Public Interest Law Initiative
Chicago, IL · EIN 36-3059660. Reported 112 grants totalling $1,346,318 to 31 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 Public Interest Law Initiative, the IRS classifies it under crime & legal rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE I80) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 31 distinct organizations, with 9% 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 $9,300. Half of what it reported fell between $6,200 and $16,250; the smallest was $6,000 and the largest $32,500. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legal Aid Chicago | Chicago, IL | $123,500 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation | E Saint Louis, IL | $92,800 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Prairie State Legal Services Inc | Rockford, IL | $90,168 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Equip for Equality Inc | Chicago, IL | $86,450 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Greater Chicago Legal Clinic Inc | Chicago, IL | $74,100 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Legal Council for Health Justice | Chicago, IL | $74,100 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation | Chicago, IL | $61,750 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU Inc | Chicago, IL | $61,750 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Inc | Chicago, IL | $52,650 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Metropolitan Family Services | Merrionette Park, IL | $43,550 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness | Chicago, IL | $43,400 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Heartland Alliance for Human Rights & Human Needs | Chicago, IL | $39,600 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Center for Disability and Elder Law Inc | Chicago, IL | $37,050 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services | Chicago, IL | $37,050 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Law Center for Better Housing | Chicago, IL | $37,050 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund | Los Angeles, CA | $37,050 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Shriver Center on Poverty Law | Chicago, IL | $37,050 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Cabrini-Green Legal Aid Clinic Inc | Chicago, IL | $33,800 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| National Immigrant Justice Center | Chicago, IL | $26,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The Immigration Project Inc | Normal, IL | $25,200 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago | Chicago, IL | $24,700 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Citizen Advocacy Center | Elmhurst, IL | $24,700 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Environmental Law & Policy Center of the Midwest | Chicago, IL | $24,700 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Fund for Justice | Chicago, IL | $24,700 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Impact for Equity Inc | Chicago, IL | $24,700 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc | New York, NY | $24,700 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Ascend Justice | Chicago, IL | $21,950 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Center for Conflict Resolution | Chicago, IL | $18,700 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Chicago House and Social Service Agency | Chicago, IL | $18,700 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Illinois Legal Aid Online | Chicago, IL | $18,500 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Illinois Legal Aid Online | Chicago, IL | $6,200 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
29 of 31 (94%) 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 21 of 31 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 | 26 | $294,000 | $9,000 |
| 2021 | 28 | $319,800 | $9,000 |
| 2022 | 29 | $345,768 | $9,300 |
| 2023 | 29 | $386,750 | $9,750 |
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
95% 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 $9,300 -- 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.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Public Interest Law Initiative'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: 105 West Madison St 610, Chicago, IL, 60602.
EIN 36-3059660 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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