· Public charity
Public Interest Law Initiative
PILI engages, inspires and empowers those advancing equal access to justice.
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 30 grants below total $422,500 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $431,927 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $9,427 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 $10k15 grants · $117k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $306k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Legal Aid Chicago | $39,000 |
| Land of Lincoln Legal Aid Inc | $32,500 |
| Prairie State Legal Services | $26,000 |
| National Immigrant Justice Center | $26,000 |
| Equip for Equality | $22,750 |
| Legal Council for Health Justice | $19,500 |
| Greater Chicago Legal Clinic | $19,500 |
| Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Fdn | $16,250 |
| Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law | $16,250 |
| Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU Inc | $16,250 |
| Ascend Justice | $16,250 |
| Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Family Services | $16,250 |
| The Immigration Project | $13,000 |
| Chicago Coalition for the Homeless | $13,000 |
| Illinois Legal Aid Online | $13,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $186k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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.
29 repeat relationships — 27 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k 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
- LALEGAL AID CHICAGO9× · 2017–2025 · $303k · revenue +96%
- EFEQUIP FOR EQUALITY9× · 2017–2025 · $191k · revenue +46%
- LOLAND OF LINCOLN LEGAL AID INC9× · 2017–2025 · $190k · revenue +66%
Funded once
- NINational Immigrant Justice Centerone grant, 2024 · $26k
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.
PILI engages, inspires and empowers those advancing equal access to justice.
Standing with our neighbors, Lakeshore Legal Aid fights poverty and injustice through advocacy and by providing meaningful and dignified access to the legal system.
As one of the most enduring civil rights institutions on the West Coast, we work to dismantle systems of oppression and racism, and build an equitable and just society.
The chicago committee seeks racial and ethnic diversity in the legal profession by collaborating with its law firm and corporate membership to: drive sustainable institutional change at law firms and corporate legal departments; provide…
Advocate for tort reform in Illinois by communicating with public officials and staff to influence legislation and administrative action designed to create a more equitable and balanced judicial system in Illinois.
In 2024, Inner City Law Center, ICLC, served over 3,400 people, helping vulnerable Angelenos to remain in their homes and recover nearly $20.5 million in financial benefits.
The legal aid justice center partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty.
CIVIL LIBERTIES DEFENSE CENTER (CLDC) educates the general public about their rights and privileges under the US Constitution and provides free legal support to climate and social justice activists.
To advance the safety, independence, and economic stability of those most affected by poverty, racism, and other structurally oppressive systems by increasing access to justice and working for systemic solutions.
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…
Work with DC courts, private bar & legal services providers to increase legal representations for low & moderate income DC residents, enhance efficiency of legal services, and reduce barriers to the judicial system.
Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Legal Aid Chicago and the most unlike its peers is Chicago House & Social Service Agency. 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.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
31 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. 31 of the 33 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 LEGAL AID CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds EQUIP FOR EQUALITY ↗
- Who funds LAND OF LINCOLN LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds Greater Chicago Legal Clinic ↗
- Who funds PRAIRIE STATE LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds Legal Council for Health Justice ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO VOLUNTEER LEGAL SERVICES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ROGER BALDWIN FOUNDATION OF ACLU INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Inc ↗
- Who funds COORDINATED ADVICE & REFERRAL PROGRAM FOR LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Family Services ↗
- Who funds Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Rights ↗
- Who funds SHRIVER CENTER ON POVERTY LAW ↗
- Who funds Law Center for Better Housing ↗
- Who funds MALDEF - MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COALITION TO END HOMELESSNESS ↗
- Who funds CABRINI GREEN LEGAL AID ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS LEGAL AID ONLINE ↗
- Who funds ASCEND JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds CITIZEN ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds IMPACT FOR EQUITY ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST ↗
- Who funds LAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Fund for Justice ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION ↗
- Who funds Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds Center for Disability & Elder Law Inc ↗
- Who funds IMMIGRATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HOUSE & SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCY ↗
- Who funds JAMES B MORAN CENTER FOR YOUTH ADVOCACY ↗
- Who funds NORTH SUBURBAN LEGAL AID CLINIC ↗
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: Illinois Equal Justice Foundation · Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois · The Sidley Austin Foundation · The Chicago Bar Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Illinois Bar Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Equal Justice Works · Circle of Service Foundation · Katten Muchin Rosenman Foundation Inc · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · AbbVie 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 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.
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.