Accountable Justice Action Fund
Albany, NY · EIN 82-3247136. Reported 67 grants totalling $22.7M to 39 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, 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. For Accountable Justice Action Fund, by its IRS classification it raises and distributes funds for crime & legal (NTEE I12).
- How spread out its giving is. 39 distinct organizations, with 23% 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. 36% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $130,000. Half of what it reported fell between $40,000 and $250,000; the smallest was $6,760 and the largest $3,100,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justice Research Group | Portland, OR | $5,300,000 | 5 | 4 | 2023 |
| Working Families Organization Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $4,906,760 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Working Families Party National Pac | Brooklyn, NY | $3,420,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Straight Ahead Organization | Pittsburg, PA | $1,400,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Voters Organized to Educate-Vote Action Fund | New Orleans, LA | $1,160,000 | 4 | 2 | 2023 |
| Tx Organizing Project | San Antonio, TX | $800,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Colorofchange Org | New York, NY | $750,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The People's Lobby | Chicago, IL | $712,600 | 6 | 5 | 2024 |
| Governance Protection Project | Falls Church, VA | $450,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Working Families Party National Independent Expenditure Committee | Brooklyn, NY | $380,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Womens Health & Safety Pac | Washington, DC | $380,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Step Up for Action | New Orleans, LA | $320,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Beyond Impact | W Hollywood, CA | $286,250 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Citizen Action of New York Inc | Albany, NY | $250,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Forward Justice Action Network | Durham, NC | $250,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Organize Action Inc | Cloverdale, CA | $250,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Tides Center | San Francisco, CA | $250,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Showing Up for Racial Justice Action Inc | Buffalo, NY | $200,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| New Virginia Majority | Alexandria, VA | $150,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Color of Change Pac | Oakland, CA | $130,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Action St Louis Power Project | St Louis, MO | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Memphis for All | Memphis, TN | $80,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Real Justice Pac | Seattle, WA | $78,635 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| New Disabled South Rising Inc | Atlanta, GA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| New Georgia Project Action Fund | Atlanta, GA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Equity Action | Austin, TX | $70,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The People's Lobby Pac | Chicago, IL | $67,400 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| New York State Immigrant Action Fund | New York, NY | $53,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition | Denver, CO | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change | Hilliard, OH | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Starting Over Strong | Riverside, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Tpl Justice Pac | Chicago, IL | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Caldwell-Hays Examiner | Lockhart, TX | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Fighting for Justice Pac | Ocoee, FL | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Progressive State Leaders Committee Inc | Washington, DC | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Soul in Action | Chicago, IL | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| United Working Familes Pac | Chicago, IL | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Mijente Pac | Washington, DC | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| New Direction Pac | Seattle, WA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
12 of 39 (31%) received money in more than one year over the 5 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.
- Justice Research Group
Prosecutor elections & crim justice ref - Working Families Party National Pac
POLITICAL ACTIVITY RELATED TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM - Tx Organizing Project
Support work on DA elections in TX - Colorofchangeorg
GENERAL SUPPORT AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM - Straight Ahead Organization
CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM/GENERAL SUPPORT - Citizen Action of New York
Support work on DA elections in NY
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 14 of 39 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- 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 | 15 | $2,076,645 | $125,000 |
| 2021 | 13 | $7,360,000 | $250,000 |
| 2022 | 16 | $5,405,000 | $75,000 |
| 2023 | 13 | $4,998,000 | $125,000 |
| 2024 | 10 | $2,870,000 | $192,500 |
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
44% of its giving went to organizations in New York. 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 a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.
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 $130,000 -- 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 New York.
- 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 Accountable Justice Action Fund's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 0 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 10 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: 418 Broadway 5040, Albany, NY, 12207.
EIN 82-3247136 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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