Missouri · Nonprofit
ARCHCITY DEFENDERS
ARCHCITY DEFENDERS (Missouri) receives grants from 94 organizations whose IRS filings report $13,075,904 to it, the largest being DEER CREEK FOUNDATION ($2,190,000). 51 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $7.3M
- Funders on record
- 94
- Grants received
- $13M
- Net assets
- $6.2M
What Archcity Defenders does
Mission
Archcity Defenders (acd) is a holistic legal advocacy organization that combats the criminalization of poverty and state violence, especially in communities of color. Acd's foundation of civil and criminal legal representation, social services, impact litigation, policy and media advocacy, and community collaboration achieves and inspires justice and equitable outcomes for people throughout the st. Louis region and beyond.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Civil rights litigation: these types of services are provided for human and civil rights litigation/cases that are focused on systemic issues that sometimes involve multiple plaintiffs and/or defendants in federal court and class action lawsuits. The organization is engaging in systemic civil rights litigation challenging police misconduct, debtors' prisons, cash bail, inhumane jail conditions, inadequate shelter for unhoused residents, and violations of freedom of speech, due process, and equal protection. Archcity Defenders obtained $5m in monetary settlements this fiscal year for civil rights litigation clients and class members whose rights were violated. Archcity Defenders filed 5 new lawsuits challenging inhumane jail conditions and lack of government transparency.
$1,309,230 spent21% of program spendingAdvocacy: this program focuses on elevating the voices of clients who have been impacted by systemic oppression by speaking about their experiences while exposing injustice and misrepresentation. Advocacy involves hosting events for the community, creating handouts and references for the community as well as co-hosting a podcast that explores the issues facing the community and the people working to transform them. The organization also collaborates with organizers, activists, and other advocacy partners on local events, initiatives, and campaigns to build community power in furtherance of a commitment to racial justice, human dignity, and liberation in st. Louis and beyond... Archcity Defenders is part of a campaign to shut down the st. Louis city's medium security institution (the "workhouse") that condemns hundreds of presumptively innocent people to suffer in unspeakably hellish and inhumane conditions.
$3,801,286 spentof which $3,279,709 as grants60% of program spendingDirect representaton civil: Archcity Defenders provides free legal services to clients with matters like landlord-tenant disputes and eviction defense, consumer protection cases, divorce, custody and visitation rights, public benefits applications and appeals, immigration bond proceedings and assistance with elder law issues like wills, powers of attorney, guardianships, and conservatorships. We integrate civil and criminal legal representation to alleviate the collateral consequences that occur when an individual enters the criminal legal system.
$1,273,234 spentof which $111,190 as grants20% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $6,383,750.
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 2023 to 2024, from $4.2M to $8.2M (+97%).
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 44% · 2018 12% · 2019 16% · 2020 4% · 2021 9% · 2022 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
88% of ARCHCITY DEFENDERS’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (93% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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
Blake Strode
Executive director
Board chair
Stephanie Grise
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 15 funders to 31 funders, grant income rose $379k → $1.4M.
24 of 94 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 35% 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 ARCHCITY DEFENDERS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 94 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
ARCHCITY DEFENDERS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left
54% 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 ARCHCITY DEFENDERS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 33% · 2018 18% · 2019 31% · 2020 16% · 2021 11% · 2022 20% · 2023 27% — 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
40% of ARCHCITY DEFENDERS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 54% 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
ARCHCITY DEFENDERS draws 59% of its grant income from funders outside Missouri, across 17 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.6M arriving through sponsors registered in 16 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
ARCHCITY DEFENDERS has grown faster than half of the 793 crime & legal nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 793 crime & legal nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like ARCHCITY DEFENDERS
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 Missouri
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
78%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ARCHCITY DEFENDERS: 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 ARCHCITY DEFENDERS?
- ARCHCITY DEFENDERS (Missouri) receives grants from 94 organizations whose IRS filings report $13,075,904 to it, the largest being DEER CREEK FOUNDATION ($2,190,000). 51 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does ARCHCITY DEFENDERS have?
- IRS filings report 94 organizations giving $13,075,904 in grants to ARCHCITY DEFENDERS, 51 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of ARCHCITY DEFENDERS?
- DEER CREEK FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,190,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ARCHCITY DEFENDERS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Missouri. 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 94 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