50th Anniversary
Campaign for the Future
NCLC History and Mission The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) proudly traces its roots to President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a “War on Poverty.” Beginning in 1965, the federal Office of Economic Opportunity began funding legal services offices with two main goals: improving the access of poor people to the legal system, and enabling advocates to seek justice wherever justice for the poor is needed. Reforming a system that was stacked against low-income families eventually became the top priority of the new Legal Services Program. Several national support centers were founded, the National Consumer Law Center among them. Robert F. Drinan, dean of Boston College Law School, received a letter in January of 1969 inviting the school to apply for federal funds to establish a “Center for Consumer Affairs.” The grant application he oversaw was successful, and the National Consumer Law Center began operations in June of 1969. Over the last five decades, NCLC has played a leading role in crafting the bedrock laws and regulations that protect consumers in the marketplace. Countless consumer protections have been initiated or improved through NCLC’s advocacy: the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) … the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) … the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) … the Holder in Due Course Rule … the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act … the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and related credit codes at the state level … the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) … the Used Car Rule … the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) … the Home Ownership & Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) … the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) … the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) … the Credit CARD Act … the Dodd-Frank Act, which included the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) … the Military Lending Act (MLA), and much more NCLC’s groundbreaking reports and other forms of public pressure have helped bring about changes to protect consumer assets and income from predatory loans, creditor claims and deceptive advertising. Our work has helped transform the modern financial marketplace. Today, NCLC is widely recognized as the nation’s leading expert in consumer law. We use our expertise to advocate for laws, rules and regulations that benefit real people: the poor, elderly, people of color and others who have been locked out or left behind.
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NCLC History and Mission
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Our focus is both on systemic reform and on standing up for individual consumers: advocating for changes to the rules of our economy to break down practices and patterns of discrimination, attacking abuses that strip families of financial stability, expanding access to fair financial products and services, and arming consumer attorneys with the tools they need to successfully advocate for consumers who have been wronged. Across a wide range of consumer issue areas, NCLC fights to protect vulnerable people from victimization by unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices, and to advance the long-term financial health and security of those most in need. To accomplish this, we work to advance policies that provide consumers fair and equitable access to economic opportunity, and reduce persistent and growing discrimination, often based on race and wealth. NCLC’s legal and policy experts develop and advocate for strong consumer protections; analyze regulatory proposals; file and support impact litigation; provide expert witness services; and work to raise awareness, stimulate research, expose bad practices, and engage the press and public to create a more favorable climate for pro-consumer reform. We work closely with nonprofit and legal services organizations, private attorneys, federal and state policymakers, and courts across the nation to stop exploitative practices, help financially-stressed families build and retain wealth, and advance economic fairness. NCLC also works to train and support a nationwide network of consumer advocates, through conferences, webinars, listservs, and publication of a comprehensive 20-volume set of legal treatises, widely cited in judicial opinions by courts including the United States Supreme Court. Tens of thousands of consumer attorneys have attended NCLC trainings, workshops, and what has become the largest annual consumer law gathering in the nation, the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference. After our initial launch with federal funding, NCLC has now been independently sustained for over twenty years through the support of a diverse network of private foundations, legal awards, publications sales, conference fees, and individual donors. The community of consumer lawyers that NCLC has helped build, train, develop and advise over the last fifty years is at the heart of our success.
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Campaign for the Future Vision NCLC’s vision is for a nation in which economic opportunity is available to all. The Campaign for the Future will transform NCLC into a stronger and more sophisticated consumer rights and economic justice advocacy organization—the kind of organization needed to achieve our vision. NCLC50 is an opportunity to build on NCLC’s strong foundation, constructed over the last five decades, in order to expand and enhance our ability to positively impact consumer law.
Through the 50th Anniversary Campaign for the Future, we aim to inspire transformative investments to expand and enhance NCLC’s ability to fight and win consumer rights and economic justice battles of the present and future. At the same time, we seek to strengthen not only the organization but the larger consumer law community as well, by developing the next generation of consumer lawyers, providing additional support to legal aid allies, expanding assistance to state advocates, building enhanced communications capacity, and making additional investments to advance our lasting pro-consumer agenda. These are challenging times for consumer advocates, and this is a critical time for all American consumers. Pro-consumer victories of the past decade are in the crosshairs of big banks, financial services companies, predatory lenders and their allies in Washington, DC, who are intent on rolling back essential consumer protection measures. The courts are becoming more important than ever in protecting individual rights, while access to the courts is under siege.
