Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION
CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $512,580 to it, the largest being Donors Trust Inc ($255,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $67k
- Funders on record
- 6
- Grants received
- $513k
- Net assets
- $-127747
What Clause 40 Foundation does
Mission
Clause 40 Foundation is a nonpartisan organization whose mission is to honor, preserve, and promote the due process rights guaranteed in the u.s. Constitution through public education, events, research, litigation, and more. In the american criminal legal system, these constitutional principles encompass a number of specific issues including: the right to have notice of the nation's criminal laws; the right to present evidence; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; the right to a fair and impartial grand jury; the right to a meaningful opportunity to be heard by an unbiased tribunal in a timely manner; and the right to be represented by counsel. Clause 40 Foundation honors, preserves, and promotes these core constitutional american values through its own educational and charitable activities, as well as through collaboration on projects with other nonprofits, academic institutions, and individuals.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
Policy work: through creating and funding the creation of reports, white papers, legal backgrounders, longer research publications, blogs, guides, treatises, case studies, op-eds, social and traditional media and communications, and e-alerts, Clause 40 Foundation creates and supports original nonpartisan analysis, study, research, and writing to provide data and education to the public pertaining to due process-related criminal law issues in order to promote these valuable constitutional rights. Policy areas in which Clause 40 Foundation focused in 2024 include: increasing prosecutorial accountability; preservation and restoration of criminal law procedural due process rights; curtailing warrantless surveillance; enhancing public safety; and supporting reentry of formerly incarcerated persons and providing them with "second chances." Clause 40 Foundation also maintains a legal externship program in order to encourage the development of new legal scholars and litigators in this space, although the program did not host anyone in 2024 due to a lack of supervisory staff.
$11,135 spent59% of program spendingEvents: through programs, seminars, lectures, film screenings, book events, and continuing legal education (cle) events, the foundation provides education nationwide to academics, lawyers, advocates, journalists, and the general public at large with respect to a wide range of criminal law constitutional due process concerns. The goal of these efforts is to cultivate a better public knowledge and understanding of the procedural due process rights protected by the u.s. Constitution and to improve awareness of ways in which our criminal legal system could improve procedural fairness. In 2024, Clause 40 Foundation co-hosted "two views: an exploration of key cases from the supreme court's criminal law docket," a widely attended live cle event that featured two constitutional law experts discussing the most important criminal law cases before the court.
$6,442 spent34% of program spendingLitigation: Clause 40 Foundation directs and supports efforts to preserve procedural due process rights through litigation, particularly through the filing or funding of amicus or "friend of the court" legal briefs. This work furthers Clause 40 Foundation's charitable mission of defending human and civil rights secured by law--namely the procedural due process rights enshrined in the u.s. Constitution. This year the foundation filed in a case in which we argued that remote witness testimony cannot be squared with the sixth amendment's confrontation clause. It also filed in a case concerning the sufficiency of the factual allegations in a federal grand jury indictment.
$1,437 spent8% of program spendingHonoring due process rights: Clause 40 Foundation plans to honor the importance of due process rights through projects such as the awarding of a "due process torch" to individuals and organizations who have contributed in a meaningful way to the preservation of due process in the u.s. Criminal legal system. (the award was not awarded in 2024 due to a lack of funding and staff.)
$0 spent0% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $19,014.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 2021 to 2022, from $315k to $164k (−48%).
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: 2020 0% · 2023 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
95% of CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION’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. 4 of the last 5 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
Shana-Tara O'Toole
President and CEO
Board chair
Ross Garber
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 4 funders, grant income fell $260k → $70k.
3 of 6 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 56% 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 CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION’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
CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 50% of grant income and the top three 86%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
76% 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 CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 98% · 2021 91% · 2022 91% · 2023 43% — 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.
Where its funders are
56% of CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $228k that is directly attributable, 54% of it comes from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 3 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $285k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION's revenue fell 80% between 2020 and 2024.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,607 crime & legal nonprofits under $100k, FY2024
Organizations like CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION
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.
Public support
69%
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 CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION: 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 CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION?
- CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $512,580 to it, the largest being Donors Trust Inc ($255,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 6 organizations giving $512,580 in grants to CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION?
- Donors Trust Inc is the largest funder on record, with $255,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CLAUSE 40 FOUNDATION 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 2020–2024), and the filings of 6 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