California · Nonprofit
HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES
HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES (California) receives grants from 18 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,762,073 to it, the largest being CRANKSTART FOUNDATION ($1,200,000). 7 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.6M
- Funders on record
- 18
- Grants received
- $2.8M
- Net assets
- $1.3M
What Housing and Economic Rights Advocates does
Mission
HERA is a California statewide, not-for-profit legal service and advocacy organization dedicated to helping Californians - particularly those most vulnerable - build a safe, sound financial future, free of discrimination and economic abuses, in all aspects of household financial concerns. We provide free legal services, consumer workshops, training for professionals and community organizing support, create innovative solutions and engage in policy work locally, statewide and nationally.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
HERA is the only California statewide nonprofit law office dedicated to addressing mortgage lending, servicing, foreclosure, collections and credit problems in California, with most of our services provided in the Greater Northern California area, Central Valley area, with growing services in Southern California and with our office located in Oakland. We have a broad asset building/preservation and anti-discrimination mission. We are unusual in our combination of service strategies, engaging in 1 education of individual consumers and communities of vulnerable residents targeted for a wide variety of predatory practices not just housing related 2 legal services for individuals as well as class actions benefiting many hundreds, sometimes thousands of people at a time 3 trainings for attorneys, government staff, housing counselors, adult protective services and other professionals on how to identify and handle abuses directed towards consumers 4 research on the scope and impact of such abusive practices 5 technical assistance and support to professionals on their cases 6 community organizing on consumer issues and 7 policy work. HERA also addresses almost all other forms of household…
$3,160,842 spentof which $236,175 as grants100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $3,160,842.
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 $1.0M to $2.2M (+117%).
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 22% · 2018 24% · 2019 54% · 2020 65% · 2021 66% · 2022 64% · 2023 87% · 2024 70% · 2025 79%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
93% of HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as 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 9 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
Maeve Brown
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 5 funders to 3 funders, grant income rose $195k → $500k.
7 of 18 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 30% 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 HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES’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
HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES leans on a few funders — its largest provides 43% of grant income and the top three 65%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
51% 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 HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 58% · 2018 54% · 2019 49% · 2020 34% · 2021 56% · 2022 63% · 2023 60% — 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
29% of HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 39% 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
94% of HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $831k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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
HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES has grown faster than half of the 431 civil rights nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 431 civil rights nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $125k on record.
- Department of Housing and Urban Development$125k
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 HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES
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
88% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
93%
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 HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES: 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 HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES?
- HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES (California) receives grants from 18 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,762,073 to it, the largest being CRANKSTART FOUNDATION ($1,200,000). 7 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES have?
- IRS filings report 18 organizations giving $2,762,073 in grants to HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES, 7 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES?
- CRANKSTART FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,200,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS ADVOCATES 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.
Play a game about who funds Housing and Economic Rights Advocates →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 18 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