New York · Nonprofit
LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC
LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC (New York) receives grants from 76 organizations whose IRS filings report $24,279,926 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($8,226,000). 47 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.5M
- Funders on record
- 76
- Grants received
- $24M
- Net assets
- $12M
What Legal Action Center of the City of New York Inc does
Mission
The legal action center (lac) uses legal policy strategies to fight discrimination, build health equity, and restore opportunity for people with arrest and conviction records, substance use disorders, and hiv or aids.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Lac - legalsince our founding in 1973, we have helped tens of thousands of new yorkers overcome legal barriers to accessing jobs, housing, healthcare, government benefits, and other services critical to their becoming productive members of society, maintaining their dignity, and getting and staying healthy. In 2024-2025 fiscal year alone, lac helped 869 new yorkers resolve 1,770 civil legal cases. These cases concerned three primary issues: 808 clients had legal problems related to a conviction record, 37 had legal problems related to substance use disorder (that usually led to a conviction record), and 24 had legal problems related to hiv/aids. Among other valuable services, we help individuals obtain employment, housing and benefits despite past criminal convictions or substance use disorders through a comprehensive range of civil legal services, including assisting our clients to obtain and clean up their new york state rap sheets, seek and obtain certificates of good conduct or relief from disabilities that are often essential to finding jobs or acquiring professional licenses, prepare and file employment discrimination complaints with the new york state human rights division,…
$2,710,399 spent$22,310 earned by the program41% of program spendingLac - policylac's policy initiatives promote laws, regulations, policies, and programming that increase work, housing, education, and health care access for people with conviction records, who use drugs and/or have substance use and mental health disorders, and people with hiv or aids. We focus on 1) shifting criminal legal policy priorities from incarceration and punishment to harm reduction, treatment and rehabilitation; 2) eliminating employment, education, housing, insurance, and health care discrimination against our constituencies; and 3) dramatically expanding access to substance use, hiv/aids and mental health prevention, harm reduction, treatment, recovery and rehabilitation, including in the criminal legal system. Integral to these priorities is a focus on dismantling the historic and persistent impact of systemic racism that has fueled mass incarceration and disparate community health systems. We pursue these goals at local, state, and federal levels. Lac's policy achievements over the last quarter century include: helping secure strong coverage of addiction and mental health care in the affordable care act. Orchestrating advocacy campaigns that helped over two dozen…
$2,253,061 spent$3,750 earned by the program34% of program spendingAll other programs that allow (lac) to fight discrimination, build health equity, and restore opportunity for people with arrest and conviction records, substance use disorders, and hiv or aids.
$1,700,647 spent$2,000 earned by the program26% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $6,664,107.
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 $6.6M to $15M (+122%).
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 38% · 2018 28% · 2019 25% · 2020 30% · 2021 32% · 2022 18% · 2023 33% · 2024 41% · 2025 45%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
92% of LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (93% 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.
Board chair
Brad S Karp
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 13 funders to 27 funders, grant income rose $468k → $2.2M.
17 of 76 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 50% 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 LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 76 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
LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 34% 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
65% 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 LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 51% · 2018 37% · 2019 26% · 2020 28% · 2021 20% · 2022 69% · 2023 14% — 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
45% of LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
68% of LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC's grant income comes from New York funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $12M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 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
LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC's funding base is broadening — from 13 funders to 27 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 852 crime & legal nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $203k on record — $174k federal, $29k state.
- Department of Health and Human Services$149k
- Department of State$25k
- SUBSCRIPTIONS AND PUBLICATIONS$24k
- OTHER SPECIAL PAYMENTS$5k
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 LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC
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 New York
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
74% 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 LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC: 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 LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC?
- LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC (New York) receives grants from 76 organizations whose IRS filings report $24,279,926 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($8,226,000). 47 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC have?
- IRS filings report 76 organizations giving $24,279,926 in grants to LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC, 47 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC?
- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $8,226,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LEGAL ACTION CENTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 Legal Action Center of the City of New York →
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 76 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