California · Nonprofit
MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC
MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC (California) receives grants from 50 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,990,762 to it, the largest being Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County ($2,229,570). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.3M
- Funders on record
- 50
- Grants received
- $7.0M
- Net assets
- $3.1M
What Mental Health Advocacy Services Inc does
Mission
The mission of Mental Health Advocacy Services (MHAS) is to protect and advance the legal rights of low-income adults and children with mental health disabilities and empower them to assert those rights in order to maximize their autonomy, achieve equity, and secure the resources they need to thrive.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Homelessness Prevention Projects - MHAS provides legal assistance to low-income tenants with mental health disabilities at risk of homelessness, including assistance in landlord-tenant rental disputes, pre-eviction legal services, advocacy to obtain reasonable accommodations, legal services to improve habitability and to ensure receipt of eligible income or benefits to improve housing stability, and renter education. MHAS is a key member of the Stay Housed LA coalition, a partnership between the County of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles, and local community and legal services organizations that provides tenants with the information and support needed to exercise their rights so that they can remain safely in their homes. Through its participation in this partnership, MHAS provides individualized advice and counsel on fair housing and tenancy rights to clients with mental health disabilities, as well as direct representation on behalf of these clients in conflicts with landlords, housing authorities, and non-profit housing and service providers. MHAS also provides technical assistance and training to other members of the Stay Housed LA Coalition on the rights and…
$521,354 spent19% of program spendingMedical-Legal Community Partnership - MHAS is a key partner in Los Angeles County's Medical-Legal Community Partnership ("MLCP"), a project previously administered by the Department of Health Services and currently administered by the Department of Mental Health. Through the MLCP partnership, MHAS and other legal aid organizations assist participants with legal issues to ensure that they have the resources and support needed to achieve better health outcomes and overall well-being. Since the project began in 2018, MHAS has helped thousands of participants on legal matters in the areas of housing, public benefits, and discrimination; provided a series of trainings on legal issues pertinent to healthcare workers; and guided hundreds of clinical staff with legal technical assistance. In 2025, MHAS provided legal and technical assistance to 649 clients through this project.
$513,797 spent$160,000 earned by the program19% of program spendingMental Health Court Self-Help Clinic - In 2022, MHAS launched a self-help legal clinic in partnership with the Mental Health Court targeting individuals with mental health disabilities. The Clinic provided Court-approved information and resources about Mental Health Court proceedings to litigants and other members of the public who are not currently in custody. The Clinic also offered information and brief services on a range of ancillary civil legal issues with a goal of helping litigants achieve greater overall stability, thus allowing them to move through their proceedings at Mental Health Court with greater efficiency and success, and with less likelihood of returning. This included helping litigants secure and maintain housing, helping litigants access SSI or other benefits to which they may be legally entitled, and assisting litigants with obtaining - or having reinstated - their Driver's License or California ID, among other civil, legal needs. In 2025, MHAS provided information and technical assistance to 360 individuals.
$229,037 spent8% of program spendingOther program services in 2025 included: (1) Addressing Barriers to Reentry - Project RAFT (Reentry Advocacy for a Fresh Tomorrow) is a program designed to give a fresh start to formerly incarcerated individuals who reside in Los Angeles County and who have mental health disabilities. MHAS helps clients overcome barriers to reentry by providing legal services and advocacy in the areas of expungement, employment, housing, benefits, and traffic ticket advocacy. The project also partners with community health care and mental health care providers to host expungement eligibility screening clinics and provide linkages to medical and mental health care. The project's services lead to reduced recidivism, improved mental health outcomes, increased employment opportunities, and overall social stability for this highly vulnerable population. (2) CARE Court Advocacy - From 2023 to 2025, MHAS hosted a Skadden Fellowship project focused on providing civil legal services to litigants in Los Angeles County's Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court. CARE Court is a new court system that allows a court to order behavioral health treatment for people with severe mental health…
$1,501,224 spent$18,492 earned by the program54% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,765,412.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 2023 to 2024, from $1.7M to $3.3M (+98%).
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: 2020 37% · 2021 59% · 2022 65% · 2023 67% · 2024 37% · 2025 44%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
93% of MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (51% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 6 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $66k → $1.1M.
8 of 50 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 37% 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 MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 50 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
MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 32% of grant income and the top three 74%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
89% 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 MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 51% · 2018 52% · 2019 64% · 2020 63% · 2021 57% · 2022 45% · 2023 46% — 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
34% of MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
88% of MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.6M arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 5,002 health nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,002 health nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.0M on record.
- Department of Housing and Urban Development$1.0M
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 MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES 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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
89% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
62%
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 MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES 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 MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC?
- MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC (California) receives grants from 50 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,990,762 to it, the largest being Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County ($2,229,570). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC have?
- IRS filings report 50 organizations giving $6,990,762 in grants to MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC, 25 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC?
- Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County is the largest funder on record, with $2,229,570 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY SERVICES INC 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 Mental Health Advocacy Services →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2020–2025), and the filings of 50 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