Heritage Foundation

ChatGPT Research

Yes. Here is the revised master accounting record for 2019–2024, incorporating everything we have accumulated so far and correcting the categories so we do not double-count DAFs, public charities, or overlapping donor-network figures.

The denominator for donor analysis is “Contributions” from Heritage’s Form 990, not total revenue. Total revenue also includes investment income, asset sales, rents, and other non-donation revenue. Heritage’s IRS filings show $557.05 million in contributions across 2019–2024.

Heritage Foundation — Master Funding Accounting Record, 2019–2024

Year	Total Revenue	Contributions	Direct Private Foundations Identified	Public-Charity / DAF / Institutional Funding Identified	Total Institutional Funding Publicly Traced	Publicly Unattributed Contribution Revenue	Minimum Traceability
2019	$122,861,202	$116,992,003	Not yet comprehensively aggregated	Annual amount not separately recoverable from current 2019–24 dataset	Incomplete	Not responsibly calculable yet	—
2020	$119,134,479	$65,877,330	≥ $4,000,000	≥ $1,751,483	≥ $5,751,483	≤ $60,125,847	≥ 8.73%
2021	$101,783,032	$75,262,071	≥ $5,100,000	≥ $1,965,034	≥ $7,065,034	≤ $68,197,037	≥ 9.39%
2022	$106,329,524	$95,083,025	≥ $5,332,680	≥ $3,170,319	≥ $8,502,999	≤ $86,580,026	≥ 8.94%
2023	$100,963,350	$97,801,739	≥ $6,424,600	≥ $4,550,126	≥ $10,974,726	≤ $86,827,013	≥ 11.22%
2024	$133,868,147	$106,031,026	≥ $10,007,500	≈ $5,900,000	≥ $15,907,500	≤ $90,123,526	≥ 15.00%

The revenue and contribution figures come from Heritage’s Form 990 filings. For example, its 2024 filing reports $133.87 million in total revenue and $106.03 million in contributions; 2023 reports $97.80 million in contributions, 2022 $95.08 million, 2021 $75.26 million, 2020 $65.88 million, and 2019 $116.99 million.

What the columns mean

• Direct Private Foundations means the originating philanthropic entity is identifiable—for example, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Gaby Foundation, Pharos Foundation, or Robert J. Werra Foundation.
• Public-Charity / DAF / Institutional includes organizations filing as public charities that report grants to Heritage. This includes DAF sponsors such as Fidelity Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, National Christian Foundation, DAFgiving360, National Philanthropic Trust, and DonorsTrust, but also some operating nonprofits and trade associations. The entire category therefore should not be called “anonymous DAF money.”
• The IRS-derived recipient database currently identifies $39.8 million across 298 grants from 107 public-charity funders to Heritage during 2019–2024.
• Publicly unattributed contribution revenue means contribution income that we have not yet matched to donor-side public records. It should not be called anonymous or dark money. Heritage says it discloses donor names in annual reports only with donor permission, and a public charity generally does not publicly disclose its complete individual-contributor Schedule B.

2020

The current direct-foundation minimum is:

Direct donor	Amount identified
Richard & Barbara Gaby Foundation	$2,000,000
Diana Davis Spencer Foundation	$2,000,000
Direct minimum	$4,000,000

Known public-charity/DAF channels include:

Intermediary	Amount
Fidelity Charitable	$885,992
DAFgiving360 / Donor Advised Charitable Giving	$865,491
Known minimum	$1,751,483

So at least $5.75 million, or 8.73%, of 2020 contributions is presently matched to institutional donor-side records. That percentage is explicitly a floor because the six-year public-charity dataset contains additional grants that have not yet been fully allocated to individual years. Heritage reported $65.88 million of contributions in 2020, while asset sales added another $50.88 million to total revenue.

2021

Direct institutional donors presently include:

Direct donor	Amount
Diana Davis Spencer Foundation	$1,500,000
Gaby Foundation	$1,000,000
Stanley E. Fulton Family Foundation	$1,000,000
Sarah Scaife Foundation	$800,000
Noble-related foundation	$800,000
Direct minimum	$5,100,000

Known intermediaries:

Intermediary	Amount
Fidelity Charitable	$1,123,134
Vanguard Charitable	$841,900
Known minimum	$1,965,034

Combined: at least $7.07 million, or 9.39% of Heritage’s $75.26 million in contributions.

2022

Our expanded direct-foundation ledger presently contains:

Direct donor	Amount
Pharos Foundation	$1,500,680
Diana Davis Spencer Foundation	$1,500,000
Lloyd & Vivian Noble Foundation	$1,050,000
Sarah Scaife Foundation	$800,000
Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation	$425,000
Peter & Ann Lambertus Family Foundation	$50,000
Halcro Family Foundation	$6,500
Hawks Foundation	$500
Direct minimum	$5,332,680

Known public-charity/DAF funding:

Intermediary	Amount
National Christian Foundation	$1,353,244
Fidelity Charitable	$989,987
DAFgiving360	$827,088
Known minimum	$3,170,319

Combined publicly traced institutional funding is therefore at least $8.50 million, or 8.94% of Heritage’s $95.08 million in contributions. The true institutional amount is higher because the $39.8 million public-charity database also includes additional organizations and grants not yet assigned individually to 2022.

