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Community Grants
The Morrison & Foerster Foundation focuses its community grants on organizations serving people in the regions in which Morrison & Foerster personnel live and work. These principal areas include legal aid, children, food & shelter, and health. We also make a limited number of donations to the arts. We do not purchase tables or accept tickets to charitable fundraisers, such as dinners.
In recent years, we have also supported certain disaster relief efforts. Following the devastating South Asian earthquake and tsunami in late 2004, the Foundation committed to matching over $140,000 in individual gifts by Morrison & Foerster attorneys and staff to responding relief agencies, for a total firm-wide contribution of more than $280,000. In response to the wildfires in Southern California in the fall of 2003, we contributed over $32,000 to relief organizations responding directly to needs created by the fires. This amount included over $16,000 from individuals in every office of the firm, including overseas. Following the events of September 11, 2001, we contributed over $520,000 to disaster relief agencies. This amount included over $70,000 donated by 940 firm personnel worldwide.
Just as Morrison & Foerster LLP has a long history of supporting legal services organizations through its pro bono services, The Morrison & Foerster Foundation supports this field through our charitable giving. Each year, we contribute a significant portion of our total budget to legal aid organizations serving the underrepresented, including public interest foundations, citizen education organizations, legal services groups protecting the interests of children and organizations providing free legal services to the poor.
Examples of recent recipients of Legal Aid contributions include:
- Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, DC (to further its objective to obtain equal opportunity for minorities by addressing factors that contribute to racial justice and economic opportunity)
- New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (to support programs designed to help underrepresented people develop legal strategies to serve their vision for themselves and their communities)
- San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program (to sponsor a first-year law student’s summer internship).
In recent years, we have also made significant contributions to nonprofit legal service providers including:
- Bay Area Legal Aid, Oakland, CA
- East Bay Community Law Center, Berkeley, CA
- Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco, CA
- Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC
- Legal Aid Foundation of Colorado, Denver, CO
- Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center, San Francisco, CA
- Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, San Mateo, CA
- Public Counsel, Los Angeles, CA
- San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, San Diego, CA
- Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Washington, DC
- Silicon Valley Campaign for Legal Services, San Jose, CA
- Stanford Community Law Clinic, Stanford, CA
- Volunteer Legal Services Program, San Francisco, CA
The Foundation’s charitable contributions to organizations protecting children and their rights are an important part of our giving program. Each year, we contribute to various organizations addressing the specific legal services needs of children in poverty.
We have also built upon the tutoring guidance and mentoring to disadvantaged students provided by attorneys and staff at the firm’s “adopted” public schools. At Bessie Carmichael Elementary School in San Francisco, the Foundation has contributed funds for the purchase of books and school supplies. At Benjamin Franklin High School in Los Angeles, we have donated funds to the school’s academic jacket program. In addition, the Foundation gives annually to a wide variety of organizations serving the developmental and educational needs of disadvantaged or struggling youth in regions in which the firm has U.S. offices.
Examples of recent recipients of contributions to aid children include:
- Canyon Acres Children’s Services in Anaheim, CA (to provide services for severely abused and emotionally troubled children)
- Para Los Niños in Los Angeles (to enhance after-school services through a literacy program and a program created to foster children’s understanding of universal values)
- Prep for Prep in New York City (to prepare students from minority group backgrounds for placement in independent schools and provide a sense of community, peer support, and leadership development opportunities).
The Foundation contributes to a number of agencies serving those struggling to meet their basic needs of food and shelter. Examples of recent recipients of such contributions include:
- Contra Costa Crisis Center in Walnut Creek, CA (to assist people through crises and connect them with additional resources in the community)
- Sacramento Food Bank (to help fund programs designed to alleviate hunger and provide an efficient, coordinated system for collecting and distributing food)
- Support Network for Battered Women in Mountain View, CA (to assist battered women and children with a 24-hour crisis hotline, emergency shelter and other important services).
The Foundation gives financial support to a number of programs helping the elderly and those with disabilities or illness. In addition to contributing to organizations providing tailored legal services, we have supported a number of organizations assisting people living with HIV disease and AIDS – both by making donations to these groups’ general funds and by offering supplemental matching programs in many offices for firm personnel who contributed to AIDS-related fundraisers. We have also given to a number of organizations helping the elderly and people with developmental and physical disabilities live more fulfilling lives, and to a variety of medical and research organizations throughout the country.
Examples of recent recipients of Health contributions include:
- The Arc San Francisco (to assist people with developmental disabilities to lead fuller, more independent lives)
- Community Association for Rehabilitation in Palo Alto, CA (to fund programs promoting and supporting the achievement of people with developmental disabilities)
- Orthotic & Prosthetic Assistance Fund in Washington, DC (to support a community initiative to explore peace, diversity, tolerance and human rights issues with youth undergoing physical rehabilitation).
The Foundation has also made a limited number of contributions to arts organizations, as well as numerous matching gifts to arts groups. An example of a recent recipient of an Arts contribution is the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (to support the museum’s education programs).
