Oregon · Nonprofit
THE COMMONS LAW CENTER
THE COMMONS LAW CENTER (Oregon) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $576,360 to it, the largest being OREGON CONSUMER JUSTICE ($300,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 16
- Grants received
- $576k
- Net assets
- $-56385
What The Commons Law Center does
Mission
Our mission is to provide legal help for everyday people - because no one should be denied the right to timely and affordable access to justice.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
In 2024 The Commons Law Center secured funding with multnomah county. We expanded our staff to include two paralegals and four attorneys who have helped prevent and mitigate the worst effects of eviction for 1,384 households, more than double the number of clients served in 2023.
$322,405 spent$631,684 earned by the program40% of program spendingThis year our estate planning and probate team has grown significantly. Riley and ekua were joined by three sppe candidates: alex, casey and courtney. This dream team has helped 45 individuals and couples create their estate plans and guided 28 families through probate. We are in the process of producing 75 more estate plans and managing 90+ probate cases. With the expansion from north portland to all of portland, our attorney ekua hackman helped 33 families with estate planning and probate, a 57% increase from 2023.
$312,590 spent$216,530 earned by the program39% of program spendingOur expert family law attorneys helped guide clients through their cases with 398 coaching calls. We brought on jeffrey matthews, j.d. With 40 years of family law experience to mentor our attorneys and coach our clients. We developed a family law 101 series on youtube to help self-represented litigants make sense of the legal process and navigate their cases with confidence. The oregon community foundation and the district court attorney admission fund are funding legal services for rose haven community members, focusing specifically on domestic violence and family law help, name & gender changes and powers of attorney & advance directives.
$168,584 spent$99,833 earned by the program21% of program spendingThanks to the generosity of our community we raised $31,504, exceeding our initial goal of $20,000. With this support, the commons is building out a business law program, expanding eviction defense services to the east county courthouse, further developing partnerships with community organizations and supporting our legal service practitioners as they guide their clients through their family law, estate planning, probate, business law and tenant law issues.
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $803,579.
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 $136k to $521k (+283%).
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 4% · 2024 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
9% of THE COMMONS LAW CENTER’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 5 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.
Chief executive
Kamron Graham
Executive director
Board chair
John Grant
Board president
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 7 funders, grant income rose $25k → $77k.
4 of 16 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 17% 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 THE COMMONS LAW CENTER’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
THE COMMONS LAW CENTER leans on a few funders — its largest provides 52% of grant income and the top three 77%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
88% 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 THE COMMONS LAW CENTER.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 100% · 2020 100% · 2021 86% · 2022 83% · 2023 52% — 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
25% of THE COMMONS LAW CENTER's funders are still giving 2 years after their first grant; 31% 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
83% of THE COMMONS LAW CENTER's grant income comes from Oregon funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $98k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
THE COMMONS LAW CENTER has grown faster than three-quarters of the 11,761 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,761 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like THE COMMONS LAW CENTER
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 Oregon
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
71% 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 THE COMMONS LAW CENTER: 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 THE COMMONS LAW CENTER?
- THE COMMONS LAW CENTER (Oregon) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $576,360 to it, the largest being OREGON CONSUMER JUSTICE ($300,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THE COMMONS LAW CENTER have?
- IRS filings report 16 organizations giving $576,360 in grants to THE COMMONS LAW CENTER, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE COMMONS LAW CENTER?
- OREGON CONSUMER JUSTICE is the largest funder on record, with $300,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE COMMONS LAW CENTER find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Oregon. 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 Commons Law Center →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2020–2024), and the filings of 16 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