· Public charity
Illinois Equal Justice Foundation
The ILLINOIS EQUAL JUSTICE FOUNDATION funds civil legal aid in illinois to champion the rights of those burdened by barriers to justice.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k27 grants · $746k
- $50k–250k18 grants · $2.2M
- $250k+9 grants · $11M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LAND OF LINCOLN LEGAL AID | $4,068,346 |
| PRAIRIE STATE LEGAL SERVICES | $3,295,960 |
| COORDINATED ADVICE & REFERRAL PROGRAM FOR LEGAL SERVICES | $1,026,020 |
| LEGAL AID CHICAGO | $743,289 |
| DISPUTE RESOLUTION INSTITUTE | $579,013 |
| METROPOLITAN FAMILY SERVICESLEGAL AID SOCIETY | $347,968 |
| IL LEGAL AID ONLINE | $327,500 |
| CHICAGO VOLUNTEER LEGAL SERVICES | $269,284 |
| GREATER CHICAGO LEGAL CLINIC | $264,946 |
| NORTH SUBURBAN LEGAL AID CLINIC | $237,522 |
| RESOLUTION SYSTEMS INSTITUTE | $230,690 |
| CABRINI GREEN LEGAL AID | $225,000 |
| EQUIP FOR EQUALITY | $220,000 |
| LIFE SPAN | $158,386 |
| ASCEND JUSTICE | $154,835 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–25, $10.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein 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 — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +66% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
62 repeat relationships — 49 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $190k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- LOLAND OF LINCOLN LEGAL AID INC9× · 2017–2025 · $18M · revenue +66% · 30% of their budget
- PSPRAIRIE STATE LEGAL SERVICES INC9× · 2017–2025 · $16M · revenue +111%
- CACOORDINATED ADVICE & REFERRAL PROGRAM FOR LEGAL SERVICES9× · 2017–2025 · $7.3M · revenue +135% · 30% of their budget
Funded once
- CMCHINESE MUTUAL AID ASSOCIATIONgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $78k · revenue +34%
- PEPUBLIC EQUIITYone grant, 2022 · $60k
- AJADMINISTER JUSTICEgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +25%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
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.
Standing with our neighbors, Lakeshore Legal Aid fights poverty and injustice through advocacy and by providing meaningful and dignified access to the legal system.
Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.
The chicago committee seeks racial and ethnic diversity in the legal profession by collaborating with its law firm and corporate membership to: drive sustainable institutional change at law firms and corporate legal departments; provide…
Advocate for tort reform in Illinois by communicating with public officials and staff to influence legislation and administrative action designed to create a more equitable and balanced judicial system in Illinois.
In 2024, Inner City Law Center, ICLC, served over 3,400 people, helping vulnerable Angelenos to remain in their homes and recover nearly $20.5 million in financial benefits.
Serving recently arrived migrants and asylum seekers in the Chicagoland area and is committed to upholding the dignity and human rights of immigrants.
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
CASA of Cook County's vision is to protect abused and neglected children by providing them in court, a safe and permanent home, and an opportunity to grow, learn and thrive.
Seeks to address the traumas of police violence and institutionalized racism through access to healing and wellness services, trauma-informed resources, and community connection. The Center is a part of and supports a movement to end all…
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…
Legal services and legal education
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Legal Aid Chicago and the most unlike its peers is Women in Need Recovery. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 40 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 16% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
67 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 67 of the 72 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
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 LAND OF LINCOLN LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds PRAIRIE STATE LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds COORDINATED ADVICE & REFERRAL PROGRAM FOR LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds DISPUTE RESOLUTION INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO VOLUNTEER LEGAL SERVICES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS LEGAL AID ONLINE ↗
- Who funds Greater Chicago Legal Clinic ↗
- Who funds EQUIP FOR EQUALITY ↗
- Who funds CABRINI GREEN LEGAL AID ↗
- Who funds Resolution Systems Institute ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Family Services ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION ↗
- Who funds NORTH SUBURBAN LEGAL AID CLINIC ↗
- Who funds Law Center for Better Housing ↗
- Who funds JAMES B MORAN CENTER FOR YOUTH ADVOCACY ↗
- Who funds Public Interest Law Initiative ↗
- Who funds Center for Disability & Elder Law Inc ↗
- Who funds LEGACY LAW SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds LIFE-SPAN ↗
- Who funds ASCEND JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds WEST SIDE JUSTICE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Uptown People's Law Center ↗
- Who funds BEYOND LEGAL AID ↗
- Who funds Legal Council for Health Justice ↗
- Who funds FARMWORKER AND LANDSCAPER ADVOCACY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Governors State University Foundation ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COALITION TO END HOMELESSNESS ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR LATINO PROGRESS ↗
- Who funds Alliance of Local Service Organizations ↗
- Who funds THE NETWORK ADVOCATING AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HOUSE & SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCY ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN TENANTS ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds First Defense Legal Aid ↗
- Who funds Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation ↗
- Who funds RAISE THE FLOOR ALLIANCE ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · The Chicago Bar Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Illinois Bar Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Chicago Foundation for Women · Public Interest Law Initiative · The Resurrection Project · The Sidley Austin Foundation · Forefront · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation
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 organization Illinois Equal Justice Foundation 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.
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: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. 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.