Building Financial Support for an Immigration Legal Services Program: Fees, Fundraising, and Grants

The financial health of an organization rests in varied revenue streams. A healthy nonprofit revenue portfolio should include diverse sources of funding from client fees, fundraising, and grants (from both foundations and governments). Revenue diversification insulates programs from having to take drastic measures in the event of loss or reduction from one funding source, ensuring the program still has funding to rely on for continued operation. ILSPs are most healthy when they rely not only on all three of these types of revenue but also have diverse sources within each type to avoid loss of multiple funding streams simultaneously. For example, ILSPs should seek grants from various foundations and government entities, as funding from each will ebb and flow in different ways.