The Impact Fund was founded in December 1992, and our mission is to provide grants, advocacy, and education to support impact litigation on behalf of communities seeking economic, environmental, racial, and social justice. We do this by (1) making grants to support cases that affect large numbers of people and aim to change a larger system or lead to significant legal reform; (2) providing training for public interest law practitioners on a wide range of issues relating to public interest litigation including in-person presentations, brown bag lunches, webinars, our annual Class Action Conference, and our three-day intensive Class Action Training Institute; and (3) pursuing an active and diverse docket of impact civil rights cases, maintaining an active amicus program, and providing consulting to civil rights practitioner on a range of complex issues, free of charge. Our vision is a more equitable world where everyone can achieve justice.

History:

In 1992, founder and former Executive Director, Brad Seligman, established the Impact Fund with the idea of helping “smaller” firms and nonprofits litigate "big" cases. In his living room, with the assistance of a group of leading public interest litigators (the Impact Fund's original Board of Advisors), Brad hashed out the basic criteria for what would become the Impact Fund's present-day Grantmaking Program. Now, the small one-man team has grown into a mid-sized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, headquartered in Berkeley, California. In July 2010, Jocelyn D. Larkin was appointed as the Impact Fund's second Executive Director. In March 2024, Jocelyn was succeeded by Lindsay Nako, the Impact Fund’s third Executive Director

Programs:

Since its founding, the Impact Fund has expanded its direct services and programs to include trainings, advice and counseling, amicus representation, conferences, and co-counseling. Most notably, the Impact Fund currently heads up a civil rights class action team, handling important and complex class actions with the goal of achieving broad social change.

The Impact Fund has been able to expand and take on big cases, such as Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., because of the growing support of individual donors, the California Legal Services Trust Fund, private firms, and family foundations. As we move forward, we hope that you will support us in our continued battle for social justice.

Grants

Our Grantmaking Program awards funding to public interest lawyers to advance costs in systemic impact litigation. Since its inception, this program has awarded over $9 million dollars spread over 750+ cases, which has facilitated a wide range of impact litigation across the nation.

Litigation

Our Litigation Program provides counseling, advice, and assistance on procedural and substantive issues that arise in complex litigation. Impact Fund acts as co-counsel for plaintiffs on select class action cases where its expertise is most helpful. Our legal team organizes amicus efforts on civil rights and class action lawsuits addressing both legal questions and procedural issues. We are also a designated Support Center for Legal Services Projects funded by the California State Bar Association's Legal Services Trust Fund.

Training

We provide high-quality training programs on various aspects of class action and impact litigation. Programs are conducted several times per year in various locations across California, as well as on the Web. In addition, we offer an annual intensive three-day Class Action Training Institute and a two-day Class Action Conference where the plaintiffs bar gathers to share best practice. The Impact Fund provides a discounted rate for these offerings to lawyers in the nonprofit sector and an even deeper discount for qualified legal services projects (QLSPs) in the state of California.