Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION
PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,684,057 to it, the largest being LAURA AND JOHN ARNOLD FOUNDATION ($2,043,451). 30 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $12M
- Funders on record
- 51
- Grants received
- $7.7M
- Net assets
- $17M
What Public Justice Foundation does
Mission
Public justice takes on the biggest systematic threats to justice of our time-abusive corporate power and predatory practices, the assault on civil rights and liberties, and the destruction of the earth's sustainability. We connect high-impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to fight these abusive and discriminatory systems and win social and economic justice.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Access to justice - the access to justice project uses litigation, advocacy, and organizing to help people and workers harmed by corporate or governmental abuses by fighting against procedural and structural barriers that prevent them from seeking systemic change and vindicating their rights in transparent and publicly accountable forums. The project fights for workers and consumers against efforts to force their claims into arbitration, preserves public access to court records and discovery materials, combats narrow applications of article iii standing that keep individuals and organizations from pursuing justice in federal court, works to preserve the class-action device as it is often the only route to force structural change, dismantle immunity doctrines and other procedural barriers to make the civil justice system more accessible for incarcerated people and their families.
$1,938,694 spent34% of program spendingStudents' civil rights project - students' civil rights project combines high-impact litigation with other advocacy tools to combat harassment and other forms of discrimination in schools. We strive to create systemic change so all students can learn and thrive, and to secure justice for students who are denied educational opportunities based on their race, national origin, ethnicity, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
$1,340,591 spent23% of program spendingDebtors' prison project - the debtors' prison project is dedicated to fighting the criminalization of poverty nationwide at every stage of the criminal legal process: from arrest through the imposition and collection of fines and fees. Working with allies and impacted communities, we use strategic litigation, advocacy, and education to ensure no one is jailed simply because they can't pay and to stop governments and for-profit corporations from treating people impacted by the system as a revenue source to exploit.
$1,162,844 spent20% of program spendingCommunications - our communications work grows out of our legal work, focusing and amplifying our on-going efforts at changing unjust laws, doctrines, rules, and practices. We focus on changing public narratives that seek to preserve and justify social and economic injustice and use strategic communications campaigns to build relationships with communities and coalition partners, elevate our vision of a just and equitable society and advocate for structural change.
$747,147 spent13% of program spendingEnvironmental enforcement project - the environmental enforcement project goes to court to fight climate change, secure environmental justice, and make polluters pay. It utilizes the most powerful tools available to citizens by enforcing our nation's environmental laws in state and federal court, and holding polluters to account by requiring corporations to pay millions of dollars to fund projects that clean our land, air, and water.
$475,942 spent8% of program spendingOther programs
$75,354 spent1% of program spending
The 6 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $5,740,572.
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 2020 to 2021, from $13M to $18M (+31%).
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: 2021 5% · 2022 7%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
93% of PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (95% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 11 funders to 17 funders, grant income rose $255k → $997k.
13 of 51 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $3.0M from 6 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Silicon Valley Community Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION raised.
From the IRS filings of PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 51 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
PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 27% 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
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 39% · 2018 55% · 2019 28% · 2020 31% · 2021 44% · 2022 53% · 2023 44% — 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
44% of PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% 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
PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION draws 98% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 21 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.8M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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
PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 254 crime & legal nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 254 crime & legal nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Organizations like PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION
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 Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
62% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
88%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 29 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Public Justice PC · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION: 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 PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION?
- PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,684,057 to it, the largest being LAURA AND JOHN ARNOLD FOUNDATION ($2,043,451). 30 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 51 organizations giving $7,684,057 in grants to PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION, 30 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION?
- LAURA AND JOHN ARNOLD FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,043,451 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like PUBLIC JUSTICE FOUNDATION find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 51 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