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Legal empowerment

Legal empowerment puts the law into people’s hands. It supports communities dealing with injustice by drawing on legal tools and community organizing to transform laws and legal systems. It’s about people knowing, using and shaping the law to create a more just, equitable society.

A group of people sit on tires that have been set into the ground to make an informal seating circle. A row of trees and housing are in the background.
Waringa Wahome (center, wearing head scarf) works with the Mathare Social Justice Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. She coordinates the work of volunteers with the Centre’s Legal Empowerment Network to help people in the Mathare informal settlement pursue their rights. Photo: Michael Owino

Grassroots justice work is more important than ever. According to the World Justice Project, 5.1 billion people around the world lack meaningful access to justice. That means the global justice gap affects two-thirds of the world’s population.

To help close this gap, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation worked with other donors and grassroots justice practitioners, including the Hewlett Foundation and Namati, to create and launch the Legal Empowerment Fund in 2021.

In just four years, LEF has awarded grants to 282 grassroots justice organizations doing wide-ranging work to help individuals and communities access justice around the world. These organizations are best positioned to work with their communities to define the most important justice issues and solutions. This bottom-up, people-centered approach to justice promises lasting, systemic change.

You can learn more about LEF’s work through the resources on this page and at legalempowermentfund.org.