Initiate Justice
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 821028920
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2019–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2018
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Phone
- 5622704169
- Rating
- 76
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Public Interest Law
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $3,036,251
- Expenses
- $1,526,190
- Assets
- $3,614,552
- Liabilities
- $256,458
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- Antoinette Ratcliffe (Executive Dir.): $131,232 total reported compensation
- Marta Zepeda (Dir. of Finance): $103,354 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Initiate Justice's mission is to activate the power of people directly impacted by mass incarceration to be leaders in the movement to end it. Through direct outreach and trainings, we develop organizers both inside and outside of prisons, and identify our members' top priorities to reduce prison populations and increase the human rights of those currently incarcerated. We envision a California with healthy and economically empowered communities, free from mass criminalization.
What it reported doing in 2024
Inside-Outside Organizing: Initiate Justice has an inside-outside strategy where we prioritize organizing people directly impacted by incarceration, inside and outside prison walls. Our inside organizing takes place in the prison visiting rooms, in front of state prisons, and inside prisons through workshops, mailings, and in-person or phone training. Our outside organizing occurs through membership meetings and member committees that meet monthly with participants from around CA. We keep our community informed about the latest changes to California laws and prison policies that affect them. In 2024, we sent 200,072 newsletters to our 40,000+ incarcerated members and 4,818 newsletters to our 470+ inside organizers. We also aired Abolition is for Everybody Podcast," which hosts conversations led by our system-impacted co-hosts. These conversations explore the history, futures, obstacles, and joys of abolition. The podcast intends to connect the day-to-day legislative work of Initiate Justice with larger abolitionist theory and to engage new audiences in a way that allows them to lead and participate in meaningful conversations about prison reform and abolition. This project is also intended to be a resource for our primary and system-impacted audiences to help them shift the culture of punishment into a culture of care.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 98% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 98% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filed totals do not add up.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 59
- Transparency & Controls: 86
- Accountability: 90
- Sustainability: 73
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 39.9%; rating input score 40
- Program expense ratio: 77.9%; rating input score 78
- Fundraising efficiency: $335.4 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 94; 94th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 13th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 85%; rating input score 85; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 83.3%; rating input score 83; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 49.7%; rating input score 92; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.37; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.07; rating input score 65; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 15.4%; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 25.1% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 18.8% per year; rating input score 100; 87th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 28.7% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 39.9% of revenue deployed · 77.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 6 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $1.2M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $131K · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 29 of 30 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2019 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 40/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 18/100.