Skadden Foundation
ActivePhilanthropy & VoluntarismFunds Individuals
About Skadden Foundation
The Skadden Foundation appears to concentrate its philanthropy on advancing civil liberties through direct support for legal advocacy capacity. Its single recorded grant is a large payment to the ACLU Foundation to fund fellows, indicating a priority on resourcing public-interest legal work and legal fellowships that place lawyers in civil rights and liberties organizations. Giving is national in scope and targeted toward strengthening legal advocacy rather than broad-based community programs.
Focus Areas
Funding public-interest legal fellowships (placement/support of lawyers in civil liberties work)Civil liberties and civil rights legal advocacyCapacity-building for national legal advocacy organizations
Who They Fund
asylum seekersrecently arrived immigrants in New York City/state
Giving Approach
Highly concentrated: a single large grant to a national civil liberties organization to fund fellows, indicating preference for sizable, targeted investments in legal advocacy rather than many small or geographically dispersed grants.
Funding Style
pilot/seed funding
About Skadden Foundation
The Skadden Foundation’s defining feature is its fellowship model: it pays for lawyers to spend two years in public interest legal work with nonprofit host organizations, including salary support, benefits, and related costs. That structure shows up repeatedly in the recent grants list, where large payments are routed to civil liberties and legal aid organizations rather than as broad unrestricted support. The largest recorded grant is $505,860 to the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc in New York for fellows, with another sizable payment of $306,451 to Aclu - American Civil Liberties Union for the same purpose. Several other major fellow-hosting organizations appear as recipients, including New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Public Justice Foundation, and Legal Aid at Work. The foundation also runs an incubator grant program for former Skadden Fellows, tying current fellowship support to later-stage project development. With annual grants of $13,678,939 and a national giving scope, the foundation’s work is centered on legal advocacy capacity, public interest law, and civil liberties staffing.
What Skadden Foundation Funds
Public-interest legal fellowships are the core of the foundation’s grantmaking. The Skadden Foundation gave $119,468 to Lawyers Comm for Civil Rights Under Law and $112,776 to Legal Aid Chicago for fellow support, reflecting its emphasis on placing lawyers inside organizations that handle civil rights and civil legal needs. Housing and disability rights also appear in the fellowship portfolio: the foundation awarded $84,517 to Equip for Equality and $87,420 to Education Law Center, both under fellow-related payments. Poverty law is another clear thread, matching the fellowship program’s stated purpose of supporting recent law graduates, judicial clerks, and LL.M. candidates in public interest work serving people living in poverty in the United States and Washington, D.C. The foundation’s later-stage incubator grants extend that model by supporting new initiatives launched by Fellowship alumni.
How Skadden Foundation Gives
Typical grants cluster in the mid-five-figure range, with p25 at $15,000, a median of $36,713, and p75 at $64,903. The recent record also shows much larger fellowship payments, which is consistent with a funder that covers salary and benefits rather than issuing small project grants. The pattern is recurring rather than one-off: the same host organizations appear in multiple years, including Aclu - American Civil Liberties Union, New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, and Public Justice Foundation. The foundation is a regular funder and a DAF-classified organization, and its named programs include two-year fellowships plus Flom Incubator Grants for alumni. Unsolicited applications are accepted for the fellowship program.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$5.1M
Total Assets
$11.2M
Total Revenue
$5.2M
Total Expenses
$5.7M
Typical Grant Size
Most grants fall between $15K and $65K, with a median of $37K.
25th Percentile
$15K
Median
$37K
75th Percentile
$65K
Geographic Reach
National28 states funded
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
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