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California · Nonprofit
Pacific Legal Foundation (California) is funded by 286 grantmakers whose IRS filings report $54,094,947 in grants to it, the largest being Donors Trust Inc ($6,340,486). 224 of them have funded it in more than one year.
Against its field
Pacific Legal Foundation runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 210 crime & legal nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 210 crime & legal nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Revenue, expenses and net assets — each indexed to 100 at its first filing year, so you read the trajectory, not the magnitude. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
The funding model — what share of revenue comes from contributions, programs, investments and other sources — and whether it's shifting.
92% of Pacific Legal Foundation’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (96% for the typical peer).
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 7 reported years ran a deficit.
$806k from 20 funders in 2025, up from $1.3M and 65 in 2017.
33 of 286 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 33% 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 Pacific Legal Foundation’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 286 funders by total. Association, not causation.
Pacific Legal Foundation has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 12% of grant income, and it takes 11 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 11 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 21% · 2018 13% · 2019 25% · 2020 17% · 2021 10% · 2022 11% · 2023 24% · 2024 28% · 2025 62% — growing more concentrated.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration.
54% of Pacific Legal Foundation's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 78% 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.
Pacific Legal Foundation draws 70% of its grant income from funders outside California — its reputation reaches beyond the state, across 35 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 286 funders put you typical among the 400 organizations that share them.
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $64k on record.
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.
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
81% of spending goes to programs.
83%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Operates in 40 states
Every figure is 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 286funders 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. view filing