Recoverable Grants for Legal Actions Supporting Economic, Environmental, and Social Justice (US)

Deadline: 08-Oct-2024

The Impact Fund is providing recoverable grants to legal services nonprofits, private attorneys, and small law firms who seek to confront social, economic, and environmental injustice.

They fund social, economic, 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 meaningful law reform. Impact Fund grants may be used for out-of-pocket litigation expenses such as expert fees and discovery costs, but not for attorneys’ fees, staff, or other overhead.

Focus Area

• Human Rights, Civil Rights, Prisoners’ Rights, Voting Rights, Children’s Rights, Juvenile Justice Reform, Gun Control, Gender Equity, Disability Rights, Immigrants’ Rights, LGBT Rights, Combatting Racism, Fair Housing, Renters’ Rights, Workers’ Rights, Debt Fairness, Wage Theft, Homeless Advocacy, Clean Water, Clean Air, Clean Soil, Environmental Racism, Community Green Space, Food Policy, Water Conservation, Environmental Impact, Transportation Justice, Energy Justice, Other.

Funding Sectors

• Social Justice
  • The impact fund provides grants and legal support to assist in human and civil rights cases. They have helped to change dozens of laws and win cases to protect the rights of thousands.
  • The cases they are funding allege that:
    • In Texas and North Carolina, incarcerated people with mental health disabilities are forced to remain in jail despite being found not guilty and unable to proceed with a criminal trial.
    • In Orange County, California, there are currently 13 gang injunctions under effect, which disproportionately target young men of color.
    • In Chicago, Illinois, the city’s homeless shelter program is inaccessible to people with disabilities.
    • In Springfield, Oregon, the city and its police department used excessive force against Black Lives Matter protesters.
    • In West Virginia, the state fails to protect children in foster care from abuse and neglect.
• Environmental Justice
  • The impact fund provides grants to support impact litigation in pursuit of environmental justice. These grants are for cases aiming to help people or communities who are affected by environmental harm or who lack access to basic environmental needs, such as clean water, clean air, adequate waste treatment, and green spaces.
  • The cases they are funding allege that:
    • In Centreville, Illinois, the city’s failure to maintain its sewer system has caused raw sewage to flood peoples’ homes, endangering the property and health of a predominantly Black community.
    • In Fresno County, California, the California Department of Transportation approved a highway expansion project that would increase air pollution and traffic in one of the state’s most environmentally burdened communities.
    • In downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the proposed expansion of a highway would divide the region’s Black, Asian, and Latine neighborhoods and cause pollution and ill health.
    • In North Dakota, the five-month closure of a highway in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests disproportionately affected the livelihoods and health of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members.
    • In Ontario, Canada, mercury contamination of the English-Wabigoon river system has caused catastrophic environmental and health impacts for the Grassy Narrows First Nation.
• Economic Justice
  • The impact fund provides financial and other forms of support to cases fighting for economic justice. From workers’ rights to consumer protection for vulnerable populations, impact litigation is a powerful tool to hold corporations and the government accountable.
  • The cases they are funding allege that:
    • In Brooklyn, New York, a prominent mortgage lender engaged in predatory practices, leaving homeowners of color at risk of losing their homes.
    • In Washington, live-in caregivers are unconstitutionally excluded from the state’s wage-and-hour protections.
    • In Ravalli County, Montana, the county has created a “modern-day debtors’ prison” by incarcerating people unable to afford pre-trial fees.
    • In San Diego, California, vehicle ordinances target unhoused vehicle owners even when no adequate housing alternative exists.
    • In New York, a federal immigration detention facility is violating minimum wage and forced labor laws by forcing detainees to work for just a dollar a day.

Funding Information

• The maximum grant size is $50,000.
• They do make grants in that amount, but the average grant size is around $20,000.
• There is no minimum grant size.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any nonprofit organization, solo practitioner, or small legal firm that is involved in a public interest impact lawsuit is eligible to apply. Let them know if you have questions about whether you or your organization would be eligible.
• You may only apply for one grant for one case per quarter.
• They fund cases that seek to achieve a systemic solution to an economic, environmental, racial, and/or social injustice. Most of the cases they fund are class actions, but they also fund other types of cases that could affect a significant number of people, such as multi-plaintiff cases, challenges to the constitutionality of laws or ordinances, and environmental reviews.
• They generally fund cases that confront an ongoing injustice and seek future-facing relief, rather than cases that solely seek accountability for past harm. While they do at times support cases that seek damages, they only do so when the primary focus of the case is systemic change, such as when the case is seeking injunctive or declaratory relief. They also tend not to fund cases brought on behalf of individual plaintiffs due to the limited potential for systemic impact.

For more information, visit Impact Fund.