How much does Public Interest Law Initiative give?

Public Interest Law Initiative reported 30 itemized grants totaling $422,500, out of $431,927 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 26 and 29 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Public Interest Law Initiative fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Crime & Legal (95%), Housing & Shelter (3%), Environment (2%).

Who are Public Interest Law Initiative's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Legal Aid Chicago ($303k), Equip for Equality ($191k), Land of Lincoln Legal Aid Inc ($190k).

Does Public Interest Law Initiative fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 3% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Public Interest Law Initiative?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois, The Sidley Austin Foundation.

Where is Public Interest Law Initiative based?

Public Interest Law Initiative is based in IL.

Public Interest Law Initiative

Public Interest Law Initiative at a glance 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.

$432k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$39k

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$2.8MHousing & Shelter$80kEnvironment$55kCivil Rights$28k

02FY2025 · 30 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 30 grants below total $422,500, the rows itemized in this filing. The $431,927 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $9,427 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 $10k15 grants · $117k
$10k–50k15 grants · $306k

$13,000

Median grant

States reached

$2.8M

Total assets

Largest grants
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
Ascend Justice	$16,250
Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Family Services	$16,250
Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU Inc	$16,250
Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law	$16,250
Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Fdn	$16,250
Illinois Legal Aid Online	$13,000
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless	$13,000
The Immigration Project	$13,000

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, $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 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.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.9M · 29 repeat orgs$65k to everyone else

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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.9M

$26k

Still filing today

100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Crime & LegalHuman ServicesCivil RightsHousing & ShelterEnvironmentHealthOther

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

LA
LEGAL AID CHICAGO
9× · 2017–2025 · $303k · revenue +96%
EF
EQUIP FOR EQUALITY
9× · 2017–2025 · $191k · revenue +53%
LO
LAND OF LINCOLN LEGAL AID INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $190k · revenue +66%

Funded once

NI
National Immigrant Justice Center
one grant, 2024 · $26k

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.

Public Interest Law Initiative

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

Crime & Legal

Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area

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.

—

Illinois Coalition for Legal Reform

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.

Community Improvement

Chicago Committee On Minorities in Large Law Firms

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…

Civil Rights

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

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

Civil Liberties Defense Center

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.

Civil Rights

Michigan Advocacy Program

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.

Crime & Legal

Inner City Law Center

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.

Crime & Legal

First Defense Legal Aid

First Defense Legal Aid mobilizes lawyers and community members to fill gaps in public defense and create, protect, and engage replicable alternatives to the criminal system, starting with its entry points.

Crime & Legal

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

Illinois Equal Justice Foundation

The illinois equal justice foundation funds civil legal aid in illinois to champion the rights of those burdened by barriers to justice. we envision equitable access to and navigation of the illinois civil legal system.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Legal Aid Chicago; 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.

04the grantee network

31 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. 31 of the 33 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)

31/31

Grantees still filing

25/31

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Crime & Legal$1,553,916Other$917,600Human Services$185,600Civil Rights$136,500Housing & Shelter$79,900Environment$54,700Health$25,200

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.

Illinois Equal Justice FoundationIL45.4× affinity19 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

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 Public Interest Law Initiative funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Public Interest Law Initiative. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

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 Public Interest Law Initiative’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