Site Search

The Foundation Legal Help Desk is designed to provide community, private and family foundations with access to answers to legal questions related to the operations of a foundation. The foundation world is a complex field that requires specialized legal knowledge and many foundations do not have easy access to an attorney with expertise in this field. The Help Desk is operated by our colleagues at the Indiana Philanthropy Alliance (IPA).

How Does it Work?
The service operates through a website. Participants log in with a username and password and type in their question. The software will send it to the attorney “on-call” for their topic area. The attorney will respond either with a written answer or will make arrangements for a phone conversation.

The attorneys providing this service have specialized knowledge in grantmaking, scholarships, fund management, planned giving, nonprofit law, the Pension Protection Act, UPMIFA and other laws that specifically affect the operations of a foundation. 

The Details

• This service is designed to provide quick answers to questions and is limited to a maximum of one hour on any one question. The attorney will be able to advise the foundation if they need to engage counsel to assist them with a complex legal issue or gift. 
• The attorney will engage directly with foundation staff or board members, and will not work directly with donors or professional advisors. 
• The attorney can review documents but will not prepare any documents.
• This service is for legal questions that relate to the operation of a foundation, not legal issues facing a foundation’s grantees. 

Foundations will contact IPA directly to subscribe to the service, and IPA will provide them with a subscription agreement. Once they send the agreement back to IPA with their payment, IPA will provide them with their login credentials. IPA will let you know when any of your members sign up for the service, and will provide each PSO with an annual report on usage by your members and the topic areas of questions handled. 

Service Levels and Costs

How to Subscribe
Email [email protected] to request a registration form and subscription agreement. Please indicate that you are a CNJG member.

Independent Sector, in partnership with Edelman Data & Intelligence, is releasing this second annual report of survey findings that explore the nuances of trust in American nonprofit and philanthropic organizations.

Responding to the urgency of this moment in time, Asset Funder Network’s new brief is reimagining and building on past recommendations to map more just paths to economic resilience moving forward.

To bring the framework and recommendations to life, they included eight case stories from local and national funders that are applying an equity lens with a range of strategies to support Relief through Resilience. Four of the funders have employed a two-pronged approach of investing in systems change and programs. Three others are focused on on-the-ground interventions, and another is predominantly investing at the systems level. To support their strategies, they have made changes inward, outward, around, and onward.

The 2021 CEO Blueprint for Racial Equity will guide you beyond diversity and inclusion commitments to the heart of the business opportunity ahead: addressing the intended and unintended impacts of your products, services, operations, policies, and practices on people of color and low-income communities, with key recommendations across the three domains of corporate influence: within the Company; within the community; within society.

As of February 22, 2021, the coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 2.5 million people around the world, with an additional 110 million people infected. And while data such as this serves an enormous purpose in understanding the scale and scope of a disaster, aiding experts in determining needs and directing resources, it remains far from the complete picture of the impact of COVID-19 on humanity.

Philanthropy’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates that not only can donors be exceedingly generous in a crisis, but they can lead through trust and courage. In this new report, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and Candid recognize this leadership, as demonstrated by increased overall giving, even if too little of it is in the form of unrestricted grants and funds directed toward Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. There remains much to be done, especially regarding support for programs that deliver the policy and system changes necessary to redress generations of inequities.

Funders are being asked to show how they are addressing social inequities by specifying what they do and who they are. How does philanthropy begin to embed equity into grantmaking, policies, and culture?

Healthy Communities Foundation has been on a journey to address this question by advancing health equity through a racial equity lens. This report describes that journey and offers practical ways of inspiring action so you can integrate equity into your foundation’s DNA.

The templates in this toolkit are designed to help your organization develop or refresh your intended impact and theory of change. They provide an overview of each step and worksheets that guide your team through critical considerations.

The COVID-19 public health and economic crisis has changed our world as we know it. As employers moved to remote work, schools shifted to distance learning, and businesses closed completely, it became clear that the impact on residents, nonprofits, and businesses was far greater than anyone could have ever imagined.

In response to the growing and evolving needs of our region, the Greater Washington Community Foundation established the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund to raise and rapidly deploy funding to local nonprofits providing food, shelter, educational supports, and other critical services.

From the beginning our goal was clear: to address the immediate needs and reach adversely affected communities, particularly low-income households and communities of color. We know all too well that in a crisis like this, these marginalized communities are hit the hardest, and often take the longest to recover.

In times of crises, The Community Foundation is our region’s philanthropic first responder, bringing together individuals and families, philanthropic peers, corporate partners, and local government advisors to address community issues. Building on our rich history of emergency response work, we grounded our COVID-19 response efforts in a similar coordinated approach.

This report chronicles the steps taken, under immense pressure, to develop a coordinated emergency response effort to support a broad range of needs across the region. Once again this effort has demonstrated that working in partnership and close collaboration with our philanthropic peers and local government advisors is an effective way to manage a response to both urgent and longer-term needs.