Massachusetts · Nonprofit
MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS
MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS (Massachusetts) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,537,079 to it, the largest being MASSACHUSETTS LEGAL ASSISTANCE CORP ($4,354,441). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $5.3M
- Funders on record
- 21
- Grants received
- $6.5M
- Net assets
- $2.7M
What Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services Inc Dba Prisoners' Legal Svcs does
Mission
Our mission is to challenge the carceral system through litigation, advocacy, client counseling, partnership with impacted individuals and communities, and outreach to policymakers and the public in order to promote the human rights of incarcerated persons and end harmful confinement.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Pls's three largest general areas of work are our intake process, which brings in new client concerns from prisoners held in massachusetts correctional institutions; our litigation work, which challenges harmful confinement through the court system, and our public policy and education work, that seeks to improve conditions for prisoners across the commonwealth by changing legislation or through awareness raising with communities. In fiscal year 2025, the intake team recorded several thousand intakes from clients held in the massachusetts department of correction and the county sheriffs' offices, and provided individual advocacy in many of those cases as well, writing advocacy letters or submitting materials on behalf of our clients. The litigation team was involved in ten class action impact lawsuits against the doc or various county sheriffs offices, as well as two medical parole cases and one monitoring case where we continued to oversee compliance of an earlier court judgement. Our policy team advocated for changes to law in 10 different areas and provided expert testimony, guidance, and support to lawmakers and state agency officials considering those topics areas, including…
$3,935,465 spent$694,357 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $3,935,465.
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 2022 to 2023, from $2.8M to $3.4M (+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 72% · 2018 75% · 2019 69% · 2020 70% · 2021 75% · 2022 64% · 2023 65% · 2024 62% · 2025 60%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2018 and FY2019 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 12 funders, grant income rose $345k → $1.1M.
8 of 21 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 5% 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 MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS’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
MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 67% of grant income and the top three 84%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
96% 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 MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 58% · 2018 61% · 2019 65% · 2020 62% · 2021 54% · 2022 56% · 2023 70% — 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
55% of MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
98% of MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS's grant income comes from Massachusetts funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $337k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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.
Organizations like MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS
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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
83% 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 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS: 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 MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS?
- MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS (Massachusetts) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,537,079 to it, the largest being MASSACHUSETTS LEGAL ASSISTANCE CORP ($4,354,441). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS have?
- IRS filings report 21 organizations giving $6,537,079 in grants to MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS, 14 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS?
- MASSACHUSETTS LEGAL ASSISTANCE CORP is the largest funder on record, with $4,354,441 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like MASSACHUSETTS CORRECTIONAL LEGAL SERVICES INC DBA PRISONERS' LEGAL SVCS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 2017–2025), and the filings of 21 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