How to read this map

Land area is real — every island’s area is proportional to annual dollars

Every island is drawn so its area is exactly proportional to annual dollars (1 px² ≈ $2.4M/yr at full size — the graduated key by the south shore nests the $240M, $1B and $10B squares for sizing by eye; the $100B square is, near enough, the Human Services platform at $99.5B). The federal west and the private-giving east share one scale — the honest headline is that the whole of American philanthropy (~$617B, 2025) is about two-fifths the size of the federal discretionary total drawn here (~$1.56T — $1.33T as the western continent, the remaining $229B as the slate west halves of the four federally co-funded recipient provinces). Cities are organizations (marker ∝ √grants); recipient sectors are built-platform provinces on the same exact scale — hover the cartouche’s register row for the three-register ledger, and click a province to open its sector in the Giving Explorer. Hold Shift and drag anywhere to stretch a measuring rod — the readout gives the $/yr a square of that width would hold; click any mark to pin its card (✕ or Esc dismisses); hover the great region names for each coast's one-line ledger. The altitude chip at the map's south-west corner says which layer of the chart is under the glass — Survey, Pilot's Chart, Ashore, or (past 5×) Afoot, the village layer. (One sea remains: Foundation Basin — see Recipient provinces below.)

Vintages & bases — federal FY2024; private giving is Giving USA 2026 (2025 data)

Federal non-defense provinces are FY2024 enacted budget authority (CBO status report; CRS agency appropriations); Defense is FY2024 outlays (OMB Historical Tables) — a mixed basis, noted per-island in tooltips. The old unitemized “Interior” remainder ($203.4B) is fully dissolved (round 17) into six named provinces verified against CBO’s cap-scoring tables — Homeland Security, Health & Social Services, Justice/Commerce/Courts, Agriculture & Food, Energy & Water Works, General Government. One ledger note: those six sum to $209.1B, $5.6B more than the remainder they replace, because HUD/DOT are drawn at gross enacted values while the $703.7B statutory base credits ~$5.6B of FHA/Ginnie Mae receipts back against their bill. Private giving is Giving USA 2026 (2025 data): individuals $394.2B, foundations $117.15B, bequests $62.19B, corporations $43.67B — the same vintage as the modeled flow lanes, so each source’s outbound lanes sum to its island. DAF figures from the DAF Research Collaborative’s Annual DAF Report 2025 (FY2024 990s, 1,485 sponsors — successor to the NPT report: grants $64.9B; assets $326.5B held) — the archipelago is pass-through — since round 26 its isles are drawn as reef-ringed lagoons (water inside the reef: the money only pauses here), every isle restated to its 2024-vintage grants so the six sum exactly to the $64.9B FY2024 ledger. Organization figures are 990s/annual reports as verified in the ecosystem dataset.

Ports & quarters — Foundations coast organized by what each funder ships

The Foundations coast is organized by what each funder ships — Gates, CZI and Rockefeller at Health Port (west, shipping across to the Health province), Walton, Hewlett, Simons and Schmidt at Education Quay (northwest), Ford, MacArthur and the evidence-policy funders at Reform Pier (north), Lilly alone on the coast facing the Religion province it dominates, Ballmer facing Human Services. The sector lanes depart from their ports; the endowment range rises inland. Placement is organizational, not a data claim — multi-program funders sit by their largest program, and every figure stays in the tooltips. On Individuals, MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving keep stands at the DAF gateway (she gives through donor-advised funds and direct gifts, not a foundation — hover her keep to light the lane), her banner flies over NPT in the archipelago, and the donor-information institutions (Candid, Charity Navigator, BBB Wise Giving) gather in an evaluators’ quarter inland. Geography follows the money throughout: recipient provinces ride beside their dominant funder, each co-funded province’s slate half faces west toward the federal continent, and the effective-giving isles run in the straits — pledge orgs off Individuals, Coefficient Giving off the Foundations whose money it directs, GiveWell downstream among the delivery harbors it recommends.

