· Public charity
The Impact Fund
Supports class action public interest litigation and awards grants in the areas of human and civil rights, elimination of unlawful discrimination, environmental justice and the relief of poverty.
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k23 grants · $633k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Our Childrens Trust | $50,000 |
| National Fair Housing Allianc | $50,000 |
| Justice Catalyst Access Fund | $45,691 |
| Southern Coalition for Social | $42,000 |
| Coalition for Humane Immigran | $40,000 |
| Council of the Haida Nation | $40,000 |
| LatinoJustice PRLDEF | $40,000 |
| Shulman Buske Reams PLLC | $40,000 |
| Hawaii Alliance for Progress | $35,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $35,000 |
| Native Hawaiian Legal Corpora | $35,000 |
| Asian Law Caucus - Grantee | $35,000 |
| Rethink35 | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| Centro Legal de la Raza | $25,000 |
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 (FY18–24, $63k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 64% 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.
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 +58% since the first grant, against +34% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 23 since wound down; 18 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 19% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $593k 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
- LCLEADERSHIP COUNSEL FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY5× · 2019–2023 · $116k · revenue +97%
- CLCONNECTICUT LEGAL RIGHTS PROJECT INC3× · 2018–2023 · $100k · revenue +19%
- DRDISABILITY RIGHTS TEXAS3× · 2023–2025 · $95k · revenue +7%
Funded once
Transgender Law Centerone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -17%- HSHughes Socol Piers Resnickone grant, 2024 · $50k
- SGSEVENTH GENERATION ADVISORSone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue -34%
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.
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 legal aid justice center partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty.
Public interest legal activities
The Equal Justice Center is a non-profit law firm and employment justice organization which empowers low-income families, workers, and communities to achieve fair treatment in the workplace, in the justice system, and in our shared society…
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.
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…
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 National Legal Advocacy Network d/b/a Grassroots Law & Organizing for Workers is a legal non-profit organization dedicated to using legal strategies as a tool to build power for marginalized workers and create systemic change through…
Justice for the People Legal Centers mission shall include but not be limited to the provision of legal services, grassroots organizing, and education to people and communities who have historically endured harm and trauma caused by our…
Using legal advocacy to make advances in science and technology safer for people and the planet.
Our mission is to provide legal help for everyday people - because no one should be denied the right to timely and affordable access to justice.
To protect, through litigation and legal representation, the civil rights of persons who have historically been subject to discrimination and poverty. the committee provides pro bono services by mobilizing the resources of volunteer…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Equal Justice Under Law and the most unlike its peers is RETHINK35. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.8% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
110 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. 110 of the 138 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 OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST ↗
- Who funds LEADERSHIP COUNSEL FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT LEGAL RIGHTS PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds DISABILITY RIGHTS TEXAS ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN LEGAL COUNSEL INC ↗
- Who funds A BETTER CHILDHOOD INC ↗
- Who funds TEXAS RIOGRANDE LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds BRADY CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds UPPER SEVEN LAW ↗
- Who funds Center for Food Safety ↗
- Who funds Uptown People's Law Center ↗
- Who funds WATERLEGACY ↗
- Who funds CLEAN WATER FUND ↗
- Who funds Transgender Law Center ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL FAIR HOUSING ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds SEVENTH GENERATION ADVISORS ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA CENTER FOR LAW IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST ↗
- Who funds NEW MEXICO ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE PROMISE OF JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds Innovation Law Lab ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN COALITION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds AL OTRO LADO ↗
- Who funds LATINOJUSTICE PRLDEF ↗
- Who funds Snake River Waterkeeper Inc ↗
- Who funds Fair Work Center ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL LAW CENTER ON HOMELESSNESS AND POVERTY ↗
- Who funds EARTHRIGHTS INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds EQUITY LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN STATE JUSTICE INC ↗
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: Equal Justice Works · Borealis Philanthropy · The Skadden Foundation · Patagoniaorg · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Tides Foundation · The Sidley Austin Foundation · New Venture Fund · National Health Law Program Inc · Immigrant Justice Corps Inc · The Ford Foundation · Proteus Fund Inc
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 Impact Fund 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.
- Center for Medicare Advocacy Inc — 63% of income from government
- Connecticut Legal Rights Project Inc — 60% of income from government
- Florida Legal Services Inc — 39% of income from government
- Oregon Law Center — 11% of income from government
- Legal Aid Services of Oregon — 10% of income from government
- Northeast Legal Aid Inc — 7% of income from government
- University of Miami — 5% of income from government
- Legal Services of Greater Miami Inc — 2% of income from government
- Legal Aid Service of Broward County Inc — 1% of income from government
- Lawyers for Civil Rights Inc — 1% of income from government
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 Impact Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Impact Fund 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.