Impact Fund: Litigation to Advance Social Justice

Posted by on February 04, 2013

Impact Fund Offers Support for Litigation to Advance Social Justice
Deadline: Quarterly

The Impact Fund provides grants to nonprofit legal firms, private attorneys, and/or small law firms working to advance social justice in the areas of civil and human rights, environmental justice, and poverty law. The fund provides support for public interest litigation that has the potential to benefit a large number of people, lead to significant law reform, and raise public consciousness of social justice issues.

The average grant size ranges between $5,000 and $15,000. The maximum grant amount awarded to any single applicant is $25,000 per year.

Grants are made in the general areas of social and environmental justice, human and civil rights, and poverty. The fund is particularly interested in projects that address systemic deprivations of constitutional or statutory rights in post 9/11 cases involving denial of rights under the guise of “Homeland Security”; criminal justice and immigration; and education access and equity.

Grants will be awarded to private attorneys, small legal firms, and nonprofit legal entities that do not have sufficient access to funding sources. Specifically, grants are intended to support cases that could not be effectively prosecuted, and/or in which financial hardship would occur to the applicant if supplementary funding were not available. Grants may cover reasonable costs and out-of-pocket expenses (including non-recoverable costs) such as deposition expenses, expert fees, and investigation expenses.

The fund awards grants four times a year. Pre-applications are accepted on a continual basis. For the 2013 spring cycle, the pre-application deadline is May 21, 2013, and the application deadline is February 21, 2013.

Visit the fund’s Web site for complete program guidelines.

http://www.impactfund.org/index.php?cat_id=3