Get Involved: Donate
DONATE NOW!
● Honor Someone Special
● Donate Money
● Donate Your Vehicle
● Donate Through eScrip
● Donate Stock
● Direct Your Dollars
● Planned Giving
● Endowment
● Cy Press
● Events
The Law Foundation gratefully accepts donations of any size. We rely on the generosity of our donors to meet the critical legal services needs of underrepresented people in our community. There are several ways to support our work, outlined below.
Make an unrestricted donation to the Law Foundation.
Simply click here to donate on-line. Checks should be made out to “The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley” and mailed to:
Law Foundation of Silicon Valley
152 North Third St., 3rd Floor
San Jose, CA 95112
Attn: Accounting
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Donate your vehicle to the Law Foundation.
The Law Foundation, through its affiliation with Vehicles for Charity, is able to accept vehicles as donations, which when sold by Vehicles for Charity, will be converted to cash donations for our programs! Click here to donate.
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Donate Through eScrip.
Through eScrip, your purchases at participating merchants turn into contributions to the Law Foundation when the merchant contributes a percentage of all eScrip purchases! It’s easy and fast to register your credit & debit cards (such as Macy’s card) and club cards (but not Safeway—they only donate to schools) on-line with eScrip. Go to www.escrip.com, click on sign-up, and then follow the instructions to register your cards and your existing credit and debit cards.
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Donate stock or other securities to the Law Foundation.
The Law Foundation accepts gifts of securities as well; please contact Randal Avey at Merrill Lynch at (408) 283-3123 or (800) 933-5655 ext. 3123 or email for details on how to make such a gift.
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Direct your donation to a specific Law Foundation program.
In lieu of an unrestricted gift, you may designate which of our five legal services programs you wish to support with your donation. Simply indicate to which program you wish to direct your donation —Health Legal Services, Fair Housing Law Project, Legal Advocates for Children &Youth, Mental Health Advocacy Project, or Public Interest Law Firm —on the “memo” line of your check or in a note mailed with your check. (Designation of a specific program is not available on-line at this time.)
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Include a gift to the Law Foundation in your estate.
By making a gift through your estate, you can help meet the critical legal service needs of our communities’ underserved people while achieving your financial goals. Some of the vehicles for planned giving include: bequests, which often decrease your estate’s tax bill; and life income gifts, which can generate immediate tax savings and annual income for you. To find out about these and other options (including charitable remainder trusts, pooled income funds, gift annuities, deferred gift annuities, real estate funds, and family endowments) please contact Jim Bower at (408) 280-2419 or email to make such a donation.
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Donate to the Ruffo Endowment to help reduce our lawyers’ student loan debt.
In 2003, the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley established the Albert J. Ruffo endowment to honor the memory of an outstanding community leader, fine attorney, and close friend. The Board has determined that the best use of these funds is to help relieve our lawyers’ often crushing student loan debt. It is not uncommon for new lawyers to graduate with over $100,000 in debt; loan payments can make it very difficult for them to make ends meet on a non-profit salary.
We encourage you to consider donating to the endowment to help us continue to recruit and retain the high-quality attorneys who provide our critical legal services.
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Honor someone special by making a gift in their name.
Whichever way you choose to support the Law Foundation, you can make your donation in the name of a friend or family member, perhaps as a gift for a special occasion. Or you can honor the memory of a deceased friend or relative through a memorial gift. Simply indicate that you wish to make your donation in another’s name on the “memo” line of your check or in a note mailed with your check. Click here to donate online.
- To send a congratulatory message to Kerstin Arusha to honor her work at Fair Housing Law Project, click here.
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Designate the Law Foundation as the recipient of a cy pres award.
If you are an attorney or party to a class action in which an unclaimed residue of funds is likely to exist, or defendants’ conduct has made full restitution to the harmed individuals impossible, consider the Law Foundation as a recipient of cy pres funds. Courts have adopted cy pres as a vehicle for justice in such situations because otherwise the funds will revert to the defendants, creating a windfall for the wrong-doer and failing to create the desired deterrent effect. To avoid this, courts put the funds to their “next best use” by directing them to appropriate organizations—that is, those that focus on addressing the needs of the people harmed by the defendants’ misdeeds. Courts usually rely on the parties to determine which organization(s) would be appropriate.
The Law Foundation will often be an excellent candidate to receive cy pres awards:
- Our mission is focused on vindicating the rights of under-represented people;
- We are one of the most respected legal service agencies in the Bay Area, and have been providing services since 1974; and
- The priorities of our five legal service programs are very broad, and thus we can likely effectively address the legal needs of the affected population.
For more information about any of the above please contact Kyra Kazantzis at (408) 280-2401 or email.
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Join us at one of the Law Foundation’s annual events.
While we welcome your financial support at any time of the year, you can get a deeper flavor of our organization and the work we do by contributing as part of one of our four annual events. For more information about these fun and festive affairs, please click here for our Events page.
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revised: 5/20/09
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