Deadline: 12-Jan-21
The Impact Fund awards recoverable grants to legal services nonprofits, private attorneys, and/or small law firms who seek to advance justice in the areas of civil and human rights, environmental justice, and/or poverty law.
Funding Information
- Since being founded in 1992, the Impact Fund has granted more than $7 million in recoverable grants. They award grants four times per year, most within the range of US$10,000 to US$50,000.
Funding Sectors
- Social Justice: The Impact Fund provides grants and legal support to assist in human and civil right cases.
- The cases they are funding allege that:
- In California, police used excessive force against #BlackLivesMatter protesters.
- In Colorado, female police officers face losing their careers because they can’t do enough push-ups and sit-ups.
- In Ohio and New York, a gun manufacturer knowingly sells to dealers that arm criminals.
- In Massachusetts, prisoners with Hepatitis C are going untreated.
- In North Dakota, Native Americans can’t vote because of a recent voter suppression law.
- In Florida, prisoners who request mental health services are abused and, when they complain, the abuse gets worse.
- The cases they are funding allege that:
- Environmental Justice: The Impact Fund provides grants to support impact litigation for environmental justice, with a focus on marginalized communities. These are often cases no one else will support.
- The cases they are funding are to stop:
- Proposed mining in the Superior National Forest that would contaminate groundwater, damage wetlands, and destroy the local Native American wild-rice economy.
- Unwanted development, after a community garden in New York, was bulldozed in the middle of the night.
- Pollution from a lighter fluid factory in New Jersey that is causing illness to residents in a low-income neighbourhood.
- Clear-cut logging that is threatening the health and livelihood of the local indigenous community in Ontario.
- Spraying pesticides at will in California.
- A new highway bridge that is the latest in a long history of environmental hazards heaped upon an African American and Latino neighbourhood in Corpus Christi, severing it from the rest of the city
- The cases they are funding are to stop:
- Economic Justice: The Impact Fund provides financial and other forms of support to cases fighting for economic justice. From workers’ right to consumer protection for vulnerable populations, impact litigation is a powerful tool to hold corporations accountable.
- The cases they are funding allege that:
- In Texas, people with unpaid tickets are sent to “debtors’ prison.”
- In California, landlords lose their insurance when they accept Section 8 vouchers from low-income tenants.
- In Idaho, homeless people are jailed for sleeping outdoors, even when there are no shelters to take them in.
- The cases they are funding allege that:
Eligibility Criteria
- The Impact Fund makes recoverable grants to lawyers, small law firms, and nonprofit organizations involved in impact litigation.
- They fund civil rights, human rights, anti-poverty, and environmental justice cases that will affect a marginalized group. Most of the grants are for class actions, but they also fund multi-plaintiff and environmental justice cases that aim to significantly affect a larger system or lead to significant law reform.
- Impact Fund grants may be used for out-of-pocket litigation expenses such as expert fees and discovery costs, but not for attorney’s fees, staff, or other overhead.
For more information, visit https://www.impactfund.org/about-legal-case-grants/
