Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 43 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,927,132 to it, the largest being Wallace H Coulter Trust ($650,900). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 43
- Grants received
- $2.9M
- Net assets
- $716k
What Sikh American Legal Defense & Education does
Mission
The mission of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund is to empower Sikh Americans through legal assistance, educational outreach, legislative advocacy, and media relations.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
During the year, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund worked to empower Sikh Americans through legal assistance, educational outreach, legislative advocacy, and media relations.
$1,005,067 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,005,067.
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 $369k to $638k (+73%).
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 1% · 2021 5% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of Sikh American Legal Defense & Education’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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.
Board chair
Ammandeep Singh Seehra
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 19 funders, grant income rose $43k → $698k.
12 of 43 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 39% 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 Sikh American Legal Defense & Education’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 43 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
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
67% 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 Sikh American Legal Defense & Education.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 35% · 2018 34% · 2019 85% · 2020 27% · 2021 28% · 2022 25% · 2023 36% — broadly stable.
“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
50% of Sikh American Legal Defense & Education's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% 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
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education draws 69% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 17 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.1M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education is better cushioned than half of the 479 civil rights nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 479 civil rights nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Sikh American Legal Defense & Education
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
76% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
87%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Sikh American Legal Defense & Education: 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 Sikh American Legal Defense & Education?
- Sikh American Legal Defense & Education (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 43 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,927,132 to it, the largest being Wallace H Coulter Trust ($650,900). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Sikh American Legal Defense & Education have?
- IRS filings report 43 organizations giving $2,927,132 in grants to Sikh American Legal Defense & Education, 25 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Sikh American Legal Defense & Education?
- Wallace H Coulter Trust is the largest funder on record, with $650,900 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Sikh American Legal Defense & Education 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.
Play a game about who funds Sikh American Legal Defense & Education →
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 43 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