Geneva, NY – LawNY is developing a web platform to help nonprofits and community-based organizations throughout western New York. The platform is an innovative website with multiple tools to connect organizations to educational resources and other nonprofits.
When complete in the spring, the project will elevate the work of hundreds of community groups and provide the ability for them to collaborate with each other to improve the entire region. In addition, the platform will be a place where community groups can learn and access legal information about forming and managing non-profits, as well as strategies and opportunities for using community group power and resources to achieve widespread results.
“Nonprofits often need more resources than they can afford as they work to help the people in their communities,” says Eli Mattern, CEO and general counsel, SavvySuit, an Orlando-based firm who is building the platform with LawNY. “We’re excited to help this great organization expand their reach, so they can serve more people.”
LawNY is a nonprofit law firm that provides free legal assistance to people in 14 counties in western New York. The firm focuses on housing, public benefits, family law, Social Security insurance denials, and a wide variety of other services.
The platform is an undertaking of LawNY’s Community Development and Economic Justice Project (CDP). The CDP can provide free legal assistance to eligible not-for-profit organizations and community groups within our fourteen-county service area.
One feature for the new platform is an interactive map to help identify the locations and missions of local nonprofits, a quick resource for the community to make external referrals more effective and connect organizations working with similar missions and locations.
The platform will also have training and educational courses on topics important to community organizations, including the legal questions surrounding how to form and run a nonprofit.
Kari Talbott, LawNY – IOLA Project Supervising Attorney, 315-781-1465 ext. 1025, communitydevelopment@lawny.org
About Community Development and Economic Justice Project: LawNY’s Community Development and Economic Justice Project (CDP) can provide free legal assistance to eligible not-for-profit organizations, community groups, and grassroots activists within our fourteen-county service area. CDP is focused on giving citizen groups and non-profits the tools to thrive and build sustainable local economies. The CDP also seeks to advance community-led challenges to the systems of poverty and oppression working in our society, including racial and economic injustice. The CDP is funded by the New York State Interest on Lawyer Account Fund (IOLA).
Eli Mattern, SavvySuit, 407-506-5941, eli@savvysuit.com
About SavvySuit: SavvySuit builds cool tech for the legal field. They bridge the gap between attorneys and developers because their founders are both. Graduates of the Starter Studio accelerator, SavvySuit works in a multitude of mediums under the legal tech umbrella—they’ve filed a patent for a time-tracking device, built software solutions for private organizations, and continue to prototype new ways to use tech in the law. For more information, visit www.SavvySuit.com.