How much does The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association give?

The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association reported 6 itemized grants totaling $65,987, out of $211,545 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 3 and 12 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2024.

What does The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Crime & Legal (93%), Public Safety & Disaster (4%), Education (1%).

Who are The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Federal Bar Association ($96k), Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance ($39k), South Carolina Chapter of the Federal Bar Association ($27k).

Does The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 50% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Equal Justice Works, Fredrikson & Byron Foundation, Robins Kaplan Foundation.

Where is The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association based?

The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association is based in VA.

The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association

The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association

Promote and support legal research and education; advance the science of jurisprudence and facilitate the administration of justice; and foster improvements in the practice of federal law.

$212k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$23k

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$864kPublic Safety & Disaster$40kEducation$10kInternational$6kPublic Benefit$6k

02FY2025 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 6 grants below total $65,987, the rows itemized in this filing. The $211,545 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $145,558 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 $10k2 grants · $13k
$10k–50k4 grants · $53k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$5.8M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Federal Bar Association	$22,500
Washington Urban Debate League	$10,000
Federal Bar Association Tampa Bay Chapter Inc	$10,000
Baton Rouge Chapter of the Federal Bar Association	$10,000
Utah Center for Legal Inclusion	$7,500
Federal Bar Association Phoenix Chapter	$5,987

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 85% of its 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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 6% of The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 11% of the giving stays in VA; by stated purpose, 5%.

The Foundation of the Federal Bar Associationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address

How this is measured

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

73%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$673k · 7 repeat orgs$253k to everyone else

7 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$673k

$219k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+9%

+31%

Still filing today

71%

63%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 49% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Crime & LegalCommunity ImprovementInternationalEducationCivil RightsOther

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

FB
Federal Bar Association
4× · 2017–2025 · $96k · revenue +9%
ML
MID-MINNESOTA LEGAL ASSISTANCE
4× · 2017–2020 · $39k · revenue +71%
FB
Federal Bar Association East District of MI Chapte
3× · 2017–2023 · $22k · revenue +68%

Funded once

LP
LATINOJUSTICE PRLDEF
one grant, 2018 · $25k · revenue -46%
BA
BAY AREA LEGAL SERVICES INCgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $17k · revenue +76%
TR
TEXAS RIOGRANDE LEGAL AID INCgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +47%

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.

Boston Bar Association

To advance the highest standards of excellence for the legal profession, to facilitate access to justice, and to serve the community at large. in support of this mission, the association will strive to 1) foster an inclusive community of…

—

National Trans Bar Association

Education

Arkansas Bar Association

The purposes of the arkansas bar association include the following: advance the administration of justice; foster and maintain on the part of attorneys high ideals of integrity, learning, competence and public service, and high standards…

—

Lgbt Bar Assn of Los Angeles Lgbtq Lawyers Assn of Los Angeles

—

Minnesota Association for Justice

The purpose of the minnesota association for justice shall be to uphold and defend the constitution of the united states; to advance the science of jurisprudence; to promote the administration of justice; to uphold the honor of the…

—

Florida Italian American Bar Assoc

Civil Rights

Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators Foundation Inc

—

American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education

The Fund for Justice Education FJE was created to support the American Bar Associations ABA law-related and public services education programs.

Crime & Legal

Faculty of Federal Advocates

To enhance advocacy skills, professionalism, and integrity of attorneys in the federal judicial system as well as supporting pro bono attorneys in the federal judicial system.

Human Services

Kansas Bar Association

The association is dedicated to advancing the professionalism and legal skills of lawyers, promoting the interests of the legal profession, providing services to its members, advocating positions on law-related issues, encouraging public…

—

Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association

Provides education to criminal defense professionals.

—

Minnesota State Bar Association

Minnesota state bar association promotes the highest standards of excellence and inclusion within the legal profession, provides valued resources to its members, and strives to improve the law and the equal administration of justice for…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Minnesota Chapter Federal Bar Association; the most unlike its peers is The Advocates for Human Rights. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

26 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. 26 of the 35 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)

24/26

Grantees still filing

16/26

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$766,345Crime & Legal$97,000Community Improvement$39,427Education$10,000Civil Rights$7,500International$6,000

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.

Equal Justice WorksDC21.6× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Equal Justice Works · Fredrikson & Byron Foundation · Robins Kaplan Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Legal Services Corporation · Greater Twin Cities United Way · Pohlad Family Foundation · The Jamf Nation Global Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust

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 The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

3report 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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association?

Find your warmest path to The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association 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.

Play a game based on Foundation of the Federal Bar Association’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