The Kentucky Bar Foundation Inc
Frankfort, KY · EIN 31-0968842. Reported 135 grants totalling $5,450,312 to 45 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. 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. 45 distinct organizations, with 21% 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. 73% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $20,000; the smallest was $5,240 and the largest $403,232. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Appalachian Research & Defense Fund of Ky Inc | Prestonsburg, KY | $1,161,406 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Northern Kentucky Legal Aid Society Inc | Covington, KY | $1,032,865 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Legal Aid Society Inc | Louisville, KY | $936,053 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Cumberland Trace Legal Services Inc | Bowling Green, KY | $885,512 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Northern Kentucky University Research Foundation Inc | Highland Heights, KY | $110,000 | 8 | 5 | 2024 |
| Uk College of Law | Lexington, KY | $110,000 | 8 | 5 | 2024 |
| University of Louisville Research Foundation Inc | Louisville, KY | $107,500 | 7 | 5 | 2024 |
| Holly Hill Childrens Home Inc | California, KY | $73,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Kentucky Innocence Project Inc | Frankfort, KY | $65,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Safe Harbor of Northeast Kentucky Inc | Ashland, KY | $61,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Family Enrichment Center Inc | Bowling Green, KY | $53,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Center for Women Children and Families Inc | Lexington, KY | $51,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Friends of the Kentucky Legal Education Opportunity Program Inc | Louisville, KY | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Micah Legal Services Inc | Lexington, KY | $47,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Kentucky Refugee Ministries Inc | Louisville, KY | $45,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Kentucky High School Mock Trial Association | Owensboro, KY | $42,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Catholic Charities of Louisville Inc | Louisville, KY | $40,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| La Casita Center Inc | Louisville, KY | $40,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Ion Center for Violence Prevention Inc | Covington, KY | $35,636 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Equal Justice Works | Washington, DC | $35,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Barren River Area Child Advocacy Center Inc | Bowling Green, KY | $34,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Office of Kentucky Legal Services Programs Inc | Lexington, KY | $32,000 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Big Sandy Health Care Inc | Prestonsburg, KY | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Brighton Center Inc | Newport, KY | $30,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Kentucky YMCA Youth Association | Frankfort, KY | $30,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| U of L Brandeis School of Law | Louisville, KY | $24,700 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Family & Childrens Place Inc | Louisville, KY | $24,000 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Access Language Solutions Inc | Lexington, KY | $23,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Catholic Charities of Louisville | Owensboro, KY | $22,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Kentucky CASA Network Inc | Louisville, KY | $21,500 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Hotel Inc | Bowling Green, KY | $20,240 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Childrens Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass Inc | Lexington, KY | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Hopes Place Inc | Ashland, KY | $20,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Lexington Leadership Foundation Inc | Lexington, KY | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Northern Kentucky Childrens Law Center Inc | Covington, KY | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Kentucky Resources Council Inc | Frankfort, KY | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Sunrise Childrens Services Inc | Mt Washington, KY | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Catholic Charities of Owensbo | Owensboro, KY | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Home of the Innocents | Louisville, KY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Judis Place for Kids Inc | Pikeville, KY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Kentucky State University | Frankfort, KY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Rape Victims Services Inc | Paducah, KY | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Mediation Center of Kentucky Inc | Lexington, KY | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Neighbors Immigration Clinic Inc | Lexington, KY | $6,700 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Second Hope Ministries | Louisville, KY | $6,700 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
32 of 45 (71%) 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.
- Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky Inc (appalred Legal Aid
APPALRED CENTRAL INTAKE AND VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR APPALACHIAN KENTUCKY - Legal Aid of the Bluegrass
VOLUNTEER LAWYER PROGRAM & IOLTA FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM - Legal Aid Society Inc
KENTUCKY LEGAL AID LEGAL ASSISTANCE PROJECT AND VETERANS - Kentucky Legal Aid
LEGAL AID SOCIETY FUNDING - Big Sandy Health Care Inc
Big Sandy Medical-Legal Partnership - Friends of Kleo
2023 KLEO Summer Institute
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 31 of 45 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 26 | $680,400 | $10,500 |
| 2021 | 26 | $873,500 | $13,750 |
| 2022 | 32 | $937,400 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 22 | $1,641,972 | $15,000 |
| 2024 | 29 | $1,317,040 | $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
99% of its giving went to organizations in Kentucky. 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 Kentucky.
- 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 Kentucky Bar Foundation Inc's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
Address of record on the latest return: 514 W Main St, Frankfort, KY, 40601.
EIN 31-0968842 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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