Our Documents Website
We maintain a website containing over 270 form and precedent legal documents for nonprofit organizations.
The materials relate to corporate governance; programmatic and earned income activities; fiscal sponsorship and other relationships unique to nonprofits; everyday contracting; and other areas. They include governance documents, contracts, practical management tools, and examples of advice communications. The site also contains a brief discussion about our take on legal document design.
The materials include redacted versions of client work-products. We process all such documents to remove material that may identify the client or other parties, all privileged, confidential, and proprietary information, and metadata. Our engagement letters with clients describe the website and this process, and provide that we will we not include on the site documents prepared for a client if the client so instructs us.
Visit SiteWhy We Created the Site
The site is a resource targeted to lawyers and law clinics who work with nonprofits, whether on a pro bono or for-pay basis; lawyers who otherwise are looking for precedents; legal educators; and individuals who are interested in legal document design. It is not designed as a self-help resource for non-lawyers.
We created the site for two reasons:
- First, model legal documents for nonprofits are often hard to find. Several organizations, such as Public Counsel, make available excellent corporate governance models, and it’s possible to find fiscal sponsorship and other documents through internet searches. But it can be difficult to find examples of other documents, especially materials relating to charitable programs and other activities specific to nonprofits. We wanted to start addressing that gap in the resource base.
- Second, we try to recognize that people actually have to read and use these things. As noted in the Our Approach section of this site, we think it’s instructive to view legal work-products as products, and to try to learn from the design community in how we approach, design, and execute legal documents. We thought this site was a way to share that point of view in a practical and concrete manner.
The site receives over 20,000 visits each year.