Grantmakers › District of Columbia
The District of Columbia Bar Foundation
Washington, DC · EIN 52-1109547. Reported 266 grants totalling $83.5M to 39 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 The District of Columbia Bar Foundation, by its IRS classification it raises and distributes funds for crime & legal (NTEE I128).
- How spread out its giving is. 39 distinct organizations, with 22% 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. 91% 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 $35,000 and $384,800; the smallest was $8,000 and the largest $2,693,764. 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 Society of the District of Columbia | Washington, DC | $18.0M | 20 | 4 | 2023 |
| Neighborhood Legal Services Program of the District of Columbia | Washington, DC | $10.4M | 11 | 4 | 2023 |
| Rising for Justice Inc | Washington, DC | $9,846,165 | 12 | 4 | 2023 |
| Bread for the City Inc | Washington, DC | $7,837,528 | 13 | 4 | 2023 |
| DC Bar Pro Bono Center | Washington, DC | $5,128,038 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Legal Counsel for the Elderly | Washington, DC | $4,794,455 | 11 | 4 | 2023 |
| Childrens Law Center Incorporated | Washington, DC | $3,238,698 | 10 | 4 | 2023 |
| Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs | Washington, DC | $3,202,594 | 12 | 4 | 2023 |
| Ayuda Inc | Washington, DC | $3,193,369 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| DC Affordable Law Firm | Washington, DC | $2,038,884 | 5 | 4 | 2023 |
| Tzedek DC Inc | Washington, DC | $1,577,847 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Whitman-Walker Clinic Inc | Washington, DC | $1,488,500 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Safe Sisters Circle | Washington, DC | $1,189,775 | 6 | 3 | 2022 |
| Student Legal Services Inc | Perrysburg, OH | $1,082,750 | 6 | 3 | 2023 |
| School Justice Project Inc | Washington, DC | $823,500 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Amara Legal Center Inc | Washington, DC | $766,751 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Advocates for Justice & Education Inc | Washington, DC | $751,887 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International | Washington, DC | $722,306 | 9 | 4 | 2023 |
| Kind Inc | Washington, DC | $638,776 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project | Washington, DC | $634,522 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| DC Kincare Alliance | Washington, DC | $625,000 | 5 | 3 | 2023 |
| Christian Legal Aid of the District of Columbia | Washington, DC | $567,377 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Open City Advocates | Washington, DC | $529,167 | 5 | 3 | 2023 |
| Howard University | Washington, DC | $490,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| First Shift Justice Project | Washington, DC | $485,501 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Central American Resource Center- Carecen | Washington, DC | $483,738 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| African Communities Together | Washington, DC | $369,000 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center | Washington, DC | $355,000 | 7 | 4 | 2023 |
| Mothers Outreach Network Inc | Washington, DC | $331,386 | 5 | 3 | 2023 |
| Volare | Washington, DC | $308,288 | 8 | 4 | 2023 |
| Quality Trust for Individuals With Disabilities Inc | Washington, DC | $302,400 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless Inc | Washington, DC | $295,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| University Legal Services Inc | Washington, DC | $287,000 | 2 | 1 | 2020 |
| Neighborhood Legal Services Program | Washington, DC | $246,043 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Community Family Life Services Inc | Washington, DC | $173,462 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington Inc | Washington, DC | $140,081 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Beloved Community Incubator Inc | Washington, DC | $74,214 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Capital Area Immigrants Rights Coalition | Washington, DC | $70,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Lydias House Inc | Saint Louis, MO | $16,667 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
35 of 39 (90%) 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.
- Rising for Justice Inc
FY21 CLCPP GRANTS PROGRAM - Legal Aid Society of DC
FY21 ACCESS TO JUSTICE GRANTS PROGRAM - Legal Counsel for the Elderly
FY23 PRIVATE GRANTS PROGRAM - Washington Lawyers' Committee
FY24 PRIVATE GRANTS PROGRAM - Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless
FY22 PRIVATE GRANTS PROGRAM - Whitman Walker Health
FY21 PRIVATE GRANTS PROGRAM
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 30 of 39 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 | 65 | $11.2M | $60,000 |
| 2021 | 65 | $19.9M | $80,000 |
| 2022 | 67 | $26.3M | $111,000 |
| 2023 | 69 | $26.1M | $99,000 |
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
99% of its giving went to organizations in District of Columbia. 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.
Down to the city
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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 District of Columbia.
- 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 The District of Columbia 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 0 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 70 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: 200 Massachusetts Ave Nw, Washington, DC, 20001.
EIN 52-1109547 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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