New York · Nonprofit
Office of the Appellate Defender
Office of the Appellate Defender (New York) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $376,559 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY MIAMI INC ($117,430). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 67% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.9M
- Funders on record
- 17
- Grants received
- $377k
- Net assets
- $6.0M
What Office of the Appellate Defender does
Mission
Oad strives to ensure that poor people convicted of felonies receive full and equal access to justice by providing exceptional appellate representation, improving the quality of indigent defense representation through education & training, and advocating for systemic reform of nyc's criminal justice system.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The Office of the Appellate Defender (oad) is one of new york city's oldest providers of appellate representation to poor people convicted of felonies, and the city's second oldest institutional indigent defense office. Since its founding in 1988, oad has held a unique position in the field of indigent appellate defense: it not only provides superb appellate advocacy, it is also a leader in innovative, holistic, and client-centered representation. Supervision of an oad supervisor, and oad client on appeal. The second component of the clinic is a weekly seminar on appellate advocacy. In fy 2018, 8 students participated in the nyu program. Oad is devoted to maintaining and training a staff of lawyers with dverse backgrounds and experiences. The office attracts some of the most outstanding young lawyers in the nation and every oad staff member shares a profound commitment to defending the underdog and to public service. Many of oad's staff attorneys have clerked for prominent judges in the federal or state courts. Oad also employs distinguished law graduates straight out of law school and lawyers with non-judicial post-graduate experience.
$5,386,945 spent$20,000 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $5,386,945.
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 2022 to 2023, from $5.0M to $7.2M (+43%).
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 2% · 2018 3% · 2020 0% · 2021 88% · 2022 87% · 2023 90% · 2024 91% · 2025 91%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of Office of the Appellate Defender’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (93% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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.
Board chair
Nicolas Bourtin
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 4 funders, grant income rose $12k → $50k.
8 of 17 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 67% 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 Office of the Appellate Defender’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
Office of the Appellate Defender has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 31% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
74% 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 Office of the Appellate Defender.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 38% · 2019 40% · 2020 45% · 2021 30% · 2022 35% · 2023 50% — 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
20% of Office of the Appellate Defender's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 35% 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
67% of Office of the Appellate Defender's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $124k that is directly attributable, 63% of it comes from funders outside New York, across 4 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $252k 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
Office of the Appellate Defender runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 793 crime & legal nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 793 crime & legal nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding Office of the Appellate Defender receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $82 on record.
- (HH) CONSULTANT SVCS (TO DEPTS)$82
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 Office of the Appellate Defender
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
85% 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 Office of the Appellate Defender: 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 Office of the Appellate Defender?
- Office of the Appellate Defender (New York) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $376,559 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY MIAMI INC ($117,430). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 67% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Office of the Appellate Defender have?
- IRS filings report 17 organizations giving $376,559 in grants to Office of the Appellate Defender, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Office of the Appellate Defender?
- UNITED WAY MIAMI INC is the largest funder on record, with $117,430 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Office of the Appellate Defender 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 Office of the Appellate Defender →
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 17 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