· Public charity
Massachusetts Bar Foundation Inc
The mbf was organized to collect and distribute funds to programs throughout massachusetts that enhance the delivery of civil legal services to low-income individuals, advance law-related and judicial education, and improve the administration of justice and the public awareness of the law.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 82 grants below total $6,341,825 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $6,530,381 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $188,556 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $24k
- $10k–50k42 grants · $1.4M
- $50k–250k33 grants · $3.2M
- $250k+4 grants · $1.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Flaschner Judicial Institute | $578,900 |
| Greater Boston Legal Services | $452,000 |
| Community Legal Aid Inc | $400,000 |
| South Coastal Counties Legal Services | $275,000 |
| University of Massachusetts Dartmouth | $225,000 |
| Northeast Legal Aid | $214,000 |
| De Novo Center for Justice and Healing | $203,000 |
| Political AsylumImmigration Representation Projec | $191,000 |
| MetroWest Legal Services | $180,000 |
| Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fall River M | $136,764 |
| Ascentria Community Services Inc | $125,000 |
| Hampden County Bar Association | $115,000 |
| Prisoners' Legal Services | $111,000 |
| Essex County Bar Association | $102,100 |
| Massachusetts Law Reform Institute | $98,000 |
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 (FY23–24, $1.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 93% 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 +65% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
80 repeat relationships — 68 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $499k 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
COMMUNITY LEGAL AID INC8× · 2017–2024 · $2.2M · revenue +213%- GBGREATER BOSTON LEGAL SERVICES INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.8M · revenue +120%
NORTHEAST LEGAL AID INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.1M · revenue +176%
Funded once
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF WORCESTERgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $30k · revenue +30%
GREATER LAWRENCE COMMUNITY ACTION COUNCIL INCone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -2%
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.
The massachusetts legal assistance corporation provides leadership and support to improve civil legal services to low-income people in massachusetts through collaboration with the legal services community, the legislature, the public, the…
The legal aid justice center partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty.
Midpenn legal services is a non-profit, public interest law firm dedicated to providing equal access to justice and high quality civil legal services to low income residents and survivors of domestic violence in 18 counties in central…
Mfhc is committed to ending systemic housing discrimination and creating inclusive communities through education, outreach, advocacy, housing counseling and enforcement.
Connecticut legal services provides access to justice and protects critical civil legal rights of low income individuals and families through representation, systemic advocacy, advice, collaboration, and education.
Enforcing and protecting the rights of individuals and families by providing accessible, creative, and high quality legal assistance and working collaboratively for systemic change.
Lawny increases access to justice through excellent legal representation, advocacy and service.
Securing justice for, protecting the rights of and rendering legal assistance and representation to indigent residents and non-residents of westchester county.
To provide free high quality legal services to maine residents aged sixty & over, who qualify for legal services under the older americans act, 42 usca sec. 3001 et seq, as amended.
The wba encourages the professional interaction and exchange of ideas among its members through events, leadership development, networking opportunities and advocacy.
Championing the rights of noncitizens.
To empower people to resolve conflicts peacefully through mutual understanding and respect
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Veterans Legal Services Inc and the most unlike its peers is Western New England University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 36 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
91 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. 91 of the 95 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 COMMUNITY LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER BOSTON LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN N FLASCHNER JUDICIAL INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHEAST LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds POLITICAL ASYLUMIMMIGRATION REPRESENTATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds METROWEST LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds DE NOVO CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND HEALING ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTH COASTAL COUNTIES LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS ↗
- Who funds HAMPDEN COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Children Law Center of Massachusetts Inc ↗
- Who funds ASCENTRIA COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS LAW REFORM INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds ESSEX COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds CASA MYRNA VAZQUEZ INC ↗
- Who funds CASA PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS ADVOCATES FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds VETERANS LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds RIAN IMMIGRANT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSING FAMILIES INC ↗
- Who funds NEW BEDFORD WOMEN'S CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION ADVOCATES INC ↗
- Who funds THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds YWCA CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds JEANNE GEIGER CRISIS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HEALTH LAW ADVOCATES INC ↗
- Who funds DOVE INC ↗
- Who funds JUSTICE AT WORK INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE ADVOCACY COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds LAWYERS CLEARINGHOUSE ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS INC ↗
- Who funds DISMAS HOUSE OF MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds BARNSTABLE COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR NEW AMERICANS INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S BAR FOUNDATION OF MASSACHUSETTS ↗
- Who funds FINEX HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds HAMPSHIRE COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION INC ↗
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: Eastern Bank Foundation · Boston Bar Foundation · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Boston Foundation Inc · United Way Of Massachusetts Bay Inc · Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corp · The Clowes Fund Incorporated · The Cabot Family Charitable Trust · Barr Foundation · Wagner Foundation · Essex County Community Foundation Inc · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc
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 Massachusetts Bar Foundation Inc 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Collaborative Resolutions Group Inc — 100% of income from government
- Victim Rights Law Center Inc — 89% of income from government
- Pilgrim Advocates Inc — 89% of income from government
- Finex House Inc — 89% of income from government
- Southcoast Fair Housing Inc — 86% of income from government
- Independence House Inc — 85% of income from government
- New Bedford Women's Center Inc — 84% of income from government
- Alianza Dv Services Inc — 82% of income from government
- Roca Inc — 78% of income from government
- Harborcov Inc — 76% of income from government
- Essex County Bar Association Inc — 70% of income from government
- Quabbin Mediation Inc — 64% of income from government
- Community Action Pioneer Valley — 62% of income from government
- Saheli Inc — 61% of income from government
- Dove Inc — 60% of income from government
- The Resolution Center Inc Fka North Shore Community Mediationinc — 60% of income from government
- Safe Passage Inc — 55% of income from government
- Health Law Advocates Inc — 52% of income from government
- Justice Resource Institute Inc — 48% of income from government
- Metrowest Mediation Services Inc Dba Framingham Court Mediation Services — 47% of income from government
- Center for New Americans Inc — 45% of income from government
- Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center Inc — 40% of income from government
- Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence Inc — 32% of income from government
- The Second Step Inc — 26% of income from government
- Boston Casa Inc — 20% of income from government
- Veterans Legal Services Inc — 16% of income from government
- Greater Lawrence Community Action Council Inc — 15% of income from government
- North Shore Community Action Programs Inc — 12% of income from government
- Housing Families Inc — 12% of income from government
- Pine Street Inn Inc — 11% of income from government
- Family Services of the Merrimack Valley Inc — 11% of income from government
- Project Citizenship Inc — 10% of income from government
- Metrowest Legal Services Inc — 10% of income from government
- De Novo Center for Justice and Healing — 9% of income from government
- Hampshire County Bar Association Inc — 9% of income from government
- Mediation Works Incorporated — 9% of income from government
- Berkshire Immigrant Center Inc — 9% of income from government
- Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition Inc — 8% of income from government
- One Can Help Inc — 8% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Northeast Legal Aid Inc — 7% of income from government
- Casa Myrna Vazquez Inc — 5% of income from government
- Community Legal Aid Inc — 5% of income from government
- Hampden County Bar Association Inc — 5% of income from government
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% of income from government
- Greater Boston Legal Services Inc — 3% of income from government
- Franklin County Bar Association Inc — 3% of income from government
- Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fall River Massachusetts Inc — 2% of income from government
- Youth Advocacy Foundation Inc — 1% of income from government
- Western New England University — 1% of income from government
- Jewish Family & Children's Service Inc — 1% of income from government
- The Somerville Community Corporation Inc — 1% of income from government
- Lawyers for Civil Rights Inc — 1% of income from government
- We Can Corporation — 0% of income from government
- Rosie's Place Inc — 0% of income from government
- Massachusetts Bar Association — 0% of income from government
- Justice at Work Inc — 0% of income from government
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.
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