Frequently Asked Questions on the Report and Source Data

  • This is a first-of-its-kind map of the Civility Industry: the ecosystem of “pluralism,” “viewpoint diversity,” “civil discourse,” “constructive dialogue,” “civic thought,” “character,” and “depolarization” programs currently spreading across higher education and philanthropy.

    The dataset encompasses 185 Providers, which represent 128 university-hosted centers or initiatives, 36 standalone nonprofits, 20 initiatives housed within nonprofits, and 1 collaboration among nonprofits. Of those, our team identified 77 Providers with publicly reported private foundation grants of $25,000 or more dating back to 2020. In total, the spreadsheet captures ~1,500 grants, from ~400 funders, totaling ~$425 million to these 77 Providers.

    You can read more about the data in the notes and codebook, included with the source data.

  • The full sample includes 185 Civility Industry Providers. That includes university centers, campus initiatives, nonprofit organizations, nonprofit-hosted projects, and one multi-organization collaboration. The funded-provider analysis focuses on the 77 Providers for which we found publicly reported private foundation grants of at least $25,000 since 2020. Across those Providers, the data captures ~1,500 qualifying grants totaling more than $425 million.

    This dataset is unprecedented in scope and comprehensiveness.

  • To avoid selection bias, we drew primarily from the Civility Industry's own landscape analyses and inventories for the data in our sample set. Our “Providers” data includes every center, initiative, and independent nonprofit listed in each of the following sources:

    Together, these sources account for the vast majority (>95%) of the 185 Providers in the sample. UNCIVIL then added a small number of additional Providers that appeared repeatedly through grant-retrieval searches.

  • The analysis covers publicly reported private foundation grants dating from 2020 through 2025, with research conducted in early 2026.

    The spreadsheet includes grant records by tax year: 206 grants from 2020, 265 from 2021, 344 from 2022, 308 from 2023, 343 from 2024, and 42 from 2025. The smaller 2025 count reflects the vagaries of foundation reporting cycles: not all foundations had filed or publicly released their most recent returns during the research period.

  • No. The core funding analysis includes private foundation grants only. It excludes federal and state funding, including the Trump administration’s $60 million Department of Education investment in “Promoting Civil Discourse on College and University Campuses,” as well as millions of dollars in state legislative funding for civic thought and intellectual diversity centers.

    It also excludes many grants that are listed only as “general support,” “general operations,” or “charitable purpose”— especially when money flowed through universities, large nonprofits, or passthrough entities. Because roughly 80% of the 185 Providers are housed within larger entities, these exclusions almost certainly mean the data undercounts the full scale of funding behind the ecosystem.

  • The “Higher Ed Institutions” tab of our source data includes 102 colleges and universities that host Civility Industry Providers. The “Providers” tab of the spreadsheet includes information about 128 university-hosted centers or initiatives across those institutions. Because new civic thought, civil discourse, and viewpoint diversity programs are launching all the time, this should be understood as a major snapshot rather than a full census.

  • Organizations were coded according to their dominant institutional orientation, public mission, and documented activities—not based on any one isolated grant, staff member, or public statement. To make these category assignments, UNCIVIL reviewed publicly available materials including organizational mission statements, program descriptions, and policy priorities. The resulting data is recorded in the “Top 23 Funder Grant Summary” tab of our source data.

     Organizations were coded as Conservative when:

    • conservatism, libertarianism, or right-of-center policy orientation was a core part of their institutional mission, or

    • a significant share of their public activity was devoted to conservative policy advocacy, conservative or originalist legal theory, free-market economics, traditional social values, or the creation of conservative intellectual infrastructure.

    Organizations were coded as “Pro-Israel” when:

    • support for Israel was a core part of their institutional mission, or

    • a significant share of their public activity was devoted to Israel advocacy, Israel education, Israel security, or anti-BDS/anti-delegitimization work.

    Organizations were coded as Progressive when:

    • social justice, equity, democracy reform, or center-left policy advocacy was a core part of their institutional mission, or

    • a significant share of their public activity was devoted to progressive policy advocacy, racial or social equity, labor or economic justice, immigrant or voting rights, reproductive rights, progressive legal advocacy, or the creation of progressive intellectual infrastructure.

    Organizations that did not clearly meet one of these thresholds were not ideologically coded and were excluded from the ideology analysis.

