Loading…
· Public charity
ASCEND JUSTICE
Empowering individuals and families impacted by gender-based violence or the child welfare system to achieve safety and stability through holistic legal advocacy and systemic reform.
$143k
Granted FY2023
3
Grants
1
Communities
$77k
Largest
01What you fund
01
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 57% of ASCEND JUSTICE’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2022
dvclp management
2023
technical e-filinge-filing jailsjails prisons
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2023 · 3 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $128k
$51,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$3.0M
Total assets
Largest grants
- A SAFE PLACE$77,400
- SAFER FOUNDATION (FOR WOMEN'S JUSTICE INSTITUTE)$51,000
- ILLINOIS LEGAL AID ONLINE$8,000
02The need
04
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
show:
Your human-services grants (FY22–22, $31k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your field
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
1
Reform for Illinois
Conducts research on governmental trends, advocates reforms and hosts educational events to promote public participation in government. addresses the role of money in politics, and encourages integrity, accountability, and transparency in…
Civil Rights
2
Chicago Crime Commission
Through advocacy and collaboration, we aim to reduce crime and improve public safety, focusing on initiatives like criminal justice reform, violence prevention, and robust support for law enforcement.
Crime & Legal
3
Domestic Abuse Intervention
Domestic abuse intervention programs is a nonprofit agency that works towards the elimination of violence in the lives of women and their children.
Human Services
4
Illinois Coalition Against
To end sexual assault violence and to alleviate the suffering of sexual assault victims.
—
5
Illinois Animal Welfare Networkers Association
Animals
6
Safe Passage Inc
To prevent domestic violence and sexual assault in dekalb county
Human Services
7
Domestic Violence Safe Options Svcs
Aid victims of domestic violence/assualt
—
8
Domestic Abuse Intervention Services
Domestic abuse intervention services offers a wide array of crisis intervention and community education/prevention programs, including a 24-hour help line, programming for children from violent homes, legal advocacy, support groups,…
Human Services
9
St Louis Reconciliation Network
Community Improvement
10
Resilience
Resilience is an independent , not-for-profit organization dedicated to the healing and empowerment of sexual assault survivors through non-judgmental crisis intervention counseling, individual and group trauma therapy, and medical and…
Health
11
Live Free Chicago
Live Free Illinois is a statewide organization partnering with over 120 congregations and directly impacted individuals to build safer more equitable communities across Illinois. Operating at the intersection of criminal justice reform and…
—
12
Healing to Action
Ending gender-based violence by building the leadership and collective power of the communities most impacted.
Employment
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Family Rescue Inc and the most unlike its peers is Illinois Legal Aid Online. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
05the grantee network
8 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2018–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
7/8
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Other$144,967Crime & Legal$59,000Human Services$31,088Health$18,683
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds A SAFE PLACE ↗
- Who funds SAFER FOUNDATION (FOR WOMEN'S JUSTICE INSTITUTE) ↗
- Who funds REMEDIES RENEWING LIVES ↗
- Who funds SARAH'S INN ↗
- Who funds FAMILY RESCUE ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS LEGAL AID ONLINE ↗
- Who funds THE NETWORK ADVOCATING AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Chicago Foundation for WomenIL18.1× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: Chicago Foundation for Women · Illinois Coalition Against Domestic · The Chicago Community Trust · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · AbbVie Foundation · Michael Reese Health Trust · Circle of Service Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Network for Good
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organisation ASCEND JUSTICE funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
04Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: A SAFE PLACE.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
medium risk
~3 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 6 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
6 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up 2.6× since.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 363032700 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on A SAFE PLACE, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- WatchFinancial stability— Roughly 3 months of cash on hand.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2023; revenue grew over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 1% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Ascend Justice?
Find your warmest path to Ascend Justice through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines