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Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit

DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER

DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,868,496 to it, the largest being THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR FOUNDATION ($5,951,383). 27 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2025
$6.4M
Funders on record
51
Grants received
$7.9M
Net assets
$8.4M
27/51 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 39%
01What it does

What DC Bar Pro Bono Center does

Mission

The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center provides free legal services through pro bono lawyers to low-income individuals, nonprofit organizations and small businesses primarily in the District of Columbia. The Pro Bono Center also recruits and trains lawyers and law firms to provide business and transactional legal services to community-based non-profit organizations and small, disadvantaged businesses.

As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.

Programs

  1. Legal Assistance for Low-Income Individuals: The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center recruits, trains, and supports volunteer lawyers who provide legal information, advice, and/or representation in housing, family law, public benefits, personal injury defense, bankruptcy, employment, immigration, future planning and probate, and consumer law matters. In FY25, the Center provided ongoing full representation to 259 new clients on civil legal matters. The Center also provided legal advice and referrals at community-based clinics where 764 individuals received legal assistance on a range of civil legal issues and an additional 465 individuals received assistance on immigration matters. Through the Landlord Tenant Legal Assistance Network, the Center conducted 3,379 intakes to be routed to network partners; and through the Family Law Assistance Network, the Center assisted 474 individuals in Superior Court domestic relations proceedings. Finally, the Center maintains Superior Court-based resource centers to serve pro se litigants in landlord-tenant matters. In FY25, these centers served 1,269 people.

    $1,146,805 spent$2,500 earned by the program
    23% of program spending
  2. Nonprofit and Small Business (NPSB) Legal Assistance Programs: The NPSB Programs provide brief legal advice, legal training, and match nonprofit organizations and small business owners with pro bono counsel to meet their transactional and business law needs. In FY25, NPSB matched 35 nonprofits with ongoing pro bono counsel and provided 413 nonprofits with one-on-one brief advice via legal clinics and weekly Office Hours consultations. NPSB additionally served 658 small business owners throughout the year via its small business brief advice legal clinics. Finally, NPSB provided legal training to 2,356 nonprofit and small business representatives, and to the volunteer attorneys that assist them, on relevant business law topics.

    $668,390 spent$13,800 earned by the program
    13% of program spending
  3. Online and Other Projects: In FY25, the Pro Bono Center provided digital services that included LawHelp.org/DC, a website that provides legal and referral information to the general public; the Legal Information Help Line, which provides recorded legal information 24 hours a day in multiple languages; and Probono.net/dc, a free online resource for pro bono lawyers and legal services attorneys with more than 12,000 registered users. In FY25, there were over 650,000 page views on LawHelp.org/DC and the Help Line answered 15,000 calls and emails.

    $655,521 spent$200 earned by the program
    13% of program spending
  4. Outreach Services: In FY25, the D.C. Pro Bono Center participated in training sessions for 635 volunteer attorneys to prepare them to undertake pro bono assignments from various District of Columbia legal services providers. The trainings covered a variety of practice areas including bankruptcy, family, landlord-tenant, client-centered lawyering, and public benefits law.

    $2,540,240 spent$27,560 earned by the program
    51% of program spending

The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $5,010,956.

02The organization over time

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.

100 = 20212021 Revenue 100 ($4.9M) Expenses 100 ($3.9M) Net assets 100 ($6.2M)2022 Revenue 87 ($4.2M) Expenses 94 ($3.7M) Net assets 101 ($6.3M)2023 Revenue 106 ($5.2M) Expenses 119 ($4.6M) Net assets 116 ($7.2M)2024 Revenue 114 ($5.6M) Expenses 141 ($5.5M) Net assets 126 ($7.8M)2025 Revenue 131 ($6.4M) Expenses 157 ($6.1M) Net assets 135 ($8.4M)
20212022202320242025
Revenue (131)Expenses (157)Net assets (135)

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 $9.3M to $10M (+9%).

$7.0M
$7.6M
$8.5M
$9.3M
$10M
20212022202320242025
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2021 13%. 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 5 reported years ran a deficit.

$992k
’21
$561k
’22
$526k
’23
$95k
’24
$254k
’25
0.3
months of
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

Kelli Neptune

Executive Director

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.

20212022202320242025
Listed2727272729
Joined·+6+9+4+9
No longer listed·6947
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 21 funders, grant income rose $54k → $1.8M.

14 of 51 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 10% 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 DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 51 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

DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER leans on a few funders — its largest provides 76% of grant income and the top three 82%; half comes from just 1 funder.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left

90% 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 DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER.

76%
largest funder
82%
top three
~2
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 30% · 2018 24% · 2019 77% · 2020 63% · 2021 61% · 2022 86% · 2023 83% — growing more concentrated.

“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

39% of DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 53% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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

91% of DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER's grant income comes from Washington, D.C. funders.

VT
MN
IL
NY
CT
CA
VA
MD
DE
NC
DC
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Washington, D.C. out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $821k arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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.

04Its place in the field

Organizations like DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER

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

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

82% of spending goes to programs.

Program 82%Management 13%Fundraising 5%

Governance

20
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

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 37 states

AK
ME
NH
WA
ND
MN
IL
WI
MI
NY
MA
OR
NV
OH
PA
NJ
CT
RI
CA
UT
CO
KY
WV
VA
MD
NM
KS
AR
TN
NC
SC
HI
OK
MS
AL
GA
FL

Part of a family of 1 related entity

  • District of Columbia Bar · exempt

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER: 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.

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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 DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER?
DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,868,496 to it, the largest being THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR FOUNDATION ($5,951,383). 27 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER have?
IRS filings report 51 organizations giving $7,868,496 in grants to DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER, 27 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER?
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $5,951,383 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like DC BAR PRO BONO CENTER 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.

Play a game about who funds DC Bar Pro Bono Center →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2021–2025), and the filings of 51 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