How much does Philadelphia Bar Foundation give?

Philadelphia Bar Foundation reported 21 itemized grants totaling $503,099, out of $597,601 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 19 and 37 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Philadelphia Bar Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Crime & Legal (99%), Health (1%), Civil Rights (1%).

Who are Philadelphia Bar Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Community Legal Services Inc ($708k), Philadelphia Vip Inc ($368k), Philadelphia Equal Justice Center Inc ($331k).

Does Philadelphia Bar Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 5% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Philadelphia Bar Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Independence Foundation, The Philadelphia Foundation, Pennsylvania Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts Board.

Where is Philadelphia Bar Foundation based?

Philadelphia Bar Foundation is based in PA.

Philadelphia Bar Foundation

Philadelphia Bar Foundation at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Philadelphia Bar Foundation

Promoting equal access to justice for all members of the community by strengthening the legal services system through unrestricted operating grants and technical assistance to legal aid non profits.

$598k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$143k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Crime & Legal$4.0MHealth$32kCivil Rights$28k

02FY2025 · 21 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 21 grants below total $503,099, the rows itemized in this filing. The $597,601 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $94,502 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k7 grants · $49k
$10k–50k13 grants · $312k
$50k–250k1 grant · $143k

$14,000

Median grant

States reached

$6.7M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
PHILADELPHIA EQUAL JUSTICE CENTER INC	$142,599
COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES OF PHILADELPHIA	$47,000
JUSTICE AT WORK	$38,000
PENNSYLVANIA HIAS INDIGENT IMMIGRANT LEGAL SERVICES INC	$37,000
NATIONALITIES SERVICE CENTER	$34,250
PHILADELPHIA VIP	$30,750
PENNSYLVANIA INNOCENCE PROJECT TEMPLE UNIVERSITY CENTER CITY	$28,500
PENNSYLVANIA IMMIGRATION RESOURCE CENTER	$19,250
SUPPORT CENTER FOR CHILD ADVOCATES	$15,250
SENIORLAW CENTER	$14,500
DISABILITY RIGHTS PENNSYLVANIA	$14,000
PHILADELPHIA LEGAL ASSISTANCE	$12,500
HOMELESS ADVOCACY PROJECT	$10,500
WOMEN'S LAW PROJECT	$10,500
EDUCATION LAW CENTER	$8,500

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $335k) land where the poverty rate runs at 22%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

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.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.9M · 40 repeat orgs$143k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +69% since the first grant, against +33% for those funded once.

40 repeat relationships: 21 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$3.9M

$143k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+69%

+33%

Still filing today

93%

100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Crime & LegalHuman ServicesCivil RightsHealthEducationCommunity ImprovementOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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 SERVICES INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $708k · revenue +130%
PHILADELPHIA VIP INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $368k · revenue +99%
PL
PHILADELPHIA LEGAL ASSISTANCE CENTER INC C/O THE ORGANIZATION
9× · 2017–2025 · $208k · revenue +186%

Funded once

WA
WOMEN AGAINST ABUSE LEGAL CENTERgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $79k · revenue +33%
PHILADELPHIA VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS
one grant, 2023 · $45k · revenue -52%
CP
CEASEFIRE PENNSYLVANIA
one grant, 2023 · $11k · revenue +8%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Philadelphia Area Jobs With Justice

Building support for the rights of working people through coalitions of labor and community and through public education.

Employment

Community Justice Project

To provide high quality civil legal assistance and other services to indigent individuals and families.

Crime & Legal

Midpenn Legal Services

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…

Crime & Legal

Legal Aid Justice Center

The legal aid justice center partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty.

Crime & Legal

Amistad Law Project

Amistad law project's mission is to fight for the human rights of people in our community by providing free and low-cost legal services to philadelphians and those incarcerated in pennsylvania's prisons. additionally, we advocate for laws…

Crime & Legal

Pittsburgh Legal Diversity & Inclusion Coalition

To create a culture of inclusion and highlight diversity successes and initiatives in the pittsburgh legal community; and to educate and assist pittsburgh area legal employers in increasing the hiring, retention, and inclusion of legal…

Crime & Legal

North Penn Legal Services

To solve civil legal problems and empower vulnerable populations through professional legal representation, advocacy, and education.

Crime & Legal

Women's Center and Shelter Civil Law Project

To provide civil legal services to women in crisis.

Human Services

Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association

It is the mission of the pennsylvania district attorneys association to assist the membership in the pursuit of justice and in all matters relating to the execution of their duties; advocate the position of the association to the…

—

Philadelphia Bar Foundation

Promoting equal access to justice for all members of the community by strengthening the legal services system through unrestricted operating grants and technical assistance to legal aid non profits.

Crime & Legal

Summit Legal Aid

Civil justice for those in need, their homes secured, families protected, and finances fortified.

Crime & Legal

Neighborhood Legal Services Association

The mission statement of neighborhood legal services association is to meet the civil legal needs of the poor and vulnerable in our community through effective legal representation and education.

Crime & Legal

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Philadelphia Legal Assistance Center Inc C/O the Organization; the most unlike its peers is Good Shepherd Corporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

43 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 43 of the 44 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

41/43

Grantees still filing

32/43

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Crime & Legal$2,859,747Human Services$360,298Civil Rights$244,919Health$211,462Other$219,433Education$105,010Arts & Culture$45,384

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Independence FoundationPA55.2× affinity24 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Independence Foundation · The Philadelphia Foundation · Pennsylvania Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts Board · United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey · The William Penn Foundation · Claneil Foundation Inc · Henry Dolfinger 2 Trust Uw · The Heinz Endowments · Henrietta Tower Wurts Memorial Foundation · The Pittsburgh Foundation · Union Benevolent Association · Van Ameringen Foundation Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Philadelphia Bar Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Philadelphia Bar Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

18report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Philadelphia Bar’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home