    Importantly, UNCIVIL intentionally coded as to maximize the visibility of funders’ participation in progressive and left-leaning networks, while adopting a relatively narrow scheme for other ideologies. In practice, this means:

    • many organizations coded Conservative could more specifically be described as hard-right or MAGA-aligned nationalist organizations;

    • many organizations coded “Pro-Israel” could more specifically be described as strongly Zionist, anti-BDS/lawfare, or IDF-aligned organizations;

    • many organizations coded Progressive could be more specifically described as moderate liberal, center-left reform, institutional-democracy, or environmental nonprofits rather than distinctly left-wing organizations.

    UNCIVIL adopted these conventions deliberately in an effort to apply the framework consistently and in good faith across ideological lines—even where doing so broadened the Progressive category while softening distinctions on the right.

  • The “Top 23” were not chosen because it’s a catchy number. These funders’ prominence emerged from the data.

    First, UNCIVIL identified foundations that made grants of $25,000 or more to at least 3 unique Civility Industry Providers. That produced 42 foundations. Second, UNCIVIL applied another filter: the foundation had to direct at least 1% of its total grantmaking to Civility Industry Providers. That narrowed the list from 42 to 23.

    By meeting the ≥1% threshold—in addition to the previous filters on grant amount and number of Providers supported—the 23 foundations in our analysis demonstrate that their investment in the Civility Industry is most likely strategic, rather than incidental.

  • The ≥1% threshold was designed to separate incidental grants from meaningful institutional investment.

    Large foundations fund many things. A one-off grant to a civil discourse program does not necessarily mean a foundation is strategically invested in the Civility Industry. But when at least 1% of a foundation’s grantmaking goes to Civility Industry Providers—and when that foundation also supports at least 3 separate Providers with grants of $25,000 or more—the relationship becomes harder to dismiss as incidental.

  • The largest Top 23 Civility Industry funders in the spreadsheet are:

    1. John Templeton Foundation | 15 grants, $20,934,749

    2. Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (combined) | 19 grants, $11,269,866

    3. Koch entities (combined) | 11 grants, $10,612,635

    4. The Klarman Family Foundation | 3 grants, $7,000,000

    5. Beth & Ravenel Curry Foundation | 5 grants, $4,605,000

    6. Sarah Scaife Foundation | 9 grants, $4,482,740

    7. Bradley entities (combined) | 9 grants, $4,275,810

    8. John E. Fetzer Institute | 5 grants, $3,665,880 

    9. Stanton Foundation | 7 grants, $2,398,000

    10. John Brown Cook Foundation | 10 grants, $1,950,000

    You can find additional details in the “Top 23 Funder Summary” tab of our source data.

  • You can find the relevant information using column filters in the “Detail of All Grants to Providers” tab of our source data.

  • Start with the “Providers” tab and search for your institution’s name. Then check the “Higher Ed Institutions” tab, which currently includes 102 institutions.

    The Higher Ed Institutions tab also tracks related campus-policy data. This includes information on adoption of “institutional neutrality”, changes in campus protest policies, and accusations of suppressing pro-Palestine activism - among others.

    Because new Civility Industry centers and initiatives are launching all the time, absence from the current dataset does not mean absence from the ecosystem forever. Our team hopes to update the data regularly.

  • Use the “Top 23 Funder Summary” tab for the big-picture totals. It shows each funder’s giving to Civility Industry Providers, conservative grantees, “pro-Israel” grantees, progressive grantees, and total giving.

    Next, use the “Top 23 Funder Grant Inventory” tab to see specific grantees, grant counts, and dollar amounts. This is where the dataset becomes especially powerful: it lets users see past the Civility Industry’s feel-good narrative about “dialogue” and “pluralism” to make visible the sector’s underlying financial architecture.

  • For consistency, we used the sum of each foundation’s grants of $25,000 or more, during the audited, five-year timeframe (beginning in 2020), as the proxy for total foundation giving.

    That means the same underlying grant-level universe was used for both the numerator and denominator in the percentage calculations. It also keeps the analysis focused on grants large enough to function as meaningful signals of philanthropic strategy.

    Across the Top 23 funders, our source data captures ~$3.22 billion in total foundation giving at the ≥$25,000 level.

  • Yes. This dataset is already the most comprehensive public accounting of the Civility Industry’s funding ecosystem to date, but the sector is moving quickly. We expect this project to grow over time—with more Providers, more grant records, more institutional context, and even sharper tools for following the money. Stay tuned!