Tennessee · Nonprofit
LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS
LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS (Tennessee) receives grants from 37 organizations whose IRS filings report $34,819,218 to it, the largest being LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION ($26,075,609). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $15M
- Funders on record
- 37
- Grants received
- $35M
- Net assets
- $8.8M
What Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands does
Mission
To enforce, advance and defend the civil legal rights of low income and vulnerable people, especially on behalf of elderly, children, victims of domestic violence and persons with disabilities, by providing free, civil legal assistance to help obtain for them the basic necessities of life, including food, shelter, safety and healthcare.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
The legal aid society gives free legal aid to people who have nowhere else to turn. It provides direct legal assistance, self-help brochures and advice to individual clients and legal education to groups and the public. Its fundamental mission is to provide safety and stability to families and children. It helps them by preventing and ending domestic violence; obtaining income (from public benefits such as social security, food stamps and welfare and employment compensation); resolving income tax disputes; obtaining health insurance and health services; resolving consumer disputes; gaining and protecting housing, and assuring appropriate education and other services for children. In 2024, legal aid handled 7,143 cases. Volunteer attorneys working through legal aid society volunteer lawyers program handled an additional 1,191 cases. An additional 59 cases were handled through our contract attorney program (cap). Donated legal services for 2024 total $1,210,688.
$11,275,879 spent$7,248 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $11,275,879.
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.
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 $8.5M to $12M (+42%).
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 77% · 2018 77% · 2019 83% · 2020 80% · 2021 84% · 2022 81% · 2023 84% · 2024 78%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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.
Chief executive
Darkenya Waller
Executive director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 11 funders to 19 funders, grant income rose $655k → $5.5M.
8 of 37 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 2% 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 AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 37 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 AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 75% of grant income and the top three 88%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
98% 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 AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 56% · 2018 83% · 2019 86% · 2020 86% · 2021 89% · 2022 84% · 2023 82% — 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
68% of LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 70% 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
LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS draws 78% of its grant income from funders outside Tennessee, across 6 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $737k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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.
Government funding LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.1M on record.
- Department of the Treasury$1.4M
- Department of Justice$684k
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 AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS
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 Tennessee
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
82% 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 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS: 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 AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS?
- LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS (Tennessee) receives grants from 37 organizations whose IRS filings report $34,819,218 to it, the largest being LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION ($26,075,609). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS have?
- IRS filings report 37 organizations giving $34,819,218 in grants to LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS, 26 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS?
- LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION is the largest funder on record, with $26,075,609 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Tennessee. 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 Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands →
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 37 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