AI Literacy FoundationTransparency
Don’t trust us. Check us.
We write about how people get deceived online, which makes it fair to ask who we are. Everything on this page is independently verifiable — by you, right now, without asking our permission.
How to verify this organization in two minutes
A scam can claim anything. What it cannot do is appear in a government registry, file a public tax return, or hold a legal identity you can look up. Here’s how to check ours:
- The IRS. Search our EIN, 41-5009995, in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. Choose the “Determination Letters” option — that is where recently recognized organizations appear.
- The State of California. Search entity number B20260136670 at the California Secretary of State business search. You’ll find our incorporation record and filing history.
- Our annual return. Public charities file an annual information return with the IRS, and it is a public document. Ours does not exist yet. Our first return covers 2026 and is due in May 2027. When we file it, it becomes public and you may read it.
Because we are new, some places you might check will come up empty — and we would rather tell you than have you wonder.
The IRS recognized us on July 8, 2026. The agency’s bulk data files and the independent charity databases that copy them — Candid/GuideStar, ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, Charity Navigator — are rebuilt on a monthly cycle and currently run about a month or two behind. As of August 2026 we are not in them yet. We expect to appear in the ordinary course as those files refresh.
If you search one of those sites today and find nothing, that is the lag, not an answer about whether we are real. The IRS determination search above and the California Secretary of State record are the two checks that work right now.
How we will never contact you
We will never call, text, or email you asking for money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, banking details, or access to your computer. We do not fundraise by phone. We do not cold-call anyone. We have nothing to sell.
If someone contacts you claiming to be from the AI Literacy Foundation and asks for any of those things, it is not us — it is the exact thing these guides are about. Hang up, delete it, and if you would like to, tell us so we can warn other people.
Everything we publish is on this website, free. If you are ever unsure whether something came from us, type theailiteracyfoundation.org into your browser yourself rather than following a link you were sent.
Legal status
Our charitable purpose
AI Literacy Foundation advances public education and improves social welfare by giving people an honest introduction to artificial intelligence — helping them find a use for it in their own lives, judge what it produces, recognize when it is being used against them, and know what to do when harm has already happened.
Our program activity is authoring and publishing educational resources on the public web, open to anyone at no charge.
What we are not
We are an educational charity, not an educational institution.
AI Literacy Foundation is not a school, college, university, formal educational institution, nonprofit school, academic museum, or certification provider. We do not enroll students, offer courses or curricula, grant academic credit or degrees, issue certificates, or charge tuition or fees of any kind.
We also sell no products or services, run no advertising, accept no affiliate commissions, and take no payment for mentioning any tool, product, or company.
Governance
The Foundation is governed by an unpaid volunteer board of directors. No director or officer receives compensation of any kind, and the organization has no paid staff. The board has adopted bylaws and a conflict-of-interest policy, and each director completes an annual conflict-of-interest disclosure.
The Foundation has no contracts with, and pays no funds to, any entity owned or controlled by a director or officer.
Our reference guides are published under the Foundation’s name rather than individual bylines; accountability rests with the organization, which is the entity you can look up and contact. Original reporting is different and is credited to the journalist by name — reporting should be accountable to a person, and the person who does the work deserves the credit.
Funding
Our board serves without pay, and no director or officer receives compensation. As a new organization we operate on a minimal budget, and all work to date has been contributed without compensation. Our funding comes from grants and donations, and may in future include membership and revenue we earn from our own work; we accept no advertising and no payment from the makers of the tools we write about.
Where we receive donated or discounted software and services from technology-donation programs, that support goes toward producing and publishing our educational resources.
Accuracy and corrections
Our guides are drafted with AI assistance and reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a person before publication — the same practice we recommend to readers: draft with AI, keep the judgment human, verify what matters. We say so plainly because an organization that teaches people to ask where information came from should answer that question about itself. Each guide shows when it was last reviewed. Where a guide points to authoritative help — a government reporting line, a consumer-protection agency — we link to the original source so you can confirm it yourself.
If we get something wrong, tell us. Email info@theailiteracyfoundation.org and we will correct the guide and note that we corrected it. An organization that teaches people to verify claims has no business being defensive about its own.
Our materials are general public educational information. They are not legal, financial, medical, or cybersecurity advice.
Your privacy
You do not need an account, and you do not need to give us your email, to read anything we publish. We do not sell or share information about our readers. If you subscribe to our email updates, we use your address to send those updates and nothing else, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Using our materials
Everything we publish may be printed, copied, forwarded, and distributed at no cost. Libraries, senior centers, workforce and literacy programs, faith communities, and other organizations are welcome to hand out our guides without asking permission. If a different format would help you reach people, tell us and we’ll try to make it.