California · Nonprofit
California Center for Movement Legal Services
California Center for Movement Legal Services (California) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,164,241 to it, the largest being Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles ($904,241). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.7M
- Funders on record
- 3
- Grants received
- $1.2M
- Net assets
- $259k
What California Center for Movement Legal Services does
Mission
The California Center for Movement Legal Services (Movement Legal) provides legal services in the pursuit of improving the lives of California's traditionally underserved residents, carrying out legal work that fosters community led policy creation, implementation and enforcement of policy won through community organizing.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The California Center for Movement Legal Services (Movement Legal) provides legal services in the pursuit of improving the lives of California's traditionally underserved residents, carrying out legal work that fosters community led policy creation and enforcement of policy won through community organizing. Our lawyers craft legislation at the behest of community organizing, bring impact cases out of grassroots campaigns, and defend the tenant movement and its organizers. Over the last year, our team at California Center for Movement Legal Services wrote stronger tenant protections to be passed at the local level. We fought in the courts to prevent large corporate landlords from circumventing these same protections. Campaigns for stronger protections included: collaborating with tenant organizations and the City of Richmond to implement the city's rental inspection program, fighting an amendment to Oakland's tenant protection ordinance that would have passed wast collection costs onto tenants, writing language to ban ratio utility billing services in local ordinances, writing tenant protection ordinances for ballot measures in San Pablo, Redwood City and Santa Barbara. Impact…
$1,292,838 spentof which $55,000 as grants$432,556 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,292,838.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2024, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2024, 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 2024 to 2025, from $266k to $364k (+37%).
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: 2024 11% · 2025 48%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
74% of California Center for Movement Legal Services’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. 0 of the last 2 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.
Who funds it, year by year
Grant support over time, funder by funder — shade shows the grant size each year.
2 of 3 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 22% 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 California Center for Movement Legal Services’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
California Center for Movement Legal Services leans on a few funders — its largest provides 78% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
100% 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 California Center for Movement Legal Services.
“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
100% of California Center for Movement Legal Services's grant income comes from California funders.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $260k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
California Center for Movement Legal Services has grown faster than three-quarters of the 852 crime & legal nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 852 crime & legal nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like California Center for Movement Legal Services
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
78% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
0%
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 California Center for Movement Legal Services: 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 California Center for Movement Legal Services?
- California Center for Movement Legal Services (California) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,164,241 to it, the largest being Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles ($904,241). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does California Center for Movement Legal Services have?
- IRS filings report 3 organizations giving $1,164,241 in grants to California Center for Movement Legal Services, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of California Center for Movement Legal Services?
- Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles is the largest funder on record, with $904,241 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like California Center for Movement Legal Services 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.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2024–2025), and the filings of 3 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