Stock vs flow — cities are annual grants; mountains are endowments

Cities are annual grantmaking (flow); mountains are money held (stock, height ∝ √assets — foundation endowments 990-PF-verified) — which is why the Lilly mountain ($106B held) towers over a modest $2.3B/yr city while the Gates city out-grants everyone. Since round 44 two pledged personal fortunes rise on Individuals itself, on stated bases their tooltips spell out: Buffett’s ($139B — computed from Berkshire’s own published post-gift share counts × a dated close, every share committed to the four family foundations by 2034) is now the tallest pile on the whole map, and MacKenzie Scott’s ($32B — an attributed Forbes estimate, unlike the filing-derived peaks, disclosed as such) stands above her Yield Giving keep: “until the safe is empty.” The all-DAF range on the archipelago ($326.5B in accounts) stands taller than any foundation peak. Public–private collaboration: land is tinted by sovereignty (slate = public money, warm = private), and the co-funded multilaterals in International Waters are drawn as split isles at their actual funding mix — Global Fund ~95% governments / 5% private, Gavi ~85/15 (2021–25 replenishment) — both world-funded, so outside the US land sum, with the Gates Foundation the largest private donor to each. Beside them since round 43 stands the UN Agencies platform — WFP, UNICEF and UNHCR drawn as one built isle, $22.4B spent in 2024 (audited financial statements), entirely voluntarily funded and, until 2025, anchored by the US as the largest funder of each; it is drawn solid public because the government-vs-private mix isn’t primary-verified (UNICEF’s national committees raise substantial private gifts — the tooltip discloses). WHO keeps its lighthouse: a normative agency, not a delivery platform. The collaboration also shows in the recipient provinces’ two-tone wash: the NIH keep ($47.3B, FY2024) stands on the Health province’s own slate half, where the foundations’ $26B lane arrives from across the water.

Recipient provinces — sectors drawn as land, sized by what each receives

The recipient sectors are drawn as land, not seas — a sea’s area carries no sense of scale, and land does. Every province is area-exact on the one true scale, sized by what it receives: private giving (Giving USA 2026, 2025 data) plus, for the four federally co-funded sectors (Education, Health, International Affairs, Environment), the federal FY2024 budget. Since round 25 those federal dollars are drawn once: the old counterpart islands on the federal continent are gone (they double-drew $228.6B), and the slate west half of each province is now the federal side itself — carrying its agency features (the NIH keep with NCI and NIAID beside it, Pell Grants, EPA and the Park Service, PEPFAR) and the USAID ruins, from which the sunken −$40B lane departs. Recipient land wears its own hue pair, kin to the source tints but shifted: a cooler green for the public share, a warmer gold for the private. Where both sovereignties fund a sector the province splits in two tones at the actual mix (Education ~46% public, Health ~47%, International ~63%, Environment ~61%) — the public–private partnership drawn in the land itself, the same grammar as the co-funded multilateral isles; all-private sectors (Religion, Human Services, Public-Society Benefit, Arts) wear the gold alone. Since round 26 the recipient landmasses are drawn as built platforms: surveyed, faceted coastlines with double-struck sea-walls, pilings and a deck grid riding over the sovereignty wash, the condo property line hardened into a riveted expansion joint, and the largest single recipients as faceted micro-platforms with bollarded corners. Built land means received & spent — an overlapping measure (each dollar here already sits on a source landmass), which is why drawing both ends of every flow is honest — one map, source and destination. Foundation Basin stays a sea (it is the recipient side of the continent beside it), and state & local money remains off-chart. Harvard and Stanford moor off the province’s own western coast, at the Ivy Strait; the aid fleet left its anchors in round 45 — the US-domiciled delivery orgs stand ashore in International Affairs’ delivery quarter, and the foreign-domiciled operators (BRAC, Sightsavers, AMF, Malaria Consortium) ride dashed foreign-register isles outside the US land sum; hovering any province lights every lane that feeds it.

Lanes fly their source’s ink — routes colored by money source; major trunks braid when zoomed

Every trade route is colored by where the money comes from — teal for individuals, blue for foundations, violet for corporations, rose for bequests, slate for federal — so a flow can be traced end to end; terracotta is reserved for the pass-through and off-map trades (DAF grants out, the world’s aid), and the closed USAID lane keeps its wreck-red. Lane width is ∝ √($/yr) on one scale (sampled in the graduated key), so the great trunks — Individuals→Religion, the world’s aid — now read as the map’s widest waters. And the great trunks fray: zoom in and three verified trunk lanes braid into their parts — the world’s aid by donor flag (Germany $32.4B leading), education giving by alumni vs other individuals vs schools, and DAF grants by sponsor (a reverse braid: strands set out from each sponsor isle) — each strand flying an engraved crest of its cargo. (NIH’s by-institute split lives on land instead: NCI $7.2B and NIAID $6.6B keep towns beside the NIH keep on the Health province’s slate half.) Strands sum exactly to their trunk and are already inside its figure, never additional; hover a trunk to light its whole fray. Religion stays whole on purpose: no dollar decomposition of American religious giving exists anywhere (church 990 exemption), so there is nothing honest to braid.

Routes marked * are modeled — source→sector flows reconstructed, not measured

Giving USA publishes source totals and recipient totals separately and never links them; source→sector flows are reconstructed from Candid, CECP and IRS SOI distributions (the same matrix as the who-funds-each-sector chart). Treat them as shape, not measurement. The full matrix is drawn: major lanes in ink; minor lanes ride faint at this zoom and sharpen as you zoom in — or hover any landmass or sea name to light up everything it ships or receives. Lanes and landmasses share one vintage (Giving USA 2026, 2025 data), so each source’s outbound lanes sum to its island; recipient-side, the lanes reaching a province sum to ~96% of it — the crosstab rakes sector totals down ~4% to reconcile the gifts-to-foundations/DAF recirculation over-count with the source total. WHO remains a lighthouse — no land claimed, since it is world-funded; its funding mix (~17% assessed dues vs ~83% earmarked voluntary money, the US withdrawal, the Gates Foundation at #2) lives in its tooltip.

The torn edges — mandatory spending and state/local government run off-chart

The chart’s torn edges are deliberate: the Mandatory Lands off the west, the Distant Shore up the east, and — smallest and quietest — the Allied Institutes, torn off the south edge in the lee of the AI Safety Shoals and revealed only under the glass (past 1.7×, with the shoals themselves): the rest of the world’s public AI-safety purse (UK AI Security Institute £240M, ARIA’s Safeguarded AI £59M/4yr, the £27M+ Alignment Project coalition, Canada’s CAISI…), drawn as ports on a coast that claims no area because at this map’s scale the entire shore is a rounding error with a coastline. Unlike every other figure on the chart those are multi-year programme commitments, not annual flows — the shore’s tooltip says so — and two currents cross beneath it: US philanthropy funds the UK’s AI-safety org layer, while the UK’s Alignment Project funds research worldwide. Along the west edge rise the Mandatory Lands — Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, other mandatory spending & net interest, ~$4.9T/yr (FY2024 outlays, OMB) — beginning where Defense’s coast ends. Drawn to scale that land would cover half this entire map, so it is deliberately off-scale: the coastline claims no area and the port labels carry the figures (port markers are sized relative to that shore only). No lane connects it to the map — lanes are giving and aid flows, and mandatory outlays are neither. State & local government (~$4.7T direct expenditure, 2022 Census of Governments) stays as ghost text in the southern sea: one torn edge is enough.

The Distant Shore & recipient isles — top aid recipients and largest domestic nonprofits

Up the eastern edge rises the far side of the aid trade — the compass narrative completed (west: compulsory; middle: chosen; east: the world) — the top 8 recipient countries of US foreign assistance as ports on a coastline that runs off-chart (no area claimed; labels carry the data). Figures are FY2024 State/USAID economic-assistance disbursements (foreignassistance.gov), before the 2025 dismantling; military assistance is excluded, which is why Israel and Egypt are absent, and West Bank & Gaza ranked top-5 only by obligations (its supplemental disbursed later). The wide lane arriving from the off-map south is the rest of the world’s aid ($149B/yr, non-US DAC member countries — OECD 2024 preliminary, grant-equivalent, current USD), fraying up the shore by donor flag under the glass — the USAID lane was one of many, and now sinks in sight of the shore it once supplied. In the domestic waters, the largest single recipients appear as faceted micro-platform isles beside their sector’s province, sized by private contributions received (990s / audited reports) — an overlapping measure, since those dollars already sit on the source continents. Feeding America and Direct Relief are ~95% donated goods (food, medicines), not cash; United Way and Goodwill publish no verifiable dollar totals and are deliberately absent. In the lee of the Coefficient Giving isle the AI Safety Shoals ride a single ×100 glass platform since round 44 — the philanthropically-funded alignment labs (Redwood, MIRI, ARC, Constellation, FAR AI; ≈$31M/yr of 990-verified expenses, together a true-scale fleck of ~13 px²) as towns on one built isle beside their chief funder, the FTX wreck (their biggest lost funder) still beside it; corporate lab safety teams are unverifiable and not drawn. Hover Coefficient Giving to light the shoals, or GiveWell — anchored at the mouth of International Waters — to light its top-charity harbors. And chained up the channel off Environment & Animals’ west coast (revealed past 1.7×), the Farm Animal Welfare Isles ride as first-class glass islands at ×100 magnification — beaded coasts mark the glass — the corporate-campaign and alt-protein organizations (GFI, Humane World Intl, Mercy For Animals, THL, Animal Equality, CIWF), 990-verified expenses, drawn at a magnification that admits how small this sector is: all six together ≈ $124M/yr, about 0.02% of American giving, moored beside the animal-welfare quarter whose true-scale halls stand ashore.

