Illinois · Nonprofit
American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education
American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education (Illinois) receives grants from 100 organizations whose IRS filings report $25,580,138 to it, the largest being NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ($2,403,759). 50 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $102M
- Funders on record
- 100
- Grants received
- $26M
- Net assets
- $33M
What American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education does
Mission
The Fund for Justice Education FJE was created to support the American Bar Associations ABA law-related and public services education programs.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
On its FY2024 return the organization reported a significant change in how it conducts a program.
During the second half of fiscal year 2025, FJE experienced a significant number of grant terminations and related decline in grant revenue. The Rule of Law Initiative and Center for Human Rights programs saw a reduction in foreign assistance awards which led to the closure of many field offices and a reduction of HQ staff. However, a majority of the projects were active in the first 6 months of the year and the decrease in awards and its funding did not change how we conducted the program services aside from the consolidation of some operational and programmatic roles.
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 3).
Now entering its fourth decade of operations, ABA ROLI implements legal technical assistance programs in roughly 50 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa, as well as non-region specific Global Programs. Over the course of a given year, ABA ROLI typically implements over 100 distinct programs, often more than one in a given country, most of which are concentrated in one or more of nine subject matter areas 1 Access to Justice 2 Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity 3 Criminal Justice and Transnational Organized Crime 4 Judicial System Strengthening 5 Legal Education 6 Legal Profession Development 7 Gender and Social Inclusion 8 Commercial Law and 9 Human Rights. As a matter of best practice, the mixture of subject matter areas involved in a particular country Continued on Schedule O
$32,108,134 spentof which $5,108,877 as grants$11,243 earned by the program40% of program spendingSince 1983, the ABA has prioritized immigration law and policy as one of its core public service efforts. The ABA Commission on Immigration COI directs the Associations efforts to ensure fair treatment and full due process rights for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers within the United States. The Commission manages six core operational activities 1 Commission and Advisory Committee member activities, 2 Detention Information Hotline, 3 direct legal services through the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project ProBAR in Harlingen, Texas, and Houston, Texas, 4 direct legal services through the Immigration Justice Project IJP in San Diego, California, 5 training and technical legal assistance through the Childrens Immigration Law Academy CILA in Houston, Texas and, 6 the Commissions national policy, advocacy, training, and pro bono work. Continued on Schedule O
$28,452,981 spentof which $447,697 as grants35% of program spendingThe ABA Center on Children and the Laws mission is to promote access to justice for children and families. Our staff of 21 legal and core professionals work on grant-funded projects across the country that are unified by two complementary goals, to improve legal representation and to improve the legal systems that impact children and families lives. We achieve our mission and goals through a three-tiered approach. First, the Center works in individual communities across the country where it partners with local stakeholders-including courts, child welfare agencies, lawyers, tribes, schools, and legislators-to build the capacity of legal practices and systems that serve children well and to help change those that do not. Continued on Schedule O
$5,917,377 spentof which $1,864,806 as grants$82,286 earned by the program7% of program spendingProgram Service Expenses 13,988,917, Grants and allocations 8,820,447, Revenue 2,459,952 FJE supports several other programs including Center for Public Interest Law. The Center puts the ABA motto of Defending Liberty, Pursuing Justice into action through advocacy, education, and initiatives implemented across the country. With staff and members leading efforts related to children and families, death penalty representation, domestic and gender-based violence, elder law, election law, gun violence, homelessness and poverty, immigration, veterans, and pro bono projects, the Center is the gateway to resources to support and amplify efforts as well as to connect other lawyers who share the passion to improve systems and change lives.
$13,988,917 spentof which $8,820,447 as grants$2,459,952 earned by the program17% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $80,467,409.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 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 2019 to 2020, from $28M to $40M (+42%).
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: 2017 73% · 2018 69% · 2019 84% · 2020 82% · 2021 87% · 2022 90% · 2023 92% · 2024 89% · 2025 83%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
91% of American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (99% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 9 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
Alpha M Brady
Executive Director
Board chair
Jonathan Cole
Chair, House of Delegates
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 16 funders to 41 funders, grant income rose $907k → $5.1M.
12 of 100 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 6% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $61M from 12 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest American Bar Endowment). These are real filings, and they are not money American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education raised.
From the IRS filings of American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 100 funders by total. 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
American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 9% of grant income, and it takes 8 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 8 funders to its left
72% 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 American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 55% · 2018 36% · 2019 29% · 2020 14% · 2021 14% · 2022 30% · 2023 22% — diversifying over time.
“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.
How long its funders stay
31% of American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education draws 99% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 26 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education's funding base is broadening — from 16 funders to 41 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 14 crime & legal nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $264k on record.
- OR$250k
- CT$14k
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 American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education
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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 36 states
Part of a family of 6 related entities
- American Bar Association · exempt
- American Bar Endowment · exempt
- American Bar Foundation · exempt
- National Judicial College · exempt
- ABA Retirement Funds · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education: 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 American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education?
- American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education (Illinois) receives grants from 100 organizations whose IRS filings report $25,580,138 to it, the largest being NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ($2,403,759). 50 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education have?
- IRS filings report 100 organizations giving $25,580,138 in grants to American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education, 50 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education?
- NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS is the largest funder on record, with $2,403,759 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 100 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing