California · Nonprofit
BET TZEDEK
BET TZEDEK (California) receives grants from 133 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,593,413 to it, the largest being Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles ($4,280,386). 97 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $20M
- Funders on record
- 133
- Grants received
- $31M
- Net assets
- $22M
What Bet Tzedek does
Mission
Providing free legal services to those who need them most.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Bet Tzedek is nationally recognized for leveraging staff to recruit, train and supervise volunteers, including hundreds of pro bono lawyers to increase the number of clients the organization serves. Bet Tzedek clients benefit from two distinct volunteer groups. The first are community volunteers who perform intake interviews and other client services, including up to 150 law students a year. In fiscal year 2025, these volunteers donated thousands of hours of their time, the value of which is estimated to be around $5 million. In addition to the value that in house volunteers provide our communities, Bet Tzedek also places clients' cases with hundreds of pro bono attorney and paralegal volunteers at law (continued on schedule o) firms nationwide. These pro bono volunteer hours are reported to the organization after the end of each year, and as a result the 2024 amounts will be disclosed in the financial statements for the fiscal year ending august 31, 2026. What is available is the total contribution made in calendar year 2024:27,387 hours of service by 1,573 volunteers, with a value estimated at over $10 million. Bet Tzedek's efforts in marshalling volunteers and pro bono lawyers…
$16,704,606 spent$19,235 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $16,704,606.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $20M to $28M (+36%).
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 20% · 2018 20% · 2019 17% · 2020 43% · 2021 37% · 2022 46% · 2023 50% · 2024 55%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 8 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
Diego J Cartagena
CEO
Board chair
Samantha L Millman
Board chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2019 and FY2020 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 36 funders to 69 funders, grant income rose $1.8M → $4.5M.
23 of 133 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 BET TZEDEK’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 133 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
BET TZEDEK has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 14% of grant income, and it takes 9 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 9 funders to its left
67% 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 BET TZEDEK.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 19% · 2018 15% · 2019 24% · 2020 18% · 2021 14% · 2022 20% · 2023 11% — 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
51% of BET TZEDEK's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 73% 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
82% of BET TZEDEK's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $11M arriving through sponsors registered in 14 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.
Organizations like BET TZEDEK
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
82% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
97%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for BET TZEDEK: 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 BET TZEDEK?
- BET TZEDEK (California) receives grants from 133 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,593,413 to it, the largest being Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles ($4,280,386). 97 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does BET TZEDEK have?
- IRS filings report 133 organizations giving $30,593,413 in grants to BET TZEDEK, 97 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BET TZEDEK?
- Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles is the largest funder on record, with $4,280,386 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BET TZEDEK find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Bet Tzedek →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 133 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