grants
Full List of Grantees
Antioch Educational Center
The Antioch Educational Center works with SC Legal Services to provide legal advice to residents of Jasper County. AE works to increase the number of residents of Jasper, Hardeeville, and Ridgeland receiving legal services. Visit website >>
Catholic Charities of SC (Immigration Legal Services)
CCOIS works to meet the need for low-cost, high-quality immigration legal services in the state. They focus on providing family-based immigration services and assisting immigrant victims of crime. Visit website >>
Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation
CHPP delivers legal services to low-income persons in need of assistance with heirs’ property issues. The team works to enhance the capacity of attorneys, legal professionals and students to provide legal education and direct legal services in the Lowcountry. Visit website >>
Charleston Legal Access
Charleston Legal Access is a nonprofit law firm dedicated to expanding access to legal services and rights in South Carolina. CLA serves moderate and low income individual clients, providing legal representation at reduced fees calculated on a sliding scale, and participates in litigation to overcome systemic injustice. Visit website >>
Charleston Pro Bono Legal Services
Charleston Pro Bono Legal Services serves the vital legal needs of Charleston’s economically disadvantaged. We empower people by providing aid, representation and an array of legal services that grant access to the protections and benefits of our legal system. Visit website >>
Coastal Conservation League
Since 1989, the Coastal Conservation League has worked with communities, businesses, citizen groups and people like you to protect what we love about South Carolina. Visit website >>
Disability Rights SC
Since 1977, DRSC has been an non-profit corporation protecting and advancing the legal, civil and human rights of people with disabilities in South Carolina. They serve as the Protection and Advocacy System and Client Assistance Program for South Carolina. DRSC is independent of all agencies providing treatment or other services to people with disabilities and our services are free. Visit website >>
Equal Justice Works
Founded by law students in 1986, Equal Justice Works is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that brings together an extensive network of law students, lawyers, legal services organizations, and supporters to promote a lifelong commitment to public service and equal justice. Visit website >>
Greenville County Human Relations Commission
The Greenville County Human Relations Commission is a HUD-approved local Housing Counseling Agency and a Local Fair Housing Agency. Almost five decades ago a small group of ministers, college professors, prominent citizens and a few regular folks began meeting to discuss the rising racial tension in the area. Together they developed an action plan to mend relations and to open the lines of communication between the races. In 1969, Mayor Cooper White created the Human Relations Commission. Visit website >>
Hopeful Horizons
Hopeful Horizons aids victims of domestic abuse in Beaufort, Jasper, Colleton and Hampton counties. Hopeful Horizons provides safe shelter for victims of domestic violence and their children as well as court accompaniment, adult counseling, children’s counseling and case management. Visit website >>
Horry County Treatment Court
The Horry County Treatment Court works to quickly identify individuals who have entered the criminal justice system and connect them to support, recovery and/or therapeutic services. The Case Manager coordinates with the Prosecutor, Defense Attorney, and Treatment Court Director to guide the individual to success in remaining substance free, find recovery from mental illness, and remain crime free so that overall recidivism is reduced, the cost of incarceration is eliminated, and the criminal justice system is relieved. Visit website >>
Justice 360
The mission of Justice 360 is to promote fairness, reliability and transparency in the criminal justice system for individuals facing the death penalty and juveniles facing lengthy sentences in South Carolina. They accomplish this by providing resources and support for lawyers tasked with representing capital and juvenile defendants, representing individual clients, advocating for policy change to address systemic flaws in the criminal justice system, and educating the public to raise awareness about the administration of capital and juvenile sentencing in South Carolina. Visit website >>
Lowcountry Legal Volunteers
LCLV is a freestanding legal services office in the Hilton Head/Bluffton area that utilizes volunteers – both lawyers and others – to meet the civil legal needs of the community. Visit website >>
Mediation and Meeting Center of Charleston
The Mediation and Meeting Center of Charleston (MMCC) is dedicated to providing quality, accessible dispute resolution and training. The Mediation Center was established in 2008 as a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that offers a voluntary alternative for resolving conflict. Visit website >>
Midlands Mediation Center (Columbia)
The Midlands Mediation Center (MMC), formerly known as the Community Mediation Center, has brought the practice of using mediation to resolve disputes to the Midlands community since 1998. MMC relies on a dedicated core of volunteer mediators who have received training in civil and/or family mediation. Many use mediation in their legal, human resources, or social services professions. Visit website >>
National Judicial College
The NJC offers programs to the judiciary to improve productivity, challenge current perceptions of justice and inspire judges to achieve judicial excellence. Foundation funds provide scholarships to NJC for South Carolina judges (selected by S.C. Court Administration). Visit website >>
NC Center on Actual Innocence
The NC Center on Actual Innocence (NCCAI) oversees Innocence Projects® at North Carolina law schools and provides legal services to indigent, unrepresented North Carolina and South Carolina inmates claiming factual innocence. Each year, the Center coordinates the review and investigation of cases by law student volunteers, allowing the students to work on real cases, learn from the past work of other attorneys, develop organizational, analytical, professional, and ethical skills, and appreciate the value of providing pro bono services. Visit website >>
One80 Place
The shelter provides an on-site legal clinic that supports the legal needs of hundreds of homeless men and women in Charleston. The Project currently provides services to roughly 600 homeless individuals each year. Visit website >>
Project R.E.S.T.
Project R.E.S.T, formerly SAFE Homes-Rape Crisis Coalition, is a private, non-profit organization providing a multi-faceted assistance program to victims of domestic and sexual violence in Spartanburg, Cherokee, and Union Counties. Through their Legal Advocate program, domestic violence victims receive assistance with filing for Orders of Protection as well as legal aid in facing eviction, foreclosure, and access to housing. Visit website >>
Rainy Day Fund
The Rainy Day Fund works to eliminate barriers to housing/employment by assisting those who are legal system involved (or at risk) with costs associated with obtaining work, securing identification, restoration of rights, court costs, basic care and other physical needs. Visit website >>
SC Access to Justice
SCATJ works to educate the public, the legal community and the legislature about issues facing individuals with limited means. The Commission works to find additional funding for legal assistance, create new partnerships for increasing civil legal assistance, build seamless connections for those in need with the resources available and increase access to and delivery of civil legal assistance. Visit website >>
SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center
Appleseed fights to uphold individuals’ rights to food, shelter, education and access to justice. The goals of the Center are to ensure the law is fair, to educate the public and their advocates about the law, and to assist attorneys in bringing systemic litigation where the law is unfair. Visit website >>
SC Bar – Law Related Education Division
LRE promotes the goals of civic education and enhances relationships between attorneys and students. Programming includes Mock Trial, We the People, LawForKids.org and Youth Court. Students learn the value of becoming a positive contributor to society and gain knowledge from the lawyers who participate. Visit website >>
SC Bar – Law Talk and Law School for Non-Lawyers
The South Carolina Bar has partnered with public libraries across South Carolina to offer the Law Talk program. Law Talks are free legal education events open to the public. Each Law Talk is taught by a SC licensed attorney or judge and typically includes a 30-45 minute presentation followed by a brief question and answer session. The South Carolina Bar has partnered with technical colleges across South Carolina to sponsor Law School for Non-Lawyers, an 8-week course designed to provide an overview of the SC legal system and insight into 16 common legal issues. All classes are taught by licensed attorneys and judges. Visit website >>
SC Bar – Pro Bono Program
The South Carolina Bar's mission is to advance justice, professionalism and understanding of the law. To that end, the pro bono program provides educational opportunities to the public, hosting clinics on legal issues that assist individuals in recognizing and handling legal matters, offering advice and counseling and/or full representation to those who cannot afford lawyers. Visit website >>
SC Center for Fathers & Families
The Center places non-violent, non-custodial fathers in livable wage jobs so that they can make child support payments and re-engage in the lives of their children. Job placement services are provided in conjunction with legal assistance, money management training and fatherhood skill development. Visit website >>
SC Coalition against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SCCADVASA)
South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SCCADVASA) is the statewide coalition of organizations providing intervention services to victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and Primary Prevention programs to students and communities across the state. Visit website >>
SC Supreme Court Historical Society
The South Carolina Supreme Court Historical Society endeavors to discover, preserve, and disseminate the history of the Court and to educate the public on the historical role of the state judiciary and legal profession in developing and protecting the rule of law and judicial independence in South Carolina.
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Serve and Connect
Serve and Connect is a nonprofit organization focused on creating transformative partnerships between police and citizens that drive improvements in community well-being. We believe that when those who are called to serve work together, we build stronger, safer communites for all people. Serve & Connect was founded in memory of Officer Gregory Alia (End of Watch 9/30/15) who is remembered for serving his community with compassion. Visit website >>
South Carolina Environmental Law Project
The South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) is a non-profit public interest law firm, dedicated to the protection of the South Carolina's environment. SCELP provides concerned citizens and environmental groups the services of attorneys with broad experience in environmental law, and we handle a wide variety of cases throughout the state. Visit website >>
South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
Visit website >>SCADP has existed for more than four decades, first as "South Carolina Against the Death Penalty," then as “South Carolinians Abolishing the Death Penalty.” Led previously by Ron Kaz, the organization lobbied, educated, and connected with communities across SC to end capital punishment. After a 10-year pause on state-sponsored executions, SCADP became dormant, focusing on supporting death row residents and their legal teams as needed. The organization relaunched in 2021 with a new name: South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, just as SC Senate Bill 200 passed the South Carolina General Assembly.
SC Legal Services
SCLS is the sole statewide provider of civil legal services to low-income South Carolinians. SCLS continues to develop more aggressive advocacy and strengthen the capacity of lead attorneys and substantive work units. SCLS addresses all areas of poverty law but focuses its work in the areas of tax, housing, consumer protection, public benefits, domestic violence, education and elder law. Visit website >>
SC Victim Assistance Network (SCVAN)
SCVAN provides services to immigrant victims of violence. They work to increase the Immigrant Victim Program’s capacity as well as strengthen the overall network of advocates who provide services to victim immigrants. Visit website >>
Sistercare
Sistercare offers legal representation at no cost to the Midlands’ battered, indigent women and their children. They help impoverished, battered women gain access to the legal system, provide information about the legal process to approximately 800 women and enhance legal advocacy efforts to support interests of domestic violence victims. Visit website >>
Time Served
Time Served is a non-profit legal aid organization providing free legal services to currently and formerly incarcerated South Carolinians. Visit website >>
Transitions
Transitions mission is to engage and equip homeless adults of the Midlands to transition into stability and permanent housing. Visit website >>
Turn90
Turn90, formerly The Turning Leaf Project, provides re-entry services for men leaving the Charleston and Richland County Detention Centers. They are dedicated to building a healthier and safer community by providing inmates an opportunity to change negative behaviors and avoid further contact with the criminal justice system. Visit website >>
Upstate Mediation Center
UMC has been meeting mandatory mediation needs in Greenville County family and circuit courts since 1999. Their goals are to promote the use of mediation and other non-adversarial means of resolving conflicts and to nurture peace by restoring and strengthening family, business and community relationships. Visit website >>
SC Restorative Justice Initiative
The South Carolina Restorative Justice Initiative (“SCRJI”) was founded to respond to the growing need for alternative pathways to justice in South Carolina. Housed within the University of South Carolina School of Law, its primary mission is to educate and promote dialogue about the concepts of restorative and transformative justice and to facilitate the development of restorative justice practices in our community. Visit website >>
University of South Carolina School of Law Public Interest Fellow Project
USC School of Law places student fellows in legal services organizations. The students gain practical experience, the legal services organizations benefit from the services of the students and more individuals receive the assistance that they need. Visit website >>
SC YMCA Youth in Government
YIG is a civic engagement and leadership development program for middle and high school students. Funding provides support for students who would not otherwise have the opportunity to participate due to financial constraints. Visit website >>