Michigan State Bar Foundation
Lansing, MI · EIN 38-1459016. Reported 197 grants totalling $48.6M to 25 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 Michigan State Bar Foundation, by its IRS classification it raises and distributes funds for crime & legal (NTEE I128).
- How spread out its giving is. 25 distinct organizations, with 40% 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. 75% 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 $80,000. Half of what it reported fell between $28,500 and $248,773; the smallest was $1,000 and the largest $5,065,263. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Legal Aid | Warren, MI | $19.3M | 30 | 4 | 2023 |
| Michigan Advocacy Program | Ypsilanti, MI | $11.4M | 57 | 4 | 2023 |
| Legal Aid of Western Michigan | Grand Rapids, MI | $6,716,623 | 18 | 4 | 2023 |
| Michigan Legal Services | Detroit, MI | $3,939,515 | 12 | 4 | 2023 |
| Legal Services of Eastern Michigan | Flint, MI | $3,046,245 | 16 | 4 | 2023 |
| Legal Services of Northern Michigan Inc | Escanaba, MI | $1,815,633 | 15 | 4 | 2023 |
| Genesee County Legal Aid Society | Flint, MI | $547,468 | 6 | 4 | 2023 |
| Michigan Community Resources | Detroit, MI | $495,513 | 9 | 4 | 2023 |
| Michigan Indian Legal Services Inc | Traverse City, MI | $445,705 | 7 | 4 | 2023 |
| Maurice & Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice | Detroit, MI | $330,769 | 3 | 2 | 2023 |
| Legal Aid and Defender Association Inc | Detroit, MI | $147,245 | 6 | 4 | 2023 |
| Michigan State Bar Foundation | Lansing, MI | $125,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Detroit Justice Center | Detroit, MI | $45,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| U S Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Inc | Arlington, VA | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Detroit Bar Association Foundation | Detroit, MI | $30,996 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| State Bar of Michiganlawyers and Judges Assistance Program | Lansing, MI | $30,868 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Accounting Aid Society | Detroit, MI | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence | Okemos, MI | $23,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Henry Ford Learning Institute | Dearborn, MI | $19,950 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Avalon Healing Center | Detroit, MI | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Immigration Law & Justice Michigan | Grand Rapids, MI | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Southwest Detroit Immigrant and Refugee Center | Grosse Pt Frm, MI | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Enfuse Action Collective LLC | Portland, MI | $11,535 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| National Association of Iolta Programs | Raleigh, NC | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Wayne State University | Detroit, MI | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
13 of 25 (52%) 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.
- Lakeshore Legal Aidmetro
MSHDA - EDP - LEGAL SERVICES FOR LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS FACING EVICTION - Michigan Advocacy Programmichigan Legal Help
SUPPORT FOR LEGAL SELF-HELP - Michigan Advocacy Programmichigan Poverty Law Program
IMPROVEMENTS IN DELIVERY OF LEGAL SERVICES - Legal Aid of Western Michigan
LEGAL SERVICES FOR LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS - Maurice & Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice
UNEMPLOYMENT FUNDS - LEGAL SERVICES FOR LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS - Michigan Community Resourcescommunity Legal Resources
COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT LEGAL ASSISTANCE
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 17 of 25 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 | 64 | $11.2M | $89,416 |
| 2021 | 46 | $12.3M | $84,622 |
| 2022 | 38 | $12.8M | $65,536 |
| 2023 | 49 | $12.3M | $78,204 |
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 Michigan. 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 $80,000 -- 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 Michigan.
- 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 Michigan State 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.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 16 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 1 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: 306 Townsend Street, Lansing, MI, 48933.
EIN 38-1459016 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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