· Public charity
The District of Columbia Bar Foundation
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR FOUNDATION was established to raise funds for organizations in the district that provide hands-on legal services to residents who are unable to afford legal assistance.
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–50k16 grants · $439k
- $50k–250k31 grants · $3.4M
- $250k+22 grants · $22M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF DC | $2,693,764 |
| LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF DC | $2,647,564 |
| NEIGHBORHOOD LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM | $2,200,028 |
| BREAD FOR THE CITY | $1,267,508 |
| NEIGHBORHOOD LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM | $1,140,478 |
| RISING FOR JUSTICE INC | $1,063,145 |
| BREAD FOR THE CITY | $1,022,310 |
| DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR PRO BONO CENTER | $937,923 |
| AYUDA | $937,045 |
| LEGAL COUNSEL FOR THE ELDERLY | $911,327 |
| WASHINGTON LAWYERS' COMMITTEE | $859,627 |
| DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR PRO BONO CENTER | $802,864 |
| DC VOLUNTEER LAWYERS PROJECT | $801,790 |
| RISING FOR JUSTICE INC | $800,000 |
| CHILDREN'S LAW CENTER THE | $775,307 |
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 (FY17–24, $11.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +76% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
37 repeat relationships — 32 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 2 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; $320k 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 SOCIETY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA8× · 2017–2024 · $27M · revenue +69% · 44% of their budget
- NLNEIGHBORHOOD LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM OF DC8× · 2017–2024 · $14M · revenue +143% · 59% of their budget
- RFRISING FOR JUSTICE INC8× · 2017–2024 · $14M · revenue +65% · 93% of their budget
Funded once
- BTBREAK THE CYCLEone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -54%
- LHLydia's House Incone grant, 2021 · $17k · revenue +9%
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.
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.
To advocate for domestic violence victims, at-risk children, and other vulnerable individuals by providing over $22.8m in pro bono legal services, social service referrals, and on-going support; to train and support a strong network of…
The legal aid justice center partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty.
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.
Council for court excellence's (cce's) mission is to bring people together to conduct research, educate, and advocate to make d.c.'s unique legal systems more just, equitable, and accountable to the community.
To provide meaningful access to high quality, civil legal services in the pursuit of justice for as many low income persons and members of vulnerable populations throughout colorado as possible.
At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…
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…
Sexual Violence Law Center (SVLC) is a nonprofit law firm that protects the safety, privacy, and civil rights of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in Washington through holistic and trauma-informed practices rooted in race and…
Provision of legal services.
South carolina legal services is a statewide law firm that provides civil legal services to protect the rights and represent the interests of low income south carolinians.
Enforcing and protecting the rights of individuals and families by providing accessible, creative, and high quality legal assistance and working collaboratively for systemic change.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Dc Kincare Alliance and the most unlike its peers is Student Legal Services 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 27 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) — 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 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.
39 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. 39 of the 41 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 SOCIETY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORHOOD LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM OF DC ↗
- Who funds RISING FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds BREAD FOR THE CITY INC ↗
- Who funds LEGAL COUNSEL FOR THE ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND URBAN AFFAIRS INC ↗
- Who funds AYUDA INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WHITMAN-WALKER CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds DC Affordable Law Firm ↗
- Who funds TZEDEK DC INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds Safe Sisters Circle ↗
- Who funds SCHOOL JUSTICE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Student Legal Services Inc ↗
- Who funds AMARA LEGAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds TORTURE ABOLITION AND SURVIVORS SUPPORT COALITION INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds Advocates for Justice and Education ↗
- Who funds THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN LEGAL AID OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ↗
- Who funds MID-ATLANTIC INNOCENCE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds FIRST SHIFT JUSTICE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE WASHINGTON LEGAL CLINIC FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds KIND INC ↗
- Who funds DC KINCARE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds Asian Pacific American Legal ↗
- Who funds OPEN CITY ADVOCATES ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL AMERICAN RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds QUALITY TRUST FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES INC ↗
- Who funds VOLARE ↗
- Who funds MOTHERS OUTREACH NETWORK ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FAMILY LIFE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL AREA IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS COALITION ↗
- Who funds BELOVED COMMUNITY INCUBATOR INC ↗
- Who funds BREAK THE CYCLE ↗
- Who funds DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LEGAL EMPOWERMENT AND ↗
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: Greater Washington Community Foundation · The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation · The Sidley Austin Foundation · Eugene & Agnes E Meyer Foundation · Venable Foundation Inc · Equal Justice Works · Philip L Graham Fund co Graham Holdings Company · The Morrison & Foerster Foundation · United Way of the National Capital Area · Women's Bar Association Foundation · Miller & Chevalier Charitable Foundation · Georgetown University
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 District of Columbia Bar Foundation 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.
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Find your warmest path to The District of Columbia Bar Foundation 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.