Grunin Prize Winners and Finalist Testimonials

Grunin Prize finalists receive recognition from a global community of lawyers, academics, policymakers, and other impact professionals. Finalists are invited to participate in the annual IILWG/Grunin Center conference to showcase their projects in front of over 400 conference attendees. Past finalists and winners have also received media exposure.

Grunin Prize winners and finalists share their thoughts on what the Grunin Prize recognition means to them:

 

It was an honor to receive the 2019 Grunin Prize for the innovative legal structure we created for Social Finance's Veterans CARE project, the first in the country to bring together federal, state and local public capital as well as private impact investment capital to provide workforce opportunities for veterans. We have now been able to take that model and apply it in other settings to address other pressing issues such as chronic homelessness. It is tremendous to have the Grunin Center at NYU School of Law administer the Grunin Prize – it brings a critical focus to the role of lawyers in social entrepreneurship and in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges.”

– Navjeet Bal, Social Finance                                                      
             2019 Grunin Prize Winner: Veterans CARE Project                             

 

“The Grunin Prize and the IILWG/Grunin Center Annual Conference provide an important platform to socialize cutting-edge transactions and developments in impact investing across the legal and impact communities, and in this regard the Center really has no peer.”

– Chintan Panchal, RPCK | Rastegar Panchal
2019 Grunin Prize Finalist: Blended Finance Structure for a Multi-Strategy Investment Fund

 

"The selection of Cutting Edge Counsel as a finalist for the 2019 Grunin Prize for our project with TechSoup Global has meant a great deal to our firm due to the recognition we received for the legal strategies we created.  We have received many inquiries from organizations that learned about our work through the Grunin Prize and the IILWG/Grunin Center Annual Conference. The Grunin Prize recognition is an affirmation for the all-in focus our firm brings to social entrepreneurship and impact investing.”

– John Katovich, Cutting Edge Counsel
2019 Grunin Prize Finalist: Community-Based Direct Public Offering for Nonprofit Organization

 

The Grunin Prize is an important innovation that highlights, really for the first time, that lawyers and imaginative, high quality legal work play a key role in the growth of social finance across the globe.”

– Tom Brunner, retired partner, Leapfrog Investments
2019 Grunin Prize Finalist: Insurance to Crowd in Equity Investors into Impact Investment Funds Supported by OPIC

 

It was a tremendous honor for Womble Bond Dickinson to be selected as the inaugural winner of the Grunin Prize for