How is Signal Foundation financed and what do its IRS Form 990 filings show?
Executive summary
Signal Foundation is funded mainly through large contributions tied to its founders and through donations recorded on its IRS filings; public Form 990s and nonprofit databases show grantmaking and operating expenses, while researchers point to a large founder loan in 2018 and sizable operating outlays in recent years [1][2]. Public records are available via ProPublica and other 990 aggregators, but some details—such as precise donor names on Schedule B—are subject to IRS disclosure rules and the limits of published summaries [3][4][5].
1. How Signal is financed on paper: donations, a founder loan and grants recorded in 990s
Signal’s financial story in the public record is dominated by contributions and grant activity reported on Form 990s and related schedules; ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer hosts full filings and extracted financial data that document revenue sources and expenses for the Signal entities [1][3]. Independent analysis of the filings highlights a large 2018 loan from founder Brian Acton—reported at roughly $105 million originally and reduced in later filings as portions were forgiven or recharacterized—which is the clearest single large financing event visible in the filings researchers have parsed [2][6].
2. What the IRS Form 990s themselves reveal about operating finances
The Form 990 documents reconstruct revenue, expenses, executive compensation and grant activity; researchers who dug into Part IX of the 2022 990 report Signal’s total expenses at about $30.5 million for 2022, with roughly $12.5 million going to payroll and executive compensation and another roughly $12.5 million listed as computer hosting and related vendor costs (Twilio, Microsoft, Amazon, Google) in the same analysis [2][6]. ProPublica’s file pages and the reconstructed returns make clear that the 990s provide that line-item detail, even if aggregated summaries available on some sites can be misleading without consulting the raw filing [1][2].
3. Grantmaking and foundation-side activity as shown on 990-PF and 990s
Signal Foundation and the related Signal Technology Foundation appear in public nonprofit databases with separate EINs and filings; some aggregators report recent grant figures — for example, Instrumentl reports that a Signal-branded private foundation reported $1,375,000 in grants in 2023 while another Instrumentl page for the Signal Technology Foundation reports $0 in grants for 2023 — a contradictory snapshot that underscores how third‑party summaries can differ and why the underlying 990-PF and 990 PDFs are the authoritative sources to consult [7][8][9].
4. Donor disclosure, Schedule B and limits of public data
The Form 990 system includes Schedule B for donors, and ProPublica links to Schedule B records for Signal entities, but IRS rules and filing practices limit what is publicly visible in many online summaries; Charity Navigator and IRS guidance explain how Form 990s are structured and which schedules supply supplemental disclosure, so researchers should treat public summaries as starting points and inspect the actual 990 and Schedule B images where possible to verify donor and grant detail [4][10][5].
5. What this record implies and where reporting diverges
Taken together, the filings and independent parsing show Signal’s financing is a mix of founder-backed capital and ongoing contributions, with operating costs concentrated in personnel and hosting; independent blog and analyst notes emphasize the outsized role of the 2018 founder loan and subsequent forgiveness entries in explaining revenue spikes across years, a point worth noting because summaries that omit those adjustments can give a misleading impression of recurring income [2][1]. Public data availability via ProPublica and similar aggregators makes independent verification possible, but divergent third‑party summaries (Instrumentl, blog posts) illustrate why the raw 990/990‑PF PDFs remain essential for precise claims [3][7][2].