Launched in 2017, the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship is a global leader in the field of law and social entrepreneurship. The Grunin Center is advancing a global movement that creates new ways for law and lawyers to drive positive change in the world.
The mission of the Grunin Center is to enhance the community of lawyers and legal institutions purposefully engaged in social entrepreneurship, impact investing, and sustainable development, and to accelerate their effective participation in these fields.
To fulfill this mission, the Grunin Center educates students and practicing lawyers about legal issues in social entrepreneurship and impact investing; disseminates knowledge, resources and research about legal issues and policy developments in these fields; and collaborates with other field-building organizations, universities and research centers.
Educating law students and lawyers
The Grunin Center is leading the way worldwide in preparing a new generation of talented, committed, and globally oriented lawyers to apply their skills to advance social entrepreneurial solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
To promote learning in the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing, the Grunin Center supports innovative course offerings at NYU Law, provides continuing legal education opportunities to practitioners, offers pro bono legal support for social enterprises and impact investors through NYU Law’s business law clinics, and creates teaching tools for legal educators around the world interested in embedding themes of social entrepreneurship or impact investing into their courses.
Disseminating knowledge and legal research
The Grunin Center supports and catalogs legal research and scholarship that is helping to build the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. By overseeing the annual award of the Grunin Prize, the Grunin Center also puts a spotlight on legal innovations taking place in these fields.
The Grunin Center tracks legal and regulatory developments in social entrepreneurship through its Social Enterprise Law Tracker, and develops tools to help social entrepreneurs, impact investors and their counsel address challenging legal issues.
Collaborating to advance the field
The Grunin Center partners with other field-building organizations, universities, and research centers, in the US and beyond, to advance social entrepreneurship and impact investing. In collaboration with these organizations, the Grunin Center hosts conferences, convenings and webinars that bring together lawyers from around the world to share experiences and learnings about legal and regulatory developments.
Our Origin
In 2016 and 2017, NYU School of Law worked closely with Ashoka –a pioneer in the field of social entrepreneurship– to launch and support the goals of the Grunin Center. Ashoka was a member of the inaugural Grunin Center Advisory Board and helped provide strategic direction to the newly founded Grunin Center. Building on this innovative partnership, the Grunin Center launched its first initiatives aimed at helping prepare a new generation of talented, committed, and globally oriented lawyers to apply their skills to create positive impact in the world. The Grunin Center is grateful to Ashoka for the important role it played in its launch.
As its initiatives expanded and matured, the Grunin Center broadened its network of collaborators to include a number of field-building organizations, universities and research centers. Through these collaborations, the Grunin Center is building a robust legal community of practice and deploying initiatives that advance the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing in the US and beyond.