Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE
ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,769,217 to it, the largest being VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ($8,884,548). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $354M
- Funders on record
- 9
- Grants received
- $9.8M
- Net assets
- $38M
What Acacia Center for Justice does
Mission
Acacia coordinates large-scale immigrant legal assistance and defense networks, providing exceptional legal services and expanding the infrastructure necessary to ensure access to justice, fairness, and freedom for all immigrants.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Legal representation programs (lr) provide legal counsel to adults and children in various contexts. These programs are comprised of:- national qualified representative program, providing qualified representatives (attorneys and others accredited to provide legal defense) in immigration court to unrepresented detained adults who are found by an immigration judge to be mentally incompetent to represent themselves in immigration proceedings;- children's counsel initiative, providing legal representation to children who are in immigration proceedings in designated immigration court locations; - unaccompanied children program, providing know your rights presentations and legal screenings to all children in orr custody, as well as representation to children in and released from orr custody; and- litigation support fund, providing a source of funding to the legal cases of unaccompanied children who are placed in facilities and locations outside of the existing network of legal service providers and to challenge custody determinations and other strategic litigation advocacy.
$259,969,299 spentof which $4,996,131 as grants$281,153,899 earned by the program81% of program spendingThe legal access & orientation programs (lao) deliver legal orientations and self-help workshops about immigration court procedures to adults, adult caregivers of children, and families in dhs custody and in removal proceedings to help them better understand what to expect in court. These programs are comprised of:- legal orientation program, delivering legal orientations and self-help workshops about immigration court procedures to adult individuals in dhs custody to help them prepare to represent themselves in immigration court;- legal orientation program for custodians of unaccompanied children, providing legal orientation presentations to adult caregivers (custodians/sponsors) of non-detained unaccompanied children in eoir removal proceedings;- immigration court helpdesk, delivering legal orientations and self-help workshops to non-detained individuals in removal proceedings to help them better understand what to expect in immigration court and prepare to represent themselves; and- family group legal orientation program, providing legal orientation presentations and self-help workshops to family groups in removal proceedings to help them better understand what to expect in…
$33,177,276 spent$33,907,060 earned by the program10% of program spendingThrough capacity building programs, acacia works with partners to expand organizational resources to meet demand for legal services throughout the u.s. The programs are comprised of: -attorney recruitment project places experienced and new attorneys in legal service providers to bolster the capacity of these critical services.- policy and outreach encompass policy analysis, research, lobbying, and government relations to advance and grow public support for acacia's work.
$26,586,891 spent$32,883,475 earned by the program8% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $319,733,466.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2022, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2022, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $51M to $114M (+123%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2023 3% · 2024 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
2% of ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (17% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 3 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Olisa Shaina Aber-Hanson
Executive director
Board chair
Andrew Genz
Board chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2023 and FY2024 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2022 → 2023: the base held at 1 funder, grant income rose $1.6M → $1.7M.
5 of 9 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 4% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE leans on a few funders — its largest provides 91% of grant income and the top three 98%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
95% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 100% · 2023 100% — broadly stable.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 3 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $350k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 248 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 248 human services nonprofits over $100M, FY2024
Government funding ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.1B on record.
- Department of the Interior$517.1M
- Department of Health and Human Services$356.3M
- Department of Justice$180.2M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
98% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE?
- ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,769,217 to it, the largest being VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ($8,884,548). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE have?
- IRS filings report 9 organizations giving $9,769,217 in grants to ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE?
- VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC is the largest funder on record, with $8,884,548 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ACACIA CENTER FOR JUSTICE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2022–2024), and the filings of 9 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing