About Luminate Foundation
To ensure that everyone — especially those who are underrepresented — has the information, rights, and power to influence the decisions that affect their lives.
Focus Areas
Civic participationDemocracy and governancePress freedom and journalismInformation integrity / combatting misinformationDigital rights and data rightsStrategic litigation, advocacy and campaignsCapacity building for underrepresented groups
Who They Fund
Black feminist movements / Black communitiesjournalists (including women and non‑binary journalists) and newsroomsimmigrants and undocumented youthglobal internet users and civic space defenders at risk
About Luminate Foundation
Luminate Foundation Inc. puts large, repeated grants behind a narrow set of connected goals: civic participation, democracy and governance, press freedom and journalism, information integrity, digital rights, strategic litigation, advocacy, and capacity building for underrepresented groups. One of its clearest signals is the $1,000,000 grant to Amalgamated Charitable Foundation in 2025 to meaningfully resource Black feminist movements globally. The foundation also backed Liberty with $1,000,000 in 2024 and $520,000 in 2023 for work on injustice and freedom in the UK, showing sustained support for rights-based organizing across multiple years. Its funding pattern includes core institutional support, unrestricted funding, and field-building, alongside grants for technology, platforms, and investigative work. Recent awards also show attention to digital rights and civic space, with grantees such as Access Now, Privacy International, and Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales receiving support for privacy, surveillance, and AI-related concerns. The portfolio spans advocacy groups, research organizations, and news and accountability institutions, often backing the infrastructure that supports longer-term public-interest work rather than only discrete projects.
What Luminate Foundation Funds
In digital rights, the foundation funded Privacy International with $650,000 in 2023 to raise awareness on technologies that place privacy at risk, and gave $650,000 in 2025 to Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales for protecting digital rights and civic space against surveillance and AI. Its information-integrity work appears in a $784,000 grant to Conectas in 2024 to combat misinformation and hate speech in Brazil, as well as support for More In Common to build communities resilient to polarisation and social division. In the open-government space, it awarded $542,000 to Open Knowledge Foundation Germany in 2024 for open government, open education, and civic tech, and $500,000 to Open Contracting Partnership in 2023 to make public procurement more transparent and effective globally. For journalism and accountability, the foundation supported Correctiv in 2023 and 2024 for investigating injustices and abuses of power and running educational programs.
How Luminate Foundation Gives
Typical grant size clusters around $125,000 at the 25th percentile, a $200,000 median, and $265,000 at the 75th percentile, while several grants in the recent list sit far above that range. The same organizations appear across multiple years, including East West Management Institute, Correctiv, Data and Society Research Institute, More In Common, Liberty, Digital Freedom Fund, and Open Contracting Partnership, which suggests recurring relationships rather than one-off awards. Luminate Foundation Inc. is a regular funder, not a DAF, and it does not fund individuals or make program-related investments. The grant descriptions also point to a preference for core institutional support, unrestricted funding, capacity building, and field-building over tightly scoped project grants.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$16M
Total Assets
$11M
Total Revenue
$874K
Total Expenses
$16M
Typical Grant Size
Most grants fall between $125K and $265K, with a median of $200K.
25th Percentile
$125K
Median
$200K
75th Percentile
$265K
Geographic Reach
National6 states funded
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Where Luminate Foundation Funds
Top 10 recipient countries by grant volume for Luminate Foundation.
| Rank | Country | Grants | Total | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United StatesDomestic | 137 | $36.9M | 36.0% |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 55 |
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