In 2023, Allison Marseille, Deputy Director at Legal Aid SMC, worked with leadership across the organization to prepare a proposal for the 2023 Yield Giving Open Call along with 6,500 other nonprofits. Established by MacKenzie Scott, Yield Giving initially hosted the Open Call to select 250 of these organizations to receive a million dollar grant to support their work serving communities.
However, when recipients were announced, Legal Aid SMC was notified that it would be removed from the pool of Open Call applications and instead awarded a standalone $1M unrestricted grant! Recognizing the amount of work that was put into the Open Call proposal, Allison submitted an article about the process to the MIE Journal to provide similar nonprofit legal organizations with an understanding of how we frame and discuss our work at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County.
Click on the link below to read about how Allison approached the challenge of communicating the complexities and importance of legal aid services to those outside the legal community.