· Public charity
The Civil Justice Reform Group
To advance civil justice reform on a local, state, and national level, and to engage in any lawful acts or activities for which corporations may be organized under the District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k6 grants · $184k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $385k
- $250k+2 grants · $1.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| American Tort Reform Association | $927,500 |
| Lawyers for Civil Justice | $375,000 |
| George Mason University Foundation | $150,000 |
| New Jersey Civil Justice Institute | $95,000 |
| Pennsylvania Coalition for Civil Justice Reform | $85,000 |
| Missouri Civil Justice Reform Coalition Inc | $55,000 |
| New York Civil Justice Institute | $42,500 |
| Washington Legal Foundation | $40,000 |
| Colorado Civil Justice League | $36,000 |
| Texans for Lawsuit Reform | $35,000 |
| Center for Jurisprudence | $20,000 |
| Liability Reform Coalition | $10,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 94% 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 +20% since the first grant, against -5% for the ones you funded once.
20 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2024, 9 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- ATAMERICAN TORT REFORM ASSOCIATION8× · 2017–2024 · $8.9M · revenue +23% · 29% of their budget
- LFLawyers for Civil Justice8× · 2017–2024 · $2.0M · revenue +74%
- PCPENNSYLVANIA COALITION FOR CIVIL JUSTICE REFORM8× · 2017–2024 · $931k · revenue +27% · 29% of their budget
Funded once
- ICIllinois Coalition for Legal Reformone grant, 2022 · $100k · revenue -28%
- TFTHE FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY STUDIESone grant, 2017 · $40k · revenue +11%
- GMGEORGE MASON UNIVERSITYone grant, 2021 · $25k
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.
Founded in 2010, minnesotans for lawsuit reform (mnflr) is a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to improving minnesota by promoting a fair, efficient and predictable state civil justice system,which benefits all minnesotans and…
Afl-cio union lawyers alliance was established to better the conditions of working men and women and their families by enhancing the quality of legal representation that is available to the afl-cio and the national and international unions…
The objectives of the Association shall be to: uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the State of Illinois; secure and protect the rights of those injured in their persons or civil rights; defend trial by jury and the…
The hamilton lincoln law institute (hlli) is a nonprofit public interest law firm that was formed to engage in litigation that advances the public interest. hlli completes its mission by challenging adminstrative and regulatory actions or…
The center documents attacks on civil justice, publishes research andreports, develops outreach programs to victims and other organizations,testifies before congress and state legislatures, serving as a keymedia resource.form 990, part…
The institute's mission, as set out in its certificate of incorporation, is to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to…
The council was formed as a vehicle for collective consultation and as a conduit for the exchange of ideas on court administration, rules and methods of procedure, and the organization and operation of state courts of appeal. the council…
The objectives and goals of the institute shall be to receive and administer funds for the purpose of providing and supporting educational programs for lawyers, legal academics, and members of the judiciary, conferences and publications…
Promote tort reform by working exclusively in the legislature and the courts to introduce fairness and predictability to the civil justice system. Works as an advocate to reduce excessive and abusive litigation that increases business and…
ATLA serves its membership by providing training through continuing legal education programs and publications in all fields and phases of advocacy.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New Jersey Civil Justice Reform Institute Inc and the most unlike its peers is Chapel & York Us Foundation Inc. 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 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 29 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 AMERICAN TORT REFORM ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Lawyers for Civil Justice ↗
- Who funds PENNSYLVANIA COALITION FOR CIVIL JUSTICE REFORM ↗
- Who funds NEW JERSEY CIVIL JUSTICE REFORM INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS CIVIL JUSTICE LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK CIVIL JUSTICE INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Texans for Lawsuit Reform ↗
- Who funds CIVIL JUSTICE ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds MISSOURI CIVIL JUSTICE REFORM COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds Colorado Civil Justice League ↗
- Who funds GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DUE PROCESS INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL JUDICIAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Illinois Coalition for Legal Reform ↗
- Who funds LOUISIANA ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY ↗
- Who funds US Chamber Litigation Center ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR JURISPRUDENCE INC ↗
- Who funds CHAPEL & YORK US FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BUSINESS & INDUSTRY POLITICAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE ↗
- Who funds THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES ↗
- Who funds GEORGIANS FOR LAWSUIT REFORM INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYERS INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR DEATH PENALTY LITIGATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN TORT REFORM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MISSISSIPPI CIVIL JUSTICE ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds LIABILITY REFORM COALITION ↗
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: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 The Civil Justice Reform Group 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Civil Justice Reform Group?
Find your warmest path to The Civil Justice Reform Group through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.