NCLC is ready to rise to the challenges of the present and future. NCLC’s 50th Anniversary Campaign for the Future is an opportunity to build on our existing strengths, and add resources in areas that will make a significant difference for our allies in legal services, state-based advocacy organizations, and the entire consumer law community.
We are deeply grateful for your support of the NCLC50 Campaign for the Future!
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IMPACT INVESTMENTS
Campaign for the Future Summary Over the past year, NCLC has engaged our Board, Partners Council, staff, and other constituencies to identify the areas in which new resources are most needed to advance consumer rights and economic justice. With the support of our community, Campaign for the Future investments will be focused in the following broad areas:
Initiative
Next Generation Campaign
Purpose Building a Bigger and Stronger Consumer Law Community
Legal Aid Partnership Project
Strengthening NCLC’s Support of Legal Aid Services for Low-Income Consumers
State Advocacy Initiative
Expanding NCLC’s Impact at the State Level
Communications Capacity-Building Campaign
Enhancing NCLC’s Ability to Reach Decision-Makers, Engage Supporters, and Influence Public Opinion
Advancing the Agenda Fund
Investing in New Strategies for Advancing Fairness in the Marketplace
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IMPACT INVESTMENTS
Next Generation Campaign Building a Bigger and Stronger Consumer Law Community When NCLC was founded in 1969, there were few consumer lawyers and no real “consumer law community.� Over the past five decades, NCLC has worked tirelessly to build this community. Our definitive consumer law treatises, highly-attended conferences, and support of consumer lawyers through webinars, listservs and other forms of ongoing engagement make a daily difference for consumer lawyers, and have helped build a thriving community.
Our commitment is not only to support consumer lawyers in the present, but to build the consumer law community of the future. Through the Campaign for the Future, NCLC aims to invest in new ways to continue building a bigger and stronger consumer law community. Those who have benefited from support, mentoring and expert assistance in the past have the opportunity to present those gifts to the next generation. Through these priority investments, NCLC will work to continue building a pipeline of new consumer lawyers with high levels of expertise to tackle the consumer law challenges of the future.
[NAMED] NCLC Fellowship The NCLC Fellowship will represent a prestigious opportunity for a recent graduate to work with and learn from the leading experts on consumer law for two years at NCLC.
Next Generation Scholarship Fund To encourage and enable qualified new consumer lawyers to learn from the leading experts, NCLC will offer a guaranteed 50% Conference scholarship to all qualified applicants with less than five years of experience in the field.
Law School Engagement Fund Stronger partnerships with law schools will help build a stronger pipeline of consumer lawyers. Through this Engagement Fund, NCLC will make a permanent commitment to bring aboard a minimum of four interns each summer.
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IMPACT INVESTMENTS
Legal Aid Partnership Project Strengthening NCLC’s Support of Legal Aid Services for Low-Income Consumers NCLC founding mission was to support the Legal Services Program, and that commitment has never wavered. Over five decades we have trained thousands of legal aid lawyers in consumer law, and provided resources they rely on to effectively represent their clients.
All Americans deserve equal access to justice—and justice requires access to good consumer lawyers. In this era, legal services programs are in jeopardy, and resources are limited. Through the Campaign for the Future, NCLC will strive to build a permanent pipeline of attorneys well-versed in consumer law, and work to ensure that legal aid lawyers receive the training and development opportunities they need to meet the complex consumer law challenges of the future.
[NAMED] Legal Aid Fellowship NCLC will create a prestigious one-year Fellowship for a current Legal Aid attorney to build their expertise while working in our Boston or Washington, DC offices, with ongoing mentoring from and collaboration with NCLC advocates following each fellowship.
[NAMED] Legal Aid Scholarship Fund To make NCLC conferences accessible to as many Legal Services attorneys as possible, NCLC will guarantee 50% tuition scholarships for all qualified legal aid attorneys. Additional funding will be used to cover some travel and accommodations expenses.
Legal Aid Training Fund This Fund will provide the resources necessary for NCLC’s experts to provide the services Legal Aid offices need, including on-site trainings, listserv curation, and other assistance with complex cases.
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IMPACT INVESTMENTS
State Advocacy Initiative Expanding NCLC’s Impact at the State Level In this era of gridlock and regression at the national level, important consumer law fights are increasingly being fought at the state level. Some states offer opportunities for pro-consumer reform that are not currently feasible on the national level, and anti-consumer forces are active—often with little resistance—in others. NCLC has long fought to preserve the role of states in protecting consumers, and has always provided support to state advocates, but our resources to do so have been extremely limited. New resources will allow us to identify and respond to the most important threats and opportunities in the states and build lasting partnerships with state coalitions, which will positively impact state protections and also help NCLC mobilize state networks on federal issues.
Critical consumer law battles are being fought—and important opportunities for pro-consumer reforms exist—at the state level. Through the Campaign for the Future, NCLC will be able to plan more pro-actively to engage on the most strategic and important initiatives, and to respond more quickly and aggressively when requests for assistance are made. Through these priority investments, NCLC will deepen our commitment to state advocacy to meet the challenges of the future.
[NAMED] State Advocacy Project NCLC’s state-level engagement would be far more effective if we had the capacity to coordinate it better and plan more strategically—looking ahead to both upcoming opportunities and looming threats. This Fund will enable NCLC to add resources focused on actively identifying places and issues where we can have the most impact, building and strengthening lasting networks, planning multi-year campaigns on issues in states where we can be most effective, and better leveraging our supporter base and cross-cutting alliances.
State SupportServices Services State Support NCLC receives many more requests to assist state advocates in their consumer law battles than we can currently accommodate. Our experts have the ability to play a bigger role at the state level, but we have lacked the resources needed to fund more substantial state-level work. This Fund will facilitate the application of NCLC’s expert resources to those critical challenges.
High-Impact Intervention Fund State consumer law battles can be significantly impacted by discrete, high-impact assistance that can help re-shape a debate. This Fund will allow NCLC to provide that impact assistance, including targeted social media ad buys, custom reports, expert testimony, surveys and polling, and the temporary hiring of on-the-ground resources when appropriate.
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IMPACT INVESTMENTS
Communications Capacity Campaign Enhancing NCLC’s Ability to Reach Decision-Makers, Engage Supporters and Influence Public Opinion In the 21st Century, honing a persuasive message to cut through a cacophony of information is an essential component of any successful campaign, and more important than ever in building a lasting pro-consumer political environment.
In a challenging and chaotic political environment, using sophisticated techniques to reach decision-makers, influence public opinion and mobilize people to take action is necessary to protect important consumer laws and win pro-consumer reforms. Through the Campaign for the Future, NCLC will invest in building the more sophisticated communications capacity it takes to win, investing in the tools and resources needed to tell the stories of our low-income clients, shape the debate, convey complex information in more easilyunderstood ways, and mobilize supporters and others who care about consumer rights and economic justice issues. Through these priority investments, NCLC will become a more effective advocate for consumer protections, better able to shape public opinion and persuade policy makers on the consumer law issues of the future.
21st Century Communications Fund Persuasive, well-written analyses of legislation and comments on proposed regulations are essential and important—but increasingly, they’re not enough. NCLC needs to and will increasingly use tools such as message testing, polls, data visualization, multimedia presentations, upgraded graphic design, video storytelling and more to build support for pro-consumer reforms.
Strategic Engagement Fund This fund will be used to enhance NCLC’s advocacy by allowing for investments in networkbuilding, social media engagement platforms and resources, and other tools to influence the political environment and create a more robust base of support for our work.
Infrastructure Upgrade NCLC’s current website and supporter databases are dated, and inadequate for accommodating the level and types of engagement we seek to achieve in our next generation. Investing in a website overhaul and new database will together allow for better access to NCLC’s expertise through our website, and more sophisticated outreach to our supporters and others concerned about consumer rights and economic justice.
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IMPACT INVESTMENTS
Advancing the Agenda Fund Investing in New Strategies for Advancing Fairness for Consumers For half a century, NCLC has used its expertise in consumer law and energy policy to work for consumer justice and economic security for low-income and other disadvantaged people in the U.S. Our traditional tools have included policy analysis and advocacy; consumer law and energy publications; litigation; expert witness services, and training and advice for advocates.
New tools and resources are needed for the next generation of consumer law advocacy. Through the Campaign for the Future, NCLC will be able to invest in areas where we often lack resources—to allow us to get ahead of the curve and lead the way forward on a range of critical issues. Through these priority investments, NCLC will advance our expertise and capabilities in several key areas to meet the challenges of the future.
[NAMED] Racial Justice Fund In order to ensure a permanent emphasis on racial justice issues, NCLC will create a new position of Racial Justice Project Director, including an allocation of resources to engage on critical issues at the intersection of racial justice and consumer rights.
[NAMED] Fund for Federal Advocacy Funding to provide a permanent presence for NCLC in our nation's capital to enhance advocacy.
Access to Justice Initiative Justice for consumers depends on their having access to the courts. This initiative will focus on expanding NCLC’s work to support access to justice, including fighting forced arbitration clauses and limits on class actions and attorneys’ fees.
