Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
Environmental Law Institute
Environmental Law Institute (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 75 organizations whose IRS filings report $15,531,639 to it, the largest being FREEDOM TOGETHER FOUNDATION ($3,000,000). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $7.2M
- Funders on record
- 75
- Grants received
- $16M
- Net assets
- $5.7M
What Environmental Law Institute does
Mission
To advance effective law and governance systems for environmental protection by providing information, publications, training courses, seminars, research and policy recommendations in a manner that engages and empowers leaders and practitioners to advance environmental rule of law. ELI's audience includes environmental professionals in government, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, affected communities, academia, and others.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Research and Policy Division:Provided research, education, training, and technical assistance in environmental law and policy to all sectors in the U.S. and numerous foreign countries. Research programs in 2024 covered a breadth of environmental law and policy topics, including assessing state wetlands programs, fisheries management in the Caribbean, and reducing and preventing food waste. ELI works at all jurisdictional scales, from local to international. Research initiatives included assessing hazard mitigation planning, examining the effects of recent Supreme Court decisions on environmental regulation and the regulatory environment, tabulating U.S. authorities to address plastic pollution, and more. We also continued myriad longstanding initiatives, such as those on water management, indoor air quality, environmental peacebuilding, judicial education, the Local Government Environmental Assistance Network, and the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, among others. Our ongoing programs also continued to provide guidance, education, and recognition to environmental professionals nationwide such as through the Environmental Law and Policy Annual…
$4,374,343 spent65% of program spendingAssociates & Education Division: Led 80 events, including conferences, webinars, policy forums, networking receptions, topical conference calls, Eastern and Western Boot Camps on Environmental Law, Summer School seminars, annual Supreme Court preview and review, public seminars and more, for 32,502 environmental professionals (virtually and in person). Topics of discussion ranged, including administrative law, agriculture, careers in environmental law, coastal issues, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, climate change, climate disclosures, compliance and enforcement, the Endangered Species Act, energy law, environmental justice, environmental rule of law, ESG, federal regulatory and legislative environmental updates, international environmental law, model ordinances and municipal policies, the National Environmental Policy Act, PFAS, plastics, products regulation, RCRA, state environmental law updates, Supreme Court cases, technology and infrastructure, TSCA, and more. For a fuller description of our programs, please refer to our annual report which can be found at www.eli.org.
$874,680 spent$557,023 earned by the program13% of program spendingPublications Division:Provided timely, accurate, and practical information to environmental professionals through two nationally recognized publications, the Environmental Law Reporter and the Environmental Forum. The Environmental Law Reporter draws premier authors on current legal events, and the Environmental Forum continues to provide award-winning coverage of the environmental profession and environmental policy. In addition, ELI Press advanced the field by publishing two books: MUD LAKE and ADAPTING TO HIGH-LEVEL WARMING: LAW, GOVERNANCE, AND EQUITY.For a fuller description of our programs, please refer to our annual report, which can be found at www.eli.org.
$635,088 spent$176,701 earned by the program9% of program spendingOther programs
$873,317 spentof which $21,692 as grants$959,737 earned by the program13% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $6,757,428.
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 2021 to 2022, from $12M to $15M (+22%).
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 26% · 2018 19% · 2019 22% · 2020 23% · 2021 19% · 2022 30% · 2023 21% · 2024 13%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
73% of Environmental Law Institute’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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.
Board chair
Robert C Kirsch
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 24 funders, grant income rose $549k → $2.0M.
17 of 75 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 21% 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 Environmental Law Institute’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 75 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
Environmental Law Institute has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
33% 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 Environmental Law Institute.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 52% · 2018 39% · 2019 18% · 2020 39% · 2021 50% · 2022 31% · 2023 22% — 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
27% of Environmental Law Institute's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 52% 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
Environmental Law Institute draws 96% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 19 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.3M arriving through sponsors registered in 12 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
Environmental Law Institute's funding base is broadening — from 9 funders to 24 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,186 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding Environmental Law Institute receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $8.1M on record — $8.0M federal, $95k state.
- Environmental Protection Agency$5.9M
- National Science Foundation$664k
- Department of State$390k
- Department of Justice$320k
- Department of Agriculture$295k
- United States Institute of Peace$282k
- OR$54k
- NJ$36k
- MA$4k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like Environmental Law Institute
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.
Where the money goes
76% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
92%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 31 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Environmental Law Institute: 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 Environmental Law Institute?
- Environmental Law Institute (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 75 organizations whose IRS filings report $15,531,639 to it, the largest being FREEDOM TOGETHER FOUNDATION ($3,000,000). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Environmental Law Institute have?
- IRS filings report 75 organizations giving $15,531,639 in grants to Environmental Law Institute, 39 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Environmental Law Institute?
- FREEDOM TOGETHER FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $3,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Environmental Law Institute 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 Environmental Law Institute →
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 75 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