American Bar Association
Chicago, IL · EIN 36-0723150. Reported 149 grants totalling $4,024,493 to 46 organizations across tax years 2020-2023, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 46 distinct organizations, with 71% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is concentrated. Most of the money has a settled destination, and the remainder is what is realistically in play.
- How much its list changes. 88% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $6,000. Half of what it reported fell between $6,000 and $7,600; the smallest was $4,100 and the largest $1,947,769. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education | Chicago, IL | $2,855,769 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| University of South Carolina | Columbia, SC | $240,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Attorney General of Texas | Austin, TX | $27,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Office of the Ag Illinois | Springfield, IL | $27,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| South Carolina Attorney General | Columbia, SC | $27,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| West Virginia Ag's Office | Charleston, WV | $27,525 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of South Dakota | Pierre, SD | $27,144 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Commonwealth of Virginia Ofc Ag | Richmond, VA | $26,617 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Arizona Attorney General's Office | Phoenix, AZ | $26,074 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Nebraska Dept of Justice | Lincoln, NE | $26,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| New York State Dept of Law | New York, NY | $26,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Wyoming Ofc of Ag | Cheyenne, WY | $26,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| National Association of Attorneys General | Washington, DC | $25,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Arkansas Ofc of Ag | Little Rock, AR | $25,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Delaware | Wilmington, DE | $25,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Indiana Office of Ag | Indianapolis, IN | $25,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Nevada Office of Ag | Carson City, NV | $25,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of New Jersey Ofc of Ag | Newark, NJ | $25,600 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Wisconsin Dept of Justice | Madison, WI | $25,182 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Connecticut Dept of Consumer Protection | Hartford, CT | $24,956 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Mississippi Ag's Office | Jackson, MS | $24,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| New Mexico Attorney Generals Office | Albuquerque, NM | $24,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Kansas Atty General | Topeka, KS | $24,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Maryland Ofc of Ag | Baltimore, MD | $24,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Minnesota | St Paul, MN | $24,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State of Hawaii Dept Com & Consumer Aff | Honolulu, HI | $22,640 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| District of Columbia Govt | Washington, DC | $22,323 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Commonwealth of Massachusetts | Boston, MA | $21,600 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Office of the Ag Tennessee | Nashville, TN | $21,600 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| State of Vermont Ofc of Ag | Montpelier, VT | $21,600 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Georgia Department of Law | Atlanta, GA | $20,292 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Ofc of the Ag-Dept of Legal Aff | Tallahassee, FL | $20,000 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Pennsylvania Office of Ag | Harrisburg, PA | $19,600 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Puerto Rico Department of Justice | San Juan, PR | $18,980 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Washington State Ag | Seattle, WA | $18,750 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| State of Rhode Is & Prov Plantations | Providence, RI | $18,655 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Oklahoma Attorney General | Oklahoma City, OK | $18,548 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Nc Dept of Justice | Raleigh, NC | $13,600 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Ofc of the Utah Ag | Salt Lake City, UT | $13,600 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Oregon Dept of Justice | Salem, OR | $13,082 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Iowa Attorney General's Office | Des Moines, IA | $12,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| State of Utah | Salt Lake City, UT | $12,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| State of Michigan Dept of Ag | Lansing, MI | $7,600 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| State of New Hampshire | Concord, NH | $7,600 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| North Dakota Office of Attorney General | Bismark, ND | $6,756 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Commonwealth of Kentucky Ofc Ag | Frankfort, KY | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
42 of 46 (91%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 2 of 46 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 35 | $2,205,769 | $6,000 |
| 2021 | 40 | $1,229,744 | $6,439 |
| 2022 | 41 | $336,980 | $7,600 |
| 2023 | 33 | $252,000 | $6,000 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
72% of its giving went to organizations in Illinois. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $6,000 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Illinois.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from American Bar Association's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2020-2023). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 33 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 321 N Clark Street, Chicago, IL, 60654.
EIN 36-0723150 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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