Advising Nonprofits

We provide legal assistance and advice to a wide range of nonprofit organizations. Our goal is to collaborate with and provide pro bono services to nonprofits that tackle issues aligning with our core pro bono focus areas: the arts, criminal justice, education, gun violence, immigration, LGBTQIA+, racial and civil rights and reproductive justice.

We work with nonprofits on a variety of issues, including the incorporation of the organization, preparation and negotiation of contracts and agreements, tax assistance, real estate and leasing issues, and employment matters. We also assist nonprofits on a case-by-case basis, when our core areas of legal expertise align with the needs of an organization.

Below are some highlights:

• In partnership with the Robin Hood Foundation, New York City’s largest poverty-fighting organization, over 50 transactional attorneys joined a first-of-its-kind initiative to provide pro bono transactional legal support to several of the Robin Hood Foundation’s nonprofit grantees. Corporate, data privacy, tax, real estate and employment attorneys provided counsel to smaller nonprofits with fewer than 50 employees and to members of Robin Hood’s Power Fund—a new program that invests in and elevates nonprofit leaders of color and focuses on increasing mobility from poverty while addressing the interplay of racial injustice and economic injustice.
• We are working with the Black Economic Alliance (BEA) Foundation, a nonprofit coalition of business leaders advocating for public policies that advance the work, wages and wealth of the Black community. Our corporate and tax attorneys are assisting the BEA Foundation with launching and operating the Black Entrepreneurs Fund, which provides seed, start-up and early-stage capital to businesses founded and led by Black entrepreneurs.
• We assist New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV) with a variety of corporate governance matters and board advisory work. Our accomplishments were recently honored at the NYAGV gala.
• We helped students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School secure the music rights to “Shine,” the song two students created in the aftermath of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida. We also helped incorporate a not-for-profit, Shine MSD, to raise relief funds for shooting victims and to provide healing through the arts.
• We regularly assist the International Refugee Assistance Project and other immigration-focused nonprofits based in New York City with a variety of corporate governance, contract, tax questions and advocacy questions.

To learn more, please click on each of the pro bono page’s Spotlights for a more in-depth look at the work we are doing with nonprofits in each core pro bono focus.