2023

Direct private foundations presently identified:

Direct donor	Amount
Diana Davis Spencer Foundation	$5,000,000
Richard & Barbara Gaby Foundation	$1,000,000
W.L. Amos Sr. Foundation	$200,000
Rydin Foundation	$167,000
Milstein Family Foundation	$30,000
Harvey Karp Foundation	$15,000
Bernard & Sarah Gewirz Foundation	$6,500
Shipley Educational Foundation	$5,000
Mark E. & Mary A. Davis Foundation	$1,000
smaller identified grant	$100
Direct minimum	$6,424,600

Known public-charity/DAF channels:

Intermediary	Amount
Fidelity Charitable	$1,649,475
Vanguard Charitable	$1,030,350
DAFgiving360	$988,310
National Christian Foundation	$881,991
Known minimum	$4,550,126

That gives a traceable institutional minimum of $10.97 million, or 11.22% of Heritage’s $97.80 million in contributions. The contribution figure is particularly notable because contributions constituted 96.9% of Heritage’s total 2023 revenue.

2024 — currently the strongest accounting year

The direct-foundation ledger is considerably richer:

Direct private foundation	Amount currently identified
Diana Davis Spencer Foundation	$5,000,000
Sarah Scaife Foundation	$1,750,000
Robert J. Werra Foundation	$1,100,000
Richard & Barbara Gaby Foundation	$1,000,000
Bruce & Deborah Duncan Foundation	≥ $535,000
Pharos Foundation	$200,000
Rydin Foundation	$167,000
Andrea Waitt Carlton Family Foundation	$125,000
Armstrong Foundation	≥ $40,000
Brian & Joelle Kelly Family Foundation	$25,000
Harvey Karp Foundation	≥ $25,000
several smaller verified foundations	≥ $40,500
Current direct minimum	≥ $10,007,500

The IRS-derived recipient database then gives us something much stronger than our earlier hand-built intermediary subtotal: approximately $5.9 million from 50 public-charity funders in 2024. The larger database reports $39.8 million across 2019–2024.

Those 2024 public-charity channels include major intermediaries such as National Christian Foundation, Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, DonorsTrust, Comerica Charitable Trust, American Endowment Foundation, Raymond James Charitable, community foundations, and similar vehicles.

Therefore:

• Private-foundation minimum: $10,007,500
• Public-charity institutional funding: ≈ $5,900,000
• Total publicly traced institutional funding: ≥ $15,907,500

against:

• Total Heritage contributions: $106,031,026.

So at least 15.0% of 2024 contribution income is already traceable to institutional grantmakers in public donor-side records.

The remaining $90,123,526, or approximately 85.0%, is not yet attributable donor-by-donor through the records assembled here. That 85% includes Heritage’s individual donors, additional unaggregated foundations and institutional grants, and potentially other contribution types. Heritage itself describes its financial base as including individuals, foundations, and corporations and says donor names are disclosed publicly only with permission.

Six-year totals we can state confidently

Heritage reported total contributions of approximately $557.05 million during 2019–2024.

Within that period, one donor-side database independently identifies $39.8 million from 107 public-charity funders through 298 grants.

Separately, our private-foundation reconstruction for 2020–2024 alone has already identified at least $30.86 million in direct private-foundation grants.

Those numbers should not simply be combined into a six-year percentage, because we have not yet reconstructed 2019 direct private-foundation giving and we must continue checking for entity-classification overlap. But they establish at least one strong conclusion:

Public records reveal tens of millions of dollars in both direct private-foundation support and public-charity/DAF funding, while most of Heritage’s overall contribution revenue remains publicly unattributed at the individual-donor level.

Master accounting terminology going forward

I recommend freezing these terms for the remainder of the project:

Direct identifiable donor

originating philanthropic foundation can be named.

Identified intermediary / unidentified originator

Fidelity, Vanguard, DonorsTrust, NCF, DAFgiving360, etc., where the intermediary-to-Heritage transaction is known but the recommending donor is not publicly traceable.

Operating institutional donor

trade association, corporation, or operating nonprofit giving directly.

Publicly unattributed contribution revenue

Heritage contribution income not matched through our donor-side public-record reconstruction.

Never use “dark money” as an accounting category, because it implies something the tax records alone do not establish.

This is now a much cleaner baseline than the earlier versions: 2019 remains explicitly incomplete, 2020–2023 are conservative minimum reconstructions, and 2024 is our best current auditable snapshot.