California · Nonprofit
Freedom for Immigrants
Freedom for Immigrants (California) receives grants from 90 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,327,235 to it, the largest being THE CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT ($1,240,000). 42 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.2M
- Funders on record
- 90
- Grants received
- $7.3M
- Net assets
- $1.0M
What Freedom for Immigrants does
Mission
Freedom for Immigrants is an abolitionist organization that envisions a world without prisons or cages of any kind. We work to abolish immigration incarceration, recognizing we are part of a broader movement fighting for our freedom at the intersection of mass incarceration, immigration enforcement, and the deprivation of Black, brown, and Indigenous peoples autonomy. To empower our communities, we organize alongside and follow the leadership of currently and formerly incarcerated immigrants. We recognize our work is necessarily tied to broader efforts to eradicate white supremacy and the systems that sustain oppression. By cultivating the community-centered solutions that breathe life into our collective liberation, we actively build a future in which all people can move freely and thrive.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
COMMUNITY BASED STRATEGIES FOR DECARCERATION: OUR COMMUNITY-BASED PROGRAMMING WORKS TO LIBERATE PEOPLE FROM IMMIGRATION DETENTION AND ENSURES PEOPLE LIVE WITH DIGNITY IN THEIR COMMUNITIES WHILE AWAITING THEIR IMMIGRATION CASES. Though we sunset our immigration bond fund, we continue to process returned bonds and redistribute funds to individuals and organizations. We developed a new initiative inside Californias womens prisons working at the intersection of immigration and criminal injustice, by extending our external hotline to people in prison at risk of transfer to immigrant detention. This program results in critical know-your-rights information sharing, self-advocacy, and family reunification upon release. We also continue to participate in in-person activities with these prisons including resource fairs and legal clinics
$287,488 spent43% of program spendingMonitoring & Resource Mobilization: WE MONITOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND OVERALL CONDITIONS INSIDE IMMIGRATION DETENTION AS PART OF A BROADER STRATEGY TO AMPLIFY THE VOICES, EXPERIENCES, AND LEADERSHIP OF PEOPLE INSIDE DETENTION THROUGH INTEGRATED ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNS. Receiving approximately 13,000 calls this year, ours is the nation's largest immigration detention hotline, connecting people inside detention to a team of trained hotline volunteers that provide immediate support, record their personal testimonies, and build solidarity for abolition. This year we began expanding our capacity to connect people inside detention centers with the critical resources they need to navigate their time in detention and legal cases. These resources include legal information packets, medical one-pagers to support physical and mental health, financial resources, and other assistance such as moral and emotional support.
$216,205 spent33% of program spendingPOLICY ADVOCACY & NARRATIVE CHANGE: This past year, we advanced our mission of abolition through narrative change projects and strategic media campaigns. Our communications work empowers incarcerated leaders and their allies to challenge injustice through storytelling. In FY25, FFI landed 344 print and digital media hits in national and local outlets across the country, accumulating a monthly average of 15.68 million impressions and a total of 13,477 engagements on social media. FFI also contributed to major investigations on immigration detention from outlets including The Washington Post, WIRED Magazine, and CNN. We also published several opinion pieces, shifting the narrative on topics like private prisons cashing in on detention, Guantnamo Bay being used to detain immigrants, and the toxic rhetoric around the border. These editorial pieces presented our vision for justice, while building awareness, resistance, and long-term popular support among the general public for abolition. Lastly, we began work to revitalize IMMPrint an abolitionist publication written by and for people impacted by immigration incarceration.
$160,654 spent24% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $664,347.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 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 2018 to 2019, from $540k to $2.5M (+369%).
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: 2022 8%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
98% of Freedom for Immigrants’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
Ebony Ross
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 24 funders, grant income rose $35k → $644k.
24 of 90 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 Freedom for Immigrants’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 90 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
Freedom for Immigrants has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
29% 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 Freedom for Immigrants.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 86% · 2018 46% · 2019 30% · 2020 17% · 2021 20% · 2022 23% · 2023 31% — 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 Freedom for Immigrants's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 47% 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
51% of Freedom for Immigrants's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.6M 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.
Against its field
Freedom for Immigrants runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 479 civil rights nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 479 civil rights nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Freedom for Immigrants
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
43% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Freedom for Immigrants: 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 Freedom for Immigrants?
- Freedom for Immigrants (California) receives grants from 90 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,327,235 to it, the largest being THE CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT ($1,240,000). 42 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Freedom for Immigrants have?
- IRS filings report 90 organizations giving $7,327,235 in grants to Freedom for Immigrants, 42 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Freedom for Immigrants?
- THE CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT is the largest funder on record, with $1,240,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Freedom for Immigrants 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 2018–2025), and the filings of 90 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