Grantmakers › District of Columbia
The Sentencing Project
Washington, DC · EIN 52-1472546. Reported 50 grants totalling $754,000 to 37 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, 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. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 37 distinct organizations, with 17% 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. 31% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $15,000; the smallest was $8,000 and the largest $65,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest Inc | Lincoln, NE | $130,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs Inc | Calabasas, CA | $60,000 | 4 | 3 | 2024 |
| Center for Community Alternatives | Syracuse, NY | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Rhode Island | Providence, RI | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Center for Life Without Parole Studies | Lancaster, CA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| New England Innocence Project | Cambridge, MA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Together Louisiana | New Orleans, LA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Stand in for Nebraska | Lincoln, NE | $24,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Criminal Justice Policy Coalition | Dennis, MA | $22,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Chicago Votes | Chicago, IL | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition | Denver, CO | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Drop Lwop New England | Cambridge, MA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Initiate Justice | Los Angeles, CA | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Iowa Justice Action Network | Cedar Falls, IA | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| New Jersey Institute for Social Justice Inc | Newark, NJ | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| New Life Worship Center | Hartford, CT | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Ole Education Fund | Albuquerque, NM | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Youth Law Center | San Francisco, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Celwop Inc | Hingham, MA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Teamchild | Seattle, WA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Together Making a Better Community | Davenport, IA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Wyoming Childrens Law Center | Laramie, WY | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Abolitionist Law Center | Pittsburgh, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Alliance of Families for Justice | New York, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Bridge Maryland | Baltimore, MD | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Common Cause Education Fund | Washington, DC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Felony Murder Elimination Project | Concord, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Healing Our Land Inc | Dorchester, MA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Living Beyond Bars | Marion, IA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Network on Women in Prison | Emeryville, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Ohio Justice and Policy Center | Cincinnati, OH | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Oregon Justice Resource Center | Portland, OR | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Pennfranchise Project | Philadelphia, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Progressnow Education | Richmond, VA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Safe & Just Michigan | Lansing, MI | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Sylvia Woods- Josephine Wyatt & Clarice Durham Memorial Foundation | Chicago, IL | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Oficina Legal Del Pueblo Unido Inc | Austin, TX | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
11 of 37 (30%) 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.
- Ok Appleseed
SUPPORT GENERAL OPERATIONS, STORY COLLECTION FROM CURRENTLY INCARCERATED PERSONS, THE HIRING OF AN ORGANIZER TO FURTHER NARRATIVE CHANGE AND TO BRING THE DIRECTLY IMPACTED COMMUNITY INTO THE FOLD - Together Louisiana
THIS ORGANIZATION IS LED BY IMPACTED PERSONS ACROSS LA, WITH GROUND ORGANIZERS WORKING ACROSS THE STATE. WE HAVE FUNDED CIVIC EDUCATION ACADEMIES ON LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE AND ELDER PAROLE WHICH WILL TAKE PLACE IN EVERY PARISH, FOCUSING ON RURAL PARISHES WITH IMPACTED COMMUNITIES THAT ARE OFTEN NOT INCLUDED IN THIS WORK. THOSE PARISHES ALSO OVERLAP WITH POWERFUL DECISION-MAKERS IN THE LA STATE LEGISLATURE. THE SENTENCING PROJECT PARTICIPATES IN WEEKLY PLANNING MEETINGS TO HELP GUIDE CAMPAIGN STRATEGY AND OFFER OUR COMMUNICATIONS FOR MEDIA PRESSURE AND NARRATIVE CHANGE. - Center of Life Without Parole Studies
TO SUPPORT AN EDUCATION WEBSITE AROUND CHALLENGING LIFE IMPRISONMENT - New England Innocense Project
CAMPAIGN TO BUILD AND SUPPORT MA COALITON TO END LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE - Release Aging People in Prison (rapp)
SUPPORT NON-PARTISAN ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE GRANTOR'S EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON ELIMINATING THE USE OF MANDATORY LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE SENTENCES, WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON AGING PERSONS. - Center for Community Alternatives Inc
SUPPORT NON-PARTISAN ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE GRANTOR'S EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO ADVANCE SENTENCING REFORM IN NEW YORK STATE.
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 28 of 37 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 8 | $110,000 | $10,000 |
| 2022 | 13 | $167,000 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 17 | $274,000 | $10,000 |
| 2024 | 12 | $203,000 | $10,000 |
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
20% of its giving went to organizations in Nebraska. 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 $10,000 -- 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 Nebraska.
- 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 Sentencing Project'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.
Address of record on the latest return: 1150 Connecticut Ave Nw 601, Washington, DC, 20036.
EIN 52-1472546 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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