Your Nonprofit Legal Partner
The all-in-one legal program for nonprofit organizations.
Add a lawyer to your team and safeguard your mission.
Running a nonprofit is tough, I know. I worked inside a nonprofit team for years. I know you're a passionate and a competent professional. And you always could use help. Even when you know exactly what needs fixing, it often gets pushed aside because there's always a more urgent need for your attention. Or you’ve been screaming “we need this!” but nobody will listen.
What if you had an attorney and nonprofit consultant by your side, as part of your executive team?
With Mission Guardian, You Can:
Why Traditional Legal Help Fails Nonprofits
After years of advising nonprofits and working in-house, I've identified why many nonprofits struggle to meet their legal needs. Do any of these sound familiar?
The Patchwork Approach: You've cobbled together free legal advice from various sources, but no single lawyer truly understands your organization's culture and challenges.
The Board Member Lawyer: You rely on a lawyer serving on your board who means well but doesn't specialize in nonprofit law. Would you ask a heart surgeon to perform brain surgery?
Budget Uncertainty: You can't budget for legal expenses because costs are unpredictable. You avoid seeking help until there's an emergency—when it becomes much more expensive.
The Billable Hour Fear: You have a lawyer, but you hesitate to call because you know every minute is billable time. So you wing it and important questions go unasked.
With Mission Guardian, these problems disappear. You'll have:
The Real Risk of Going It Alone
Many nonprofits try to manage legal issues on their own. But when problems arise, the costs can be devastating:
Why take these risks when you could have dedicated counsel for a predictable monthly price?
Your All-Inclusive Mission Guardian Experience
Phase 1: Custom Planning
You'll meet with our team to develop a tailored work plan to strengthen your organization and address your specific needs.
Phase 2: Implement the Work Plan
Once we know what your team needs, we’ll get to work. We only accept a few clients into this program at any given time, so your work is a priority.
Phase 3: Ongoing Care
Throughout your membership, we'll help you keep the nonprofit safe and growing sustainably.
Secure Hotline with Jess
Something new coming up? No worries, you can check in any time on your secure hotline with Jess for any reason – even if it’s not strictly “legal.” Jess has a Masters in nonprofit management, is tech savvy and great with people problems.
Compliance Monitoring
Along the way, our team is working to take care of the nonprofit. We'll build a knowledge bank of your nonprofit's core compliance requirements and help you maintain good standing with state and federal agencies.
Online Document Generation Apps
I believe if we can turn it into a form most clients can use for free, then we should do that. We’re constantly adding to our library of members-only apps you can use to create customized and fully editable Word documents like:
Your Mission Guardian membership
All-In-One Membership
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Our minimum client commitment is 6 months. When we develop a work plan we will set the minimum months of commitment. We will do the work laid out in your program plan and we believe we can finish the core startup work with you in that minimum commitment window. That is the starting point. There is no set end point, and we will keep working with you for as long as it works for both of us. Our service will continue monthly for as long as needed. We work with a limited number of clients, and we are happy for you to hold that seat as long as you need it.
All-inclusive means that we will never charge you for anything beyond your monthly member dues and filing fees (attorney ethics rules force us to charge those separately). Like all corporate general counsel, there are limits to what we can do – we’re not miracle workers 😉 Your membership includes any work we can reasonably do for you within our practice area – core nonprofit operational legal services and coaching. If you need litigation support, we’ll refer you to counsel. If you need an accountant, bookkeeper, state specific employment lawyer, trademark attorney, or something else, we can find another trusted professional to help.
Members log into our website and navigate to Resources. You’ll find all kinds of education and materials for you. To generate a customized document, just click the button to launch the app. Get what you need, customized for you, 24/7, at no additional cost – no need to wait for us to email you.
We have a library of apps which generate documents for you – forms and policies etc. These are customized to your needs as you answer questions in the app. At the end of the questionnaire, you get a customized document. These documents are forms, policies or contracts that our clients commonly need. They are drafted by lawyers for general use with nonprofits in mind. Apps deliver a MS Word document which you can edit further if you want to (at your own risk if you don’t ask us for advice).
Examples of documents you can generate with the apps include: memorandum of understanding, employee cost share agreements, grievance policies, conflict of interest policies, board meeting minutes & agendas, participant waivers, photo releases, independent contractor agreements, one time use facility rental agreements, extended term space or facility rental agreements, gift acceptance policies, grant awards or subawards, confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements, community garden agreements, board resolutions, etc.
No problem, we’re happy to help! Simply reach out and let us know, and we’ll make some tweaks or, if you need it, scope out a project to work on together and extend your minimum monthly membership commitment by one month.
No. Memberships renew each month automatically. When you sign up, you agree to a 6 month minimum commitment, but our goal is to have a long term relationship with our clients.
We focus on a nonprofit practice area, so things we can help with includes things like custom / reusable agreements for your programs, legal opinions or research memos, mergers, dissolution, lease review, document review, contract negotiation, application for sales tax exemption, bylaws revision, amended articles of incorporation, property tax exemption application, registration of assumed names, starting a new entity, etc. If you think you need it, and its “in our lane” we can do it.
It depends. We file online 990-N (aka: 990 postcards) for our members as long as you are a member. Your membership must be active during the period your 990-N is due, and we do not file 990-Ns for non-members. Members who are private foundations are required to file a 990-PF and nonprofits that gross more than $50,000 in annual revenue must file a 990EZ or full form 990. We do not file those forms. We will track your deadlines and connect with your accountant annually to make sure your filing is on track. We can refer you to a nonprofit specialist CPA any time.
If you choose to end the fractional counsel all-in-one membership then we can move to you a “maintenance” only plan. Contact us for more information.
You always have the right to cancel. Cancellation and refunds are defined in the engagement letter with the firm. If membership is not working for you anymore you can contact us about changing your membership or cancelling. Cancellation ends your access to the direct hotline with Jess, the member log in on the website, and terminates any licenses to use the member badge and copyrighted content. Membership cancellations are pro-rated to the date of cancellation and as defined in the engagement letter.
If you are a member of the Mission Guardian program, we grant you a license to put a Mission Guardian Member badge on your website. This shows donors and funders that you care about the health and safety of your nonprofit’s resources. The website code is available for you (or your web developer) to simply install on any page of your website.
When you become a client, you'll sign an engagement agreement as you would with any law firm. When you use the website you also agree to our website privacy policy and Terms of Use.
Let's Get Started
Schedule a FREE 15-minute call with our New Client Guides. Get clarity, guidance, & answers — no pressure, no obligation.
Ready to level up your nonprofit?
Stop worrying about legal surprises and start focusing on your mission with confidence.
