· Public charity
Montana Justice Foundation
To achieve equal access to justice for all montanans through effective funding and leadership.
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.
The 14 grants below total $778,850 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $843,100 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $64,250 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $43k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $120k
- $250k+1 grant · $616k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MONTANA LEGAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION | $616,150 |
| PARTNERS FOR JUSTICE | $30,000 |
| HAVEN | $25,000 |
| MONTANA FAIR HOUSING | $15,000 |
| YWCA BILLINGS | $15,000 |
| BILLINGS MEDIATION CENTER INC | $13,000 |
| EASTERN MONTANA CASA GAL INC | $12,000 |
| MONTANA INNOCENCE PROJECT | $10,000 |
| SAFE HARBOR INC | $7,500 |
| CASA OF MISSOULA | $7,500 |
| SANDERS COUNTY COALITION FOR FAMILIES | $7,500 |
| CASA OF YELLOWSTONE COUNTY | $7,000 |
| CENTER FOR RESTORATIVE YOUTH JUSTICE | $7,000 |
| CASA OF LAKE & SANDERS COUNTIES | $6,200 |
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 (FY18–25, $130k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 59% 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 +27% since the first grant, against -16% for the ones you funded once.
20 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 4 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $69k 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
- MLMONTANA LEGAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $4.0M · revenue +244%
- TMTRUST MONTANA INC5× · 2019–2023 · $347k · revenue +68% · 48% of their budget
- EMEASTERN MONTANA CASAGAL INC8× · 2017–2025 · $82k · revenue +97%
Funded once
- DODEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICESone grant, 2024 · $65k
- MGMONTANA GENERATIONAL JUSTICEone grant, 2019 · $16k · revenue -78%
- COCASA OF HILL COUNTY INCone grant, 2024 · $8k
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.
To provide the court with objective information regarding the status of children involved in abuse or neglect cases. Duties of the appointed advocate would include gathering information, developing recommendations, and providing written…
The montana casa/gal association supports and promotes local casa/gal programs in providing court appointed volunteer advocacy so every abused or neglected child in montana can be safe, have a permanent home and the opportunity to thrive.
Casa is a unique non-profit helping abused and neglected children in the jackson county family court system. our team of trained volunteers,staff case supervisors, and staff attorneys allow each child to be represented in a court of law…
Volunteers in action seeking safety and permanency for our community's youngest victims. casa provides support, advocacy, and intervention for abused, neglected, and dependent children in south central ky's family court system.
Court appointed special advocate
Provide a voice in a court for abused and neglected children through volunteer court and appointed advocates.
To provide a safe caring place to evaluate any child who may have been abused
Legal aid of wyoming is a statewide non-profit organization providing high quality civil legal services to eligible people to facilitate and encourage a just legal system.
To support and facilitate networking among member organizations while advocating for social system changes to eliminate sexual and domestic violence in montana. the goals are accomplished through advocacy, education, public policy, and…
Casa of clackamas county recruits, trains, and supports court appointed special advocates: community volunteers who advocate for the best interest of children in the foster care system who need safe, permanent homes.
Casa lake county is a nonprofit membership organization that advocates for the best interest of abused and neglected children within the juvenile court system.
Empowermt creates a more just and inclusive society by developing youth and adult leaders who work to end mistreatment, correct systemic inequities, and strengthen communities. empowermt envisions a montana where each person is respected…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Yellowstone Casa Inc and the most unlike its peers is Montana Generational Justice. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
22 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. 22 of the 28 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 MONTANA LEGAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds TRUST MONTANA INC ↗
- Who funds EASTERN MONTANA CASAGAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MONTANA FAIR HOUSING INC ↗
- Who funds YELLOWSTONE CASA INC ↗
- Who funds BILLINGS FAMILY YMCA INC ↗
- Who funds SAFE HARBOR INC ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF LAKE & SANDERS COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF BILLINGS MONTANA ↗
- Who funds HAVEN ↗
- Who funds CASA OF CASCADE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds MONTANA INNOCENCE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds CASA FOR KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY MEDIATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds MONTANA GENERATIONAL JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES OF MISSOULA ↗
- Who funds CASCADE COUNTY LAW CLINIC ↗
- Who funds Sanders Co Coalition For Families ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR RESTORATIVE YOUTH JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SERVICE ↗
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: Otto Bremer Trust · Sample Foundation Inc · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Montana Community Foundation Inc · Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · Montana Casagal Association · The Steele-Reese Foundation Xxxxx1004 · Montana Healthcare Foundation · Headwaters Health Foundation of Western Montana · United Way of Yellowstone County Inc · Billings Community Foundation · The Angora Ridge 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 Montana 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.