Data Analysis Fund Too often, NCLC has lacked resources and expertise to dig deeply into data about lending, financial services, access to opportunity and other important issues. There is also a great need to do more data-gathering to strengthen our case through surveys, polling, and accessing academic experts and research. This Fund will support personnel resources and/or access to actual data, to help us make the case for consumer reforms.
Fund for Advocacy on Future Technologies and Emerging Innovations Technology is changing in ways that profoundly affect consumers in America, and the law too often fails to keep pace with these technological changes. This Fund will enable NCLC to get ahead of the curve on the most challenging consumer issues of the next generation, such as “big data,” fintech, electric vehicles, and other challenges as they develop in the years ahead. 9
Strategic Investments Summary Through these impact investments, we aim to build an NCLC that is prepared to fight and win the most critical consumer rights fights of the next generation, by strengthening NCLC and building a stronger consumer law community.
Initiative
Next Generation Campaign
Purpose Building a Bigger and Stronger Consumer Law Community
Funding Goal $4,200,000
Legal Aid Partnership Project
Strengthen NCLC’s Support of Legal Aid Services for Low-Income Consumers
$3,000,000
State Advocacy Initiative
Expanding NCLC’s Impact at the State Level
$4,250,000
Communications CapacityBuilding Campaign
Enhancing NCLC’s Ability to Reach Opinion Leaders, Engage Supporters, and Shape Public Opinion
$2,000,000
Advancing the Agenda Fund
Investing in New Strategies for Advancing Fairness in the Marketplace
$6,550,000
TOTAL
NCLC50 Campaign for the Future
$20,000,000
* The total campaign funding goal reflects NCLC’s intention to make permanent commitments on the Impact Investments highlighted in dark blue, and 10-year commitments on the investments highlighted in lighter blue. Funds donated to further the “Naming Opportunities” described in this document will be segregated for the purpose of that specific funding priority. All other donations will be used to support NCLC50 Campaign for the Future priorities collectively, and allocated annually as determined by the management and approved by the Board of NCLC. On an annual basis, all of these investments in total are expected to result in an increase in expenditures, and therefore require an increase in funding, of between $1.2 and $1.5 million per year.
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Leadership Impact Campaign Leaders Can Contribute in Multiple Ways
1. al Givin n o s r g e P
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Justice for Consumers
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Stronger NCLC
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Transformational Gift Chart 50th Anniversary Campaign for the Future supporters will help enhance and expand NCLC’s impact for the next generation of consumer rights and economic justice advocacy. Cumulative Support Level
# of Gifts Needed
$1,000,000+
Total Transformational $
Leadership/ Recognition Level
4
$6,750,000
Campaign Co-Chairs (Leaders)
$500,000–$999,999
8
$5,500,000
Campaign Chancelors (Leadership)
$250,000–$499,999
12
$ 4,750,000
Campaign Cabinet (Leadership)
$100,000–$249,999
16
$ 2,250,000
Campaign Counselors (Leadership)
$25,000–$99,999
20
$500,000
Campaign Champions
$1,000–$24,999
50
$175,000
Campaign Contributors
< $1,000
500
$75,000
Campaign Contributors
GRAND TOTAL
610
$20,000,000
4 Co-Chairs, 40 Leaders, 600+ Donors
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Campaign for the Future Naming Opportunities Leading Campaign supporters will have the opportunity to bestow names—their own or others— to a limited number of permanent funds and committed positions, in recognition and appreciation of the profound impact of extraordinary gifts. Naming opportunities include those listed below, and additional opportunities will be considered for all giving commitments exceeding $1 million:
Naming Suggestions (All open to discussion) (Name) State Advocacy Fund
Need Organizing resources and leadership to direct deeper NCLC engagement at the state level
Gift Amount $4,000,000
(Name) Racial Justice Fund
Increased and permanent emphasis on racial justice issues
$3,000,000
NCLC (Name) Fellowship
Support for building a pipeline of new, well-trained consumer law experts
$3,000,000
(Name) NCLC Legal Aid Fellowship
Fellowship for a current Legal Aid attorney to build their consumer law expertise
$1,500,000
(Name) Fund for Federal Advocacy
Funding for a permanent presence for NCLC in our nation's capital, to enhance our federal advocacy
$1,500,000
(Name) Legal Aid Scholarship Fund
Scholarships to guarantee a permanent 50% discount on all NCLC conferences for qualified legal services attorneys
$1,000,000
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