Boston Bar Foundation
Boston, MA · EIN 04-6111344. Reported 105 grants totalling $5,952,023 to 36 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. For Boston Bar Foundation, by its IRS classification it raises and distributes funds for crime & legal (NTEE I128).
- How spread out its giving is. 36 distinct organizations, with 30% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 96% 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 $25,000. Half of what it reported fell between $12,500 and $65,000; the smallest was $5,347 and the largest $450,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greater Boston Legal Services Inc | Boston, MA | $1,800,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association Inc | Boston, MA | $705,347 | 5 | 4 | 2023 |
| Boston Bar Association | Boston, MA | $681,676 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Metrowest Legal Services Inc | Framingham, MA | $335,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Political Asylum Immigration Representation Project Inc | Boston, MA | $335,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| De Novo Center for Justice and Healing Inc | Cambridge, MA | $275,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services | Boston, MA | $260,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Massachusetts Law Reform Institute Inc | Boston, MA | $180,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Rian Immigrant Center Inc | Boston, MA | $165,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Womens Bar Foundation of Massachusetts Inc | Boston, MA | $107,500 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Urban Revival Inc | Jamaica Plain, MA | $100,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Veterans Legal Services Inc | Boston, MA | $87,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Lawyers Clearinghouse on Affordable Housing and Homelessness Inc | Boston, MA | $85,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Lawyers for Civil Rights Inc | Boston, MA | $85,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Massachusetts Advocates for Children Inc | Boston, MA | $80,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Northeast Legal Aid Inc | Lynn, MA | $80,000 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Veteran's Legal Services | Boston, MA | $65,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Boston Foundation Inc | Boston, MA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Youth Advocacy Foundation Inc | Boston, MA | $50,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Childrens Law Center of Mass Inc North Shore Childrens Law Project | Lynn, MA | $47,500 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Pine Street Inn Inc | Boston, MA | $40,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Womens Lunch Place Inc | Boston, MA | $37,500 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| CASA Myrna Vasquez Inc | Boston, MA | $37,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Northeast Legal Aid Inc | Lawrence, MA | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Project Citizenship Inc | Boston, MA | $35,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Center for Law and Education Inc | Boston, MA | $32,500 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Saheli Inc | Burlington, MA | $29,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| La Colaborativa Inc | Chelsea, MA | $27,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Reach Beyond Domestic Violence Inc | Waltham, MA | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Second Step Inc | Newtonville, MA | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence Inc | Boston, MA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Justice for Housing Inc | Boston, MA | $15,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Massachusetts Legal Assistance | Boston, MA | $12,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Alternatives for Community and Enviroment Inc | Roxbury, MA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Health Law Advocates Inc | Boston, MA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Dove Inc | Quincy, MA | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
29 of 36 (81%) 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 the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Boston Bar Association
SUPPORT PRO BONO AND PUBLIC SERVICE PROJECTS THAT ENGAGE LAWYERS IN OUR COMMUNITY - Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
INCREASING ACCESS TO JUSTICE - Legal Assistance Corp
CIVIL LEGAL AID DIRECTORY
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 25 of 36 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 | 20 | $1,280,970 | $30,000 |
| 2021 | 24 | $1,454,650 | $25,000 |
| 2022 | 27 | $1,446,556 | $22,500 |
| 2023 | 34 | $1,769,847 | $20,500 |
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
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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 $25,000 -- 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 Massachusetts.
- 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.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Boston Bar Foundation'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.
Address of record on the latest return: 16 Beacon Street, Boston, MA, 02108.
EIN 04-6111344 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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