GrantmakersCalifornia

Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA · EIN 95-1684067. Reported 61 grants totalling $57.9M to 22 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.

22organizations funded
$471,824median reported grant
$57.9Mgranted, 2021-2024
87%of grantees funded again the next year
20%of dollars to its largest recipient

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:

  1. What kind of organization it is. For Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the IRS classifies it under crime & legal rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE I80Z) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
  2. How spread out its giving is. 22 distinct organizations, with 20% 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.
  3. How much its list changes. 87% 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 $471,824. Half of what it reported fell between $34,723 and $1,194,392; the smallest was $7,829 and the largest $5,684,447. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Schedule I only reports grants over $5,000. Form 990 requires a charity to list recipients it paid more than that and lets it omit the rest, so every grant-size figure on this page describes the grants it reported, not all of them. Its real median is lower and its real recipient count is higher. This is also why these numbers cannot be compared with the private-foundation figures elsewhere on this site -- Form 990-PF has no reporting floor, so the two are different populations rather than two samples of one.
$5,000 - $10,000
1 grant
$10,000 - $25,000
7 grants
$25,000 - $50,000
11 grants
$50,000 - $100,000
2 grants
$100,000 - $250,000
3 grants
$250,000 Or More
37 grants

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.

OrganizationLocationTotal receivedGrantsYears fundedLast
Southern California Housing Rights CenterLos Angeles, CA$11.5M442024
Liberty Hill FoundationLos Angeles, CA$10.2M442024
Inner City Law CenterLos Angeles, CA$8,789,375442024
Basta UniversalLos Angeles, CA$7,341,072442024
Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles CountyGlendale, CA$5,654,576442024
Eviction Defense NetworkLos Angeles, CA$5,411,072442024
Bet TzedekLos Angeles, CA$3,197,902442024
Community Legal Aid SocalSanta Ana, CA$2,335,549442024
Public CounselLos Angeles, CA$1,852,484442024
Mental Health Advocacy Services IncGlendale, CA$610,005332024
SajeLos Angeles, CA$323,305442024
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA$236,167442024
California Center for Movement Legal ServicesLos Angeles, CA$99,223112024
CangressLos Angeles, CA$97,500332024
The People ConcernLos Angeles, CA$64,746222022
Center for the Pacific Asian Family IncLos Angeles, CA$30,000222022
Chrysalis Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence IncPhoenix, AZ$24,900112021
Womenshelter of Long BeachLong Beach, CA$15,000112022
Thai Community Development CenterLos Angeles, CA$13,750112022
The Chrysalis CenterLos Angeles, CA$13,406112021
Ltsc Community Development CorporationLos Angeles, CA$12,500112022
Korean American Family Services IncLos Angeles, CA$7,829112022

15 of 22 (68%) 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.

It also reported 4 groups of grants to individuals -- scholarships, emergency assistance and similar. Schedule I reports these by category with a headcount and never by name, so there is nothing here we could publish about the recipients even if we wanted to.

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.

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 18 of 22 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.

Crime & Legal
6 orgs
Human Services
5 orgs
Housing & Shelter
2 orgs
Civil Rights
1 org
Philanthropy & Grantmaking
1 org
Mental Health
1 org
Health Care
1 org
Community Improvement
1 org

Giving by year

Tax yearGrants reportedTotalMedian grant
202115$6,700,242$350,716
202219$10.6M$141,218
202313$14.0M$552,571
202414$26.6M$1,259,565

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

100% of its giving went to organizations in California. 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.

California
$57.8M
Arizona
$25K

Down to the city

Los Angeles, CA
$49.2M
Glendale, CA
$6.3M
Santa Ana, CA
$2.3M
Phoenix, AZ
$25K
Long Beach, CA
$15K

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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.

California Community Foundation18 shared recipientsFidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund15 shared recipientsWeingart Foundation14 shared recipientsAmerican Online Giving Foundation Inc14 shared recipientsDonor Advised Charitable Giving Inc13 shared recipientsThe Ahmanson Foundation13 shared recipients

How to approach this grantmaker

  1. 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.
  2. Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $471,824 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
  3. Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in California.
  4. 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

Foundations funding human services in CaliforniaEvery funder in this group, ranked

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.

On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 14 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: 1550 West 8TH Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90017.

EIN 95-1684067 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

This is history, not an open call. Form 990 is published about a year after the tax year it covers. Nothing on this page is a deadline. It is a record of who this organization has actually funded, which is the best available predictor of who it will fund next.

Is something here wrong about your organization? Email hello@funderscope.com and we will correct it.