Illinois Bar Foundation
Springfield, IL · EIN 37-0810222. Reported 82 grants totalling $879,000 to 33 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 Illinois Bar Foundation, by its IRS classification it exists to support one specific institution in education -- typically its own parent hospital, university or school (NTEE B11).
- How spread out its giving is. 33 distinct organizations, with 10% 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. 95% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and above 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 $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $12,500; the smallest was $6,000 and the largest $20,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation | E Saint Louis, IL | $90,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Prairie State Legal Services Inc | Rockford, IL | $90,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Public Interest Law Initiative | Chicago, IL | $85,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Illinois Legal Aid Online | Chicago, IL | $80,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Ascend Justice | Chicago, IL | $52,500 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation | Chicago, IL | $52,500 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services | Chicago, IL | $52,500 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| James B Moran Center for Youth Advocacy | Evanston, IL | $32,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Pro Bono Network | Oak Park, IL | $32,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Cabrini Green Legal Aid | Chicago, IL | $30,000 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Legal Council for Health Justice | Chicago, IL | $30,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| National Immigrant Justice Center | Chicago, IL | $25,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Law Center for Better Housing | Chicago, IL | $22,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Center for Disability and Elder Law Inc | Chicago, IL | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Migrant and Immigrant Community Action Project | Saint Louis, MO | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Uptown Peoples Law Center | Chicago, IL | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Chicago Alliance Against Sexualexploitation | Chicago, IL | $15,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Life Span | Des Plaines, IL | $15,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| World Relief Corporation O National | Baltimore, MD | $15,000 | 2 | 1 | 2024 |
| The Immigration Project Inc | Normal, IL | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Beyond Legal Aid | Chicago, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Chicago Advocate Legal Nfp | Chicago, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Chicago Workers Collaborative | Waukegan, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Chinese American Service League Inc | Chicago, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Coalition Legal | Waukegan, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Equity Legal Services Inc | Fairview Heights, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Greenlight Family Services | Chicago, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Metropolitan Family Services | Merrionette Park, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| North Suburban Legal Aid Clinic | Highland Park, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Northern Illinois Justice for Our Neighbors | Chicago, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| University of Massachusetts Foundation Inc | Newton, MA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Village Legal and Community Project | Chicago, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project | Chicago, IL | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
18 of 33 (55%) 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.
- Illinois Legal Aid Online
To support their Statewide Legal Service Website project - Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation
To support their Rural Service Territory project To support their holistic legal service project - Prairie State Legal Services
To support their Volunteer Lawyer program in Rockford, IL - Public Interest Law Initiative
To support their Pro Bono Initiative program - Ascend Justice
To support their Pro Bono project - Carpls
To support their legal aid hotline and court-based advice desks
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 26 of 33 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 | 10 | $120,000 | $10,000 |
| 2021 | 14 | $150,000 | $10,000 |
| 2022 | 11 | $130,000 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 14 | $150,000 | $8,750 |
| 2024 | 33 | $329,000 | $7,500 |
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
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 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 $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 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 Illinois Bar Foundation'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 33 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 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: 424 S Second Street, Springfield, IL, 62701.
EIN 37-0810222 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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