Pennsylvania · Nonprofit
WITNESS TO INNOCENCE
WITNESS TO INNOCENCE (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,169,241 to it, the largest being TIDES CENTER ($16,140,627). 11 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 96% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $473k
- Funders on record
- 21
- Grants received
- $17M
- Net assets
- $13k
What Witness to Innocence does
Mission
Through public education, direct action, legislative and media work, our members challenge the american public to grapple with the reality of a fatally flawed criminal justice system that sends innocent people to death row. Wti also seeks ways to support death row survivors.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Through a national speakers bureau and nationwide media campaign, wti conducts public education about the criminal justice system, the death penalty policy, and the powerful personal impact of wrongful capital convictions on the lives of exonerated death row survivors.
$376,308 spent$8,977 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $376,308.
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 2019 to 2020, from $128k to $468k (+265%).
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 53% · 2018 49% · 2019 49% · 2020 48% · 2021 8% · 2023 97% · 2024 34% · 2025 18%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
89% of WITNESS TO INNOCENCE’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (94% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 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.
Chief executive
Herman Lindsey
Executive director
Board chair
Kwame Ajamu
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2017 and FY2018, and between the FY2018 and FY2019, and between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 10 funders, grant income rose $5k → $16M.
10 of 21 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 96% 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 WITNESS TO INNOCENCE’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
WITNESS TO INNOCENCE leans on a few funders — its largest provides 94% of grant income and the top three 97%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
96% 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 WITNESS TO INNOCENCE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 95% · 2018 99% · 2019 51% · 2020 53% · 2021 49% · 2022 49% · 2023 98% — 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
18% of WITNESS TO INNOCENCE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 52% 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
96% of WITNESS TO INNOCENCE'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 $668k that is directly attributable, 76% of it comes from funders outside Pennsylvania, across 7 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $17M arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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
WITNESS TO INNOCENCE's revenue fell 29% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,547 crime & legal nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like WITNESS TO INNOCENCE
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 Pennsylvania
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
49% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WITNESS TO INNOCENCE: 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 WITNESS TO INNOCENCE?
- WITNESS TO INNOCENCE (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,169,241 to it, the largest being TIDES CENTER ($16,140,627). 11 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 96% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does WITNESS TO INNOCENCE have?
- IRS filings report 21 organizations giving $17,169,241 in grants to WITNESS TO INNOCENCE, 11 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WITNESS TO INNOCENCE?
- TIDES CENTER is the largest funder on record, with $16,140,627 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WITNESS TO INNOCENCE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Pennsylvania. 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 FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 21 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