Settled orgs — provinces gain org-level halls under the glass, generated from the registry

Zoom all the way ashore (past 3.2×) and the provinces begin to gain their own settlements: the organizations the sector’s money actually reaches, drawn as halls — a third land glyph beside keeps and towns. A keep grants out; a town is a name-only part of its province’s whole; a hall receives & spends — its marker is ∝ √(annual spend), and it claims no area, because its dollars already sit inside the province’s area-exact landmass (the same overlapping-measure honesty as the recipient isles). The rosters are not hand-drawn: a build-time generator curates them from the ecosystem registry — only organizations with a verified US 990 figure and a source on file may fly a sized hall; each district takes its top N by verified spend and discloses what fell below the cutoff in the table at the foot of this page, so the cap is never silent. Placement is deterministic (a value-ordered ladder down the province’s private half, flowing around every existing mark), so re-running the generator after a registry currency sweep updates the map without moving anything that didn’t change. Three districts so far. The animal welfare quarter on Environment & Animals holds ten 990-verified animal organizations — eight halls from the ASPCA ($388M/yr) down to Lever Foundation ($2.1M/yr), plus two villages (Faunalytics, New Harvest) that reveal one altitude deeper, at Afoot; the cap is the lobe’s physical coastline (its three inbound lanes were re-aimed to the north-east shoulders to make even that room), and the six verified orgs below the cutoff are disclosed in the table. The Research Coast on Health’s gold shore is the former Science Shoals come ashore — Allen Institute, CZ Biohub, Arc Institute, Convergent Research and Santa Fe Institute, whose dollars were always counted inside Health’s private-giving figure: an anchor at sea said “in passage,” which was false for terminal recipient-operators. And the delivery quarter on International Affairs holds the nine US-domiciled aid organizations of the former fleet, PATH ($352M/yr) down to IDinsight ($22M/yr), each figure restated to its IRS 990 — GiveWell’s hover still lights its recommended fleet across both forms, halls and foreign isles alike. Three anchors remain at sea: MAPS, Student Freedom Initiative, and Unlimit Health — a true-scale fleck. The corporate-campaign cluster (THL, Mercy For Animals, GFI…) stays in its ×100 inset glass nearby, where its true scale is the point. Hover Coefficient Giving to light the halls it funds.

Decoration is decoration — themed interiors carry no figures, only context

The themed interiors (a bastioned Pentagon Citadel and naval yard on Defense, a memorial colonnade on Veterans, the launch pad on NASA, a university precinct — great library, gatehouse and a collegiate quadrangle on Education's gold shore, an academy hall on its slate shore — on Education, the Exchange and its office row on Corporations, a Victorian garden cemetery — mausoleum, lychgate and cypress avenue — on Bequests, a cathedral crowning Religion's interfaith parish district, a Great Infirmary and lazaretto on Health's private shore, almshouses and a bread-line row on Human Services, a Port of Aid — quay, treadwheel dockcranes, warehouses and a customshouse — facing the Distant Shore on International Affairs, a Foundling School on Health & Social Services, GiveWell's own evaluator's lens on its isle, and a keeper's cottage and moored skiff added to the WHO lighthouse…), the forests, the ships (mast count tells rig, not value — the number lives on the lane's own label), the sea vignettes beside sea labels, the serpent and the map's other resident creatures — the whale, the Overhead Kraken half-surfaced in the northern void, a dolphin pair escorting the flagship, a small band of flying fish, and a dignified siren on a rock in the southeast — and buried jokes carry no figures — they only say what each place is for (any number a joke's tooltip does mention is verified elsewhere on this map, or attributed to its published source). The same promise covers the plate's own chrome: the compass rose's fleur-de-lis, the title cartouche's strapwork corners and its two small flanking allegorical figures, and the neatline's corner medallions are ornament — engraved statuary, not data; they carry no numbers of their own. Everything that encodes a number is listed in the table below.

After Scott Alexander’s Map of Effective Altruism (2020) — where geography was thematic. Here it is data.

Every number on this map, as a table