Funding Details
Program goal
To promote a more effective and fair civil and criminal justice system through research and monitoring of practices and procedures in city courts and advocacy to improve local court practices and procedures.
Grants are made to
Provide advocacy, information, and representation in emerging and/or urgent areas of civil law where other funding sources are limited, including:
- Helping advocates and legal service nonprofits act quickly when laws and policies change.
- Supporting advocacy and individual, multi-plaintiff, or class-action litigation to protect New Yorkers’ civil rights and make law and public policy more responsive to the needs of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Identify effective ways to help low-income New Yorkers resolve legal problems and thereby improve their quality of life by:
- Testing the effectiveness of different service delivery methods, such as brief advice, technology, non-lawyers, and alternative courts.
- Connecting legal help with other desired outcomes, such as reducing homelessness and increasing employment and educational opportunities through program evaluation and collaboration with other social service providers.
- Building the capacity of legal service nonprofits, individually and as a field, to track and communicate their results.
We do not make grants to provide legal representation in criminal matters.
Read the background paper that informed this grantmaking strategy here.
Recent grants
| Organization | Summary |
|---|---|
Women’s Community Justice Association |
to support public education and advocacy efforts to improve conditions for women in the city’s jails. |
Urban Youth Alliance International |
to engage young people in campaigns to relocate Rikers Island inmates to a facility in the Bronx and protect young people during police interrogations. |
Transformative In-Prison Workgroup |
for community groups to deliver rehabilitative programs to people in New York’s prisons and jails. |
National Mobilization Against Sweatshops |
to advocate to abolish 24-hour workdays for home care aides. |
Freedom House |
to report on internet freedom in 70 countries to support advocacy for free speech and online privacy |
Children’s Rights |
to reform New York state law to reduce unfounded and disruptive reports of suspected child maltreatment. |
Family Justice Law Center |
to bring federal litigation on behalf of families harmed by the city’s child welfare practices |
Central American Legal Assistance |
to protect the rights of asylum seekers by appealing unfair and incorrect denials |
Make the Road New York |
to create a state unemployment insurance program for undocumented workers |
Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees |
to provide case management and other services to Haitian immigrants, many of whom are women who have survived gender-based violence |
UnLocal, Inc. |
to help migrants represent themselves in immigration proceedings |
Her Justice |
for legal representation and advocacy to reform child support proceedings in New York State |
Bronx Defenders |
to protect parents’ rights in child welfare investigations |
Fund for New Citizens |
for a collaborative fund to assist immigrants and refugees in New York |
Documented Ltd |
to empower Chinese and Caribbean New Yorkers with immigration, social, and economic information via Chinese- and Creole-language local news |
JMacForFamilies |
to strengthen the rights of parents in child welfare investigations |
Documented Ltd |
to create a public database of wage theft violations in New York State |
Right to Counsel NYC Coalition |
to expand the right to counsel in eviction proceedings |
African Communities Together, Inc. |
to expand opportunities for African immigrants in fields with livable wages |
UnLocal, Inc. |
to help migrants represent themselves in immigration proceedings |
New York Immigration Coalition, Inc. |
to coordinate a statewide campaign to aid newly arrived immigrants |
Freedom Agenda |
to repurpose Rikers Island while reforming the city’s approach to incarceration |
North Star Fund |
for a fund to support grassroots campaigns to end police violence against Black people |
Catholic Charities Community Services, Archdiocese of New York |
to provide legal assistance to newly arrived asylum seekers |
Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative, Inc. |
to help unrepresented asylum seekers navigate immigration court |
Curious about what else we fund?
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