Frequently Asked Questions

Any nonprofit organization, solo practitioner, or small legal firm that is involved in a public interest impact lawsuit is eligible to apply. Let us know if you have questions about whether you or your organization would be eligible.

Prospective applicants should register through our Grant Portal and submit a Letter of Inquiry (LOI) in advance of our quarterly deadline (see the “How to Apply” section of our website). If invited to apply, you will complete a full application in the Grant Portal, where you will also be asked to provide documents such as a filed or draft complaint and a litigation budget. A member of our grants committee will then schedule a phone call with an attorney on your case. After your application is reviewed by our grants committee, we will reach out via email to notify you of their decision.

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

No, you may only apply for one grant for one case per quarter.

Yes, as long as it has been at least one year since you received a grant from us. You are welcome to apply for additional funding for a case that we already funded, as long as the case is facing a new set of challenges and expenses. You may also seek funding for a separate case that we have not yet funded.

We strongly suggest that the lawyers who are litigating the case fill out the application, particularly the sections dealing with the case information, legal strategy, and litigation budget. Our grants committee is composed of public interest and plaintiff’s lawyers, so there is no need to “translate” the information for a non-legal audience.

Yes, the Impact Fund treats grant applications and reports, as well as discussions in connection with them, as confidential attorney work product.

If you are awarded a grant, we report summary grant information to the IRS as required by law, and to funders in periodic reporting. We also announce grantmaking awards in press releases to the media each quarter, but you can let us know if you would prefer that we not describe your case in a press release.

Yes! We are happy to set up a call to discuss your case and answer questions about our criteria. If you are not sure when to apply or which of your cases would be a better fit, we can provide you with feedback. To schedule a meeting, please reach out to us by email.

We fund cases that seek to achieve a systemic solution to an economic, environmental, racial, and/or social injustice. Most of the cases we fund are class actions, but we 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.

We generally fund cases that confront an ongoing injustice and seek future-facing relief, rather than cases that solely seek accountability for past harm. While we do at times support cases that seek damages, we only do so when the primary focus of the case is systemic change, such as when the case is seeking injunctive or declaratory relief. We also tend not to fund cases brought on behalf of individual plaintiffs due to the limited potential for systemic impact.

We do not fund lawsuits that seek to preserve natural resources but lack a direct tie to a low-income community and/or a community of color.

We prioritize cases where the affected communities are directly involved in the litigation process (e.g., in crafting the solutions that could result from litigation). We also fund some environmental litigation that was not initiated by the affected community, but was developed in consultation with or would clearly benefit the community. In addition, we make grants for environmental cases that are not strictly considered to be impact litigation, such as administrative challenges.

Although we make grants throughout the life cycle of a case, most cases come to us between the drafting of the complaint and the beginning of discovery. If you are invited to apply, we will ask that you submit the filed complaint or a draft of the complaint.

If a motion to dismiss, a motion for class certification, or a motion for summary judgment is pending in your case, we recommend waiting to apply until the results of the motion are known. Note that we tend not to fund cases while they are on appeal due to a reduced need for litigation expenses during this time. We also do not make grants to support litigation that has concluded and is now in the monitoring stage.

We know that determining the best time to apply can be tricky, so you are welcome to reach out if you would like feedback on your unique situation.

Grants may be used to fund out-of-pocket litigation expenses. The most common expenses funded are expert witness fees and costs, discovery-related costs, deposition transcripts, records fees, filing fees, witness fees, scientific analysis, court reporter fees, interpreters, visual materials, class notice costs, mediation fees, and attorney and staff travel costs.

Grants may not be used to fund attorneys’ fees, staff time, or organizational overhead. Also, grants may not be used as reimbursements for previously incurred costs.

We have provided a budget template that you can use to create your budget. You are also welcome to create your own budget; if you do, we ask that you include information about the expense types, expense amounts, funding sources, and projected dates that the expenses will be incurred.

We know it can be tricky to predict future expenses that can arise in litigation. The budget does not need to cover the entire life cycle of the lawsuit—we are most interested in the anticipated expenses for the upcoming stage of the case (e.g., discovery or trial). There is also no need to estimate the hours spent working on the case, as we do not fund attorney or staff time.

Once a grant is made, we ask that you keep us updated on your case’s status until the case has ended. To do this, we ask grantees to submit brief annual updates through our Grant Portal. After the case has concluded, we require that grantees submit a final report describing the case’s outcome and grant expenditures.

Grantees with overdue reports in our Grant Portal will not be allowed to apply for another grant from us until the reports are completed.

No, the grant is intended to be used as needed throughout the course of the litigation, as long as it is spent on approved expense types. While the case is ongoing, there are no time restrictions on when the funds can be spent. (In fact, some of the cases we have funded have been ongoing for decades!)

Feel free to reach out if you would like to expand the use of the grant funds to additional expenses beyond those that you anticipated at the time of application. As long as the expense is of a type that we typically fund, we are usually happy to alter the grant terms in this way.

You are welcome to apply for a supplemental grant for your case as long as 1) at least a year has passed since your last grant from us, 2) your case has experienced a significant development, and 3) the original grant has been spent. To apply for supplemental funding, submit an LOI in our regular process. Be sure to indicate on the application that yours is a supplemental request.

Our pay-it-forward model requires grantees who recover attorneys’ fees and/or costs to repay their grants with interest. The repaid funds are then put to good use supporting new impact cases. The Impact Fund is a public charity, and all the grants we make are funded by grant repayments and contributions from our donors and funders. Grant repayments allow us to support many more cases than we would be able to otherwise.

In cases where there is a fee or cost recovery, we require the grantee to repay the original grant amount, plus 7% simple interest, to replenish the fund for future grantees.

A typical Impact Fund grant is $20,000 and takes 3 years to conclude. In this example, the grant would accrue $4,200 in interest ($20,000 x 0.07 x 3 years). The total amount owed to us at grant closing in this example would be $24,200.

If a case does not recover fees or costs, then no repayment is due. However, we do require that any unspent grant funds be returned to us to help support other grants.

In the event of a low fee/cost recovery, the Impact Fund can reduce repayments on a case-by-case basis. Grantees will never have to repay more than they recover in fees or costs.

After your case concludes, let us know by email or by contacting anyone on our Grants team. Be sure to mention whether you achieved a fee/cost recovery, and if not, whether any grant funds remain unspent. We will send you an invoice if necessary, and assign you a final report in our Grant Portal. Once these final steps are completed, we will close the grant.

Yes! We are happy to provide promotional support via social media and our Social Justice Blog, where grantees frequently write guest posts about their cases.

We also offer a number of legal support and training services, such as pro-bono consulting and referrals, our Class Action Training Institute, our annual Class Action Conference, an email Listserv, educational webinars, and potential amicus brief support.

Please contact us if you would like to be added to the Listserv or would like more information about any of our programs and services