· Public charity
Montana Legal Services Association
To provide free legal assistance in non-criminal proceedings or matters to persons in the state of montana financially unable to afford legal assistance.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 20 grants below total $1,280,179 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $2,808,794 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $1,528,615 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
- $10k–50k10 grants · $311k
- $50k–250k9 grants · $705k
- $250k+1 grant · $265k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NAICJA | $264,772 |
| NEW MEXICO LEGAL AID | $113,339 |
| TEXAS RIOGRANDE LEGAL AID | $100,881 |
| DNA PEOPLE'S LEGAL SERVICES | $96,405 |
| LEGAL AID OF NEBRASKA | $84,105 |
| OKLAHOMA INDIAN LEGAL SERVICES | $71,404 |
| LEGAL AID SERVICES OF OREGON | $63,437 |
| IDAHO LEGAL AID SERVICES INC | $62,014 |
| ANISHINABE LEGAL SERVICES | $60,946 |
| DAKOTA PLAINS LEGAL SERVICES | $52,306 |
| CALIFORNIA INDIAN LEGAL SERVICES | $45,406 |
| WISCONSIN JUDICARE INCINDIAN LAW OFFICE | $45,189 |
| NEVADA LEGAL SERVICES | $37,954 |
| MICHIGAN INDIAN LEGAL SERVICES | $34,758 |
| UTAH LEGAL SERVICES | $31,595 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY23–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 87% of your 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +9% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 1 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, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $265k went to new ones.
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
- OIOKLAHOMA INDIAN LEGAL SERVICES INC2× · 2023–2024 · $174k · revenue +12%
- DPDNA PEOPLES LEGAL SERVICES INC2× · 2023–2024 · $167k · revenue +85%
- LALEGAL AID OF NEBRASKA2× · 2023–2024 · $161k · revenue +6%
Funded once
- NANATIONAL AMERICAN INDIAN COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2024 · $265k · revenue 0%
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.
Provide respectful high quality legal advice, counsel, brief services and referral to low-income New Mexicans and help remove barriers to the civil justice system.
To be a public law firm that knows, as well as understands, the problems of even the poorest in our communities and addresses these problems through education, and with creative legal advocacy of the highest distinction. LSNM will be seen…
Standing with our neighbors, Lakeshore Legal Aid fights poverty and injustice through advocacy and by providing meaningful and dignified access to the legal system.
Our mission is to provide civil legal service to low-income clients. our legal services provide basic protection for our clients by enforcing the law when their rights have been violated, promote the self-sufficiency of individuals…
People's Legal Aid is a non-profit legal organization providing free civil legal education, assistance and representation to any Utahn facing eviction and debt collections lawsuits.
Legal aid of manasota provides legal services at no or low cost to those in need by partnering with local lawyers.
Northwestern legal services assists low income individuals and families by guiding them through the legal system using advocacy and education to obtain justice with the goal of improving their quality of life and strengthening our…
Cowlitz Wahkiakum Legal Aid seeks to assure justice for low income people in the civil courts. We provide access to legal help for people whose livelihood, family and wellness are threatened.
Texas Legal Services Center is a nonprofit legal aid organization whose mission is to serve the undeserved by making civil justice accessible to every Texan--no matter their ability to earn. We're a coalition of attorneys, paralegals, pro…
Linn County Advocate, Inc., provides quality legal representation for indigent clients in criminal and juvenile cases at the state court level in Linn, Johnson, Benton, and Jones Counties in the state of Iowa.
Providing civil legal services to low income individuals in 33 counties in eastern south dakota.
To assist native americans and native alaskans in the development of legal systems and educations.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Nevada Legal Services Inc and the most unlike its peers is National American Indian Court Judges Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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.
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 NATIONAL AMERICAN INDIAN COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds TEXAS RIOGRANDE LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds OKLAHOMA INDIAN LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds DNA PEOPLES LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID OF NEBRASKA ↗
- Who funds NEW MEXICO LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds NEVADA LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds IDAHO LEGAL AID SERVICES INC IDAHO LEGAL AID SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds UTAH LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds ANISHINABE LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds DAKOTA PLAINS LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN JUDICARE INC ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID SERVICES OF OREGON ↗
- Who funds Michigan Indian Legal Services ↗
- Who funds California Indian Legal Services Inc ↗
- Who funds Alaska Legal Services Corporation ↗
- Who funds Northwest Justice Project ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID OF WYOMING INC ↗
- Who funds COLORADO LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LEGAL SERVICES OF NORTH DAKOTA ↗
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: Legal Services Corporation · Native American Rights Fund Inc · Equal Justice Works · American College of Bankruptcy Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Legal Services Association 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.
- Legal Aid Services of Oregon — 10% 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.