Dear Friend of the IBF,
As 2025 draws to a close, vulnerable Illinois residents are facing unprecedented challenges to their basic rights and protections. Recent funding cuts and changes at the federal level have created new uncertainties around housing stability, healthcare access, immigration and asylum policies, and other essential services—leaving low-income individuals and families with nowhere to turn but the civil legal aid system. Each year, thousands of Illinois residents who desperately need legal help are turned away because organizations lack the resources to serve them. The Illinois Bar Foundation stands as the only statewide, voluntarily-funded organization bridging this gap, ensuring that justice isn’t just for those who can afford it. Today, we’re highlighting the voices of our grantee organizations and the individuals they support, and we ask you to stand with us as we meet this moment of urgent need. Donate today.
HELPING VETERANS ACCESS THE BENEFITS THEY DESERVE
IBF grantee Land of Lincoln Legal Aid (LOLLA) provides free civil legal services to low-income individuals and senior citizens in 65 counties of Central and Southern Illinois, assisting over ten thousand of our Illinois neighbors each year. LOLLA takes on clients with nowhere else to turn, providing vital aid to Central and Southern Illinoisans with issues including domestic violence and elder abuse, evictions and fair housing claims, adult and child guardianship cases, veterans’ and disabled persons’ rights, and more. Clarissa Gaff, Executive Director at LOLLA, shared the below story from a client:
Robert was a veteran who had been denied Social Security several times. He lived in subsidized housing, but had no income to support himself and often faced the threat of his utilities being shut off. Thanks to the Illinois Bar Foundation’s consistent support of Land of Lincoln, Robert was able to get help from a Land of Lincoln attorney, who represented him in an appeal of his Social Security. She won his case, and Robert now has reliable income and obtained $30,000+ in back benefits. IBF’s continued partnership with LOLLA means that community members like Robert are able to enjoy safety and economic security.
BUILDING & SUSTAINING COMMUNITY THROUGH HOLISTIC SUPPORT
The James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy believes that all young people deserve justice in the courtroom, access to the classroom, and restoration in the community. With those beliefs at the forefront, the Moran Center provides community-based legal, social work, and restorative services for youth and families in the Evanston/Skokie area, including education advocacy, school-based civil legal clinics, criminal record relief, and more. The innovative and holistic assistance provided by the Moran Center not only advances justice and educates citizens on their rights and responsibilities, but restores hope in the community.
In a time when so much feels uncertain, the Illinois Bar Foundation has been a steady partner in justice. Their consistent support has allowed the Moran Center not only to keep the lights on, but to keep faith with the children and families who depend on us. That kind of steadfastness doesn’t just sustain our work; it sustains our community’s hope.
-Patrick Keenan-Devlin, Executive Director, James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy
GIVING A VOICE TO SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
The Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE) envisions a community free from all forms of sexual exploitation, a vision it works to bring into being through prevention education, public policy reform and advocacy, community engagement, and legal services for survivors.
We are so grateful to the Illinois Bar Foundation for providing us much needed funding for so many years. The way the IBF values, supports and promotes engagement and active collaboration between members of the Illinois Bar and the legal aid community is so appreciated and admired. At CAASE, we feel really lucky to have the opportunity to directly engage with the tough, feisty and resilient survivors that we work with. And while we are the lucky ones to deal directly with the survivors, it is because of the IBF’s support that we can do this great work.
-Kaethe Morris Hoffer, Executive Director, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation
Through the generous contributions of our donors, the IBF’s programs impact the lives of over 52,000 individuals like the ones above each year. The diligent work of our grantee organizations and the funds that the Illinois Bar Foundation was able to provide made these stories, among countless others, a reality this year. With so many more individuals to help, this holiday season, we hope that you will join us and donate in support of our work to remove geographic, economic and social barriers to access to justice that harm our communities across the state.
On behalf of the Board of Directors and the many individuals we serve, thank you for giving back to our neighbors in need this holiday season.
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