The Impact Fund
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 943161863
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2014–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Berkeley, CA, USA
- Phone
- 5108453473
- Rating
- 79
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $4,175,136
- Expenses
- $3,579,857
- Assets
- $5,185,406
- Liabilities
- $2,065,967
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
20 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- Lindsay Nako (Executive Dir.): $177,520 total reported compensation
- Edward Basham-Witherington (Deputy Director): $155,487 total reported compensation
- Lori E Rifkin (Litigation Dir.): $134,536 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Supports class action public interest litigation and awards grants in the areas of human and civil rights, elimination of unlawful discrimination, environmental justice and the relief of poverty. Provides technical support, advice/counseling, training & representation to public interest lawyers. The Impact Fund does not receive any federal funding.
What it reported doing in 2024
Grants The Impact Fund makes recoverable grants to lawyers, small law firms, and nonprofit organizations involved in impact litigation. We fund civil rights, human rights, anti-poverty, and environmental justice cases. Most of our grants are for class actions, but we also fund multi-plaintiff and environmental justice cases that aim to significantly affect a larger system or lead to significant law reform. In the 2024/25 fiscal year, the Impact Fund disbursed a total of $690,000 in grant funding via 25 recoverable grants. The Impact Fund has committed around $10 million to justice-related causes since the organizations inception.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 62% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 75% for direct work, and 25% for grants.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 69
- Transparency & Controls: 79
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 52
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 70.9%; rating input score 71
- Program expense ratio: 82.1%; rating input score 82
- Fundraising efficiency: $5.65 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 99.6%; rating input score 100; 39th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd 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: 14.3%; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.45; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.4; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 19.7%; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 9.9% per year; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 6.8% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 8.3% per year; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 70.9% of revenue deployed · 82.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 15 of 15 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $2.9M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $178K · 20 people listed · 2 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 35 of 35 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 11 filing years from 2014 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 30 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 6 filed related-organization links
- 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.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 20/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 50/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 13/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 27/100.