Which specific grants did the Tides Foundation make to Indivisible Civics and when?
Executive summary
Tides Foundation served as the fiscal sponsor or pass-through for the Indivisible movement’s charitable arm (originally the Indivisible Fund, later Indivisible Civics), and reporting indicates material transfers in at least 2018 and 2020 — specifically $2.24 million in 2018 and $150,000 in 2020 from Tides-related entities — but public reporting does not provide a comprehensive, line-item grant schedule from Tides to Indivisible Civics [1] [2]. Multiple sources stress that Tides commonly operates as a fiscal sponsor and pooled funder, which complicates straightforward tracing of individual grants [3] [4].
1. How Tides and Indivisible were organized and described in reporting
InfluenceWatch and related profiles describe Indivisible Civics as the 501(c) charitable arm that spun out of the Indivisible Project, and prior to Indivisible Civics’ independent formation the Indivisible Fund operated as a project of the Tides Foundation — an arrangement that places Tides in the role of host/fiscal sponsor rather than a conventional grantor in at least the program’s earliest phase [1] [2]. Tides itself is repeatedly characterized in the reporting as a large, left-leaning grantmaking and fiscal-sponsorship organization that both makes direct grants through initiatives and serves as a pass-through vehicle for donor-directed funds [3] [4].
2. Specific dollar transfers cited in reporting and their dates
The available reporting cites two specific sums linked to Tides-related entities and Indivisible: $2.24 million in 2018 and $150,000 in 2020, both described in InfluenceWatch’s profile of The Indivisible Project as funds received from Tides Advocacy or Tides-related structures [2]. InfluenceWatch’s account also notes that in 2018 Indivisible Civics reported roughly $5.27 million in revenue, with most coming from contributions and grants, which aligns with the picture of large foundation and intermediary funding flows that included Tides’ involvement [1].
3. Why the records are ambiguous and where the reporting stops
Tides’ dual role as a fiscal sponsor and as a grantmaker through pooled funds and donor-advised vehicles is emphasized in Tides’ own materials and philanthropy reporting, and that operational model inherently blurs whether a transfer is a “grant,” a fiscal-sponsorship pass-through, or a management arrangement — a distinction the available sources repeatedly highlight [3] [4]. None of the provided documents supply a granular Tides grant ledger listing individual grant recipient, grant amount, and exact grant date for Indivisible Civics; the InfluenceWatch figures appear to come from tax-return summaries or organizational reporting but do not constitute an exhaustive Tides-issued grant schedule [1] [2].
4. Alternative readings and implicit agendas in the sources
InfluenceWatch frames Indivisible and Tides in explicitly ideological terms, labeling them “left-of-center” and noting large foundation support, which can influence interpretation of funding flows [1] [2]; by contrast, Tides’ own materials depict the organization as a philanthropic infrastructure provider that supports civic engagement and pooled-fund initiatives, an explanation for why direct grant listings may be absent from public summaries [3] [4]. Investigative caution requires accepting both truths: the documented amounts in 2018 and 2020 are persuasive indicators of substantive Tides-linked funding to Indivisible’s charitable arm, while Tides’ operational model explains why full, line-by-line grant disclosures to Indivisible Civics are not visible in the materials provided [2] [3].
5. Bottom line and reporting limitation
The clearest, attributable items in the provided reporting are the two amounts tied to Tides-related entities — $2.24 million in 2018 and $150,000 in 2020 — plus the fact that Indivisible’s early charitable vehicle was run as a project of the Tides Foundation, but the public sources here do not provide a complete, dated list of every Tides-issued grant to Indivisible Civics or a full schedule of grant agreements and payment dates, so a definitive, exhaustive grant-by-grant accounting cannot be produced from the supplied documents [2] [1] [3].