690,297,181 it reported in 2023. More than $395 million of this went to domestic recipients, while more than $47 million went to undisclosed foreign recipients. Dozens of domestic recipients received at least $1 million from the Tides Foundation, and many of these have profiles available on InfluenceWatch. Its largest grantees included:
- Tides Advocacy: $28,164,447
- State Democracy Project: $20,280,000
- Tides Center: $9,579,887
- ImpactAssets: $8,294,752 (plus $11,592,000 in securities)
- Academy for the Love of Learning: $5,000,000
- Trans Justice Funding Project: $4,322,252
- Movement Voter Fund: $4,200,000
- Floridians Protecting Freedom: $3,332,500
- NextGen Climate America: $3,294,999
- Working Families Organization: $3,254,209
- Climate Strategies Lab LLC: $3,123,870
- Beneficial State Foundation: $2,626,767
- NetHope: $2,576,000
- Poder Latinx: $2,500,000
- OC Action: $2,483,381
- New Venture Fund: $2,290,000
- Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors: $2,198,500
- The Movement Cooperative: $2,007,450
- Citizens Not Politicians: $2,000,000
Many grants from the Tides Foundation went to 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, several of which were among its top grantees. Indeed, the $28.1 million it gave to Tides Advocacy amounted to 30 percent of the latter’s total revenue. Unlike 501(c)(3) nonprofits, 501(c)(4)s are permitted to engage in a degree of explicit partisan politics, though they may not use 501(c)(3)-sourced funds for this purpose.
Tides Center
The Tides Center offers comprehensive (also known as Model A) fiscal sponsorship to projects that do not have their own tax-exempt status from the IRS, providing them with administrative management and operational support, and allowing them to accept tax-deductible donations. Form 990 has no mechanism for disclosing fiscal sponsorship activities, though some examples of Tides Center projects include Fair and Just Prosecution, Palestine Legal, the Kairos Center, and the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable.
Much of the Tides Center’s expenses were in the form of salaries and other compensation, but it also reported paying $50,959,720 worth of grants in 2024. As with the Tides Foundation, this was down substantially from the $80,494,180 it paid out in 2023. The Tides Center’s largest domestic grantees in 2024 included:
- Tides Advocacy: $13,095,792
- Tides Foundation: $8,837,683
- TRAILS: $5,362,697
- Women Building Up: $1,459,854
- HASER, Inc.: $826,000
- University of California, Berkeley: $800,723
- Solano County, California: $725,000
- Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors: $621,200
- Givsum Foundation: $457,012
- Reinvent South Stockton Coalition ($447,014)
- Bronx Documentary Center ($421,900)
- First Focus on Children ($405,000)
- Mountain Association for Community Economic Development ($400,000)
- Southeast Climate & Energy Network ($400,000)
- Washington University in St. Louis ($400,000)
- Western Organization of Resource Councils Education Project ($400,000)
The $13.1 million that the Tides Center reported granting to Tides Advocacy would represent approximately 14 percent of the latter’s total revenue in 2024.
Falling finances
For more perspective on these new numbers, in 2020 the Tides Foundation reported $1.06 billion in total revenue, and in 2021 it had net assets of over $1.14 billion. In 2021, the Tides Center brought in $516.5 million in revenue and held net assets of $506 million. Both groups have since experienced a significant drop from these all-time financial highs.
