How much did Public Interest Law Initiative grant in FY2023?

Public Interest Law Initiative reported 29 grants totaling $345,768 in its FY2023 IRS filing.

Where is Public Interest Law Initiative based?

Public Interest Law Initiative is based in IL.

Public Interest Law Initiative

Foundation Dossiers Mostly funded, not a grantmaker — see who funds it →

· Public charity

Public Interest Law Initiative

PILI engages, inspires and empowers those advancing equal access to justice.

$346k

Granted FY2023

Grants

Communities

$31k

Largest

01What you fund

0167% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2018–2023.

Crime & Legal$972kHuman Services$118kCivil Rights$91kHousing & Shelter$48kEnvironment$36kHealth$12kOther$616k

02FY2023 · 29 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2023

Under $10k18 grants · $133k
$10k–50k11 grants · $212k

$9,300

Median grant

States reached

$2.6M

Total assets

Largest grants

Legal Aid Chicago$31,000
Land of Lincoln Legal Aid Inc$24,800
Prairie State Legal Services$23,368
Equip for Equality$21,700
Greater Chicago Legal Clinic$18,600
Legal Council for Health Justice$18,600
Heartland Alliance for Human Rights & Human Needs$18,600
Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU Inc$15,500
Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Fdn$15,500
Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law$12,400
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless$12,400
Center for Disability and Elder Law$9,300
Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing$9,300
The Shriver Center on Poverty Law$9,300
Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund$9,300

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY18–23, $118k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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

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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$1.9M · 29 repeat orgs$6k to everyone else

29 repeat relationships — 28 still active in FY2023, 1 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.9M

$6k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+88%

+139%

Still filing today

97%

100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Crime & LegalHuman ServicesCivil RightsHousing & ShelterEnvironmentHealthOther

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

LA
Legal Aid Chicago
6× · 2018–2023 · $199k · revenue +96%
EF
Equip for Equality
6× · 2018–2023 · $127k · revenue +36%
LO
Land of Lincoln Legal Aid Inc
6× · 2018–2023 · $121k · revenue +141%

Funded once

IL
Illinois Legal Aid Onlinegraduated
one grant, 2023 · $6k · revenue +139%

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

04Your field

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.

Lakeshore Legal Aid

Standing with our neighbors, Lakeshore Legal Aid fights poverty and injustice through advocacy and by providing meaningful and dignified access to the legal system.

Crime & Legal

Inner City Law Center

Fighting for justice and housing by providing legal representation for the homeless and working poor.

Crime & Legal

Equal Justice Center

The Equal Justice Center is a non-profit law firm and employment justice organization which empowers low-income families, workers, and communities to achieve fair treatment in the workplace, in the justice system, and in our shared society…

Civil Rights

Public Interest Law Initiative

PILI engages, inspires and empowers those advancing equal access to justice.

Crime & Legal

Chicago Committee On Minorities in Large

The chicago committee on minorities in large law firm seeks racial and ethnic diversity in the legal profession by collaborating with its membership to drive sustainable institutional change at law firms and corporate legal departments and…

Civil Rights

The Public Interest Law Center

The Public Interest Law Center uses high-impact legal strategies to advance the civil, social, and economic rights of communities in the Philadelphia region facing discrimination, inequality, and poverty. We use litigation, community…

Crime & Legal

Chicago United for Equity

Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.

Civil Rights

Neighborhood Legal Services

A steadfast advocate for individuals, families, and communities throughout LA County.

—

Legal Link

Legal Link removes legal barriers that prolong poverty by adding critically needed capacity to the legal ecosystem. We embed legal navigation support in community-based settings by training and supporting frontline partners.

Crime & Legal

Justice for the People Legal Center

The Justice for the People Legal Center is working to bring a local organizing approach to the legal world and protect tenants against predatory landlords.

—

OneJustice

Strengthen the legal services sector's expertise and capacity to advance justice and equity.

—

Colorado Legal Services

Provides access to quality civil legal services to as many people in colorado as possible.

Crime & Legal

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Legal Aid Chicago and the most unlike its peers is Illinois Legal Aid Online. 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 45 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.0%0/30

the rest of the field

14%

4,320/31,480

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.

04the grantee network

29 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

29/29

Grantees still filing

25/29

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Crime & Legal$971,666Other$615,600Human Services$117,600Civil Rights$90,500Housing & Shelter$48,400Environment$36,200Health$12,200

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.

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.

Lawyers Trust Fund of IllinoisIL46.4× affinity19 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois · Illinois Equal Justice Foundation · The Sidley Austin Foundation · The Chicago Bar Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · Equal Justice Works · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Chicago Foundation for Women · Illinois Bar Foundation · Katten Muchin Rosenman Foundation Inc · Circle of Service 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 organisation Public Interest Law Initiative 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: Citizen Advocacy Center.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

low risk

~15 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 7 filed years.

Track record & reputation

low risk

7 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 363920270 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on Citizen Advocacy Center, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 15 months of cash on hand.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 5% of their budget — diversified.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to Public Interest Law Initiative?

Find your warmest path to Public Interest Law Initiative through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

Public Interest Law Initiative

What you funded, over time

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

29 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Public Interest Law Initiative?

More from the funding graph

Public Interest Law Initiative

What you funded, over time

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

29 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Public Interest Law Initiative?

More from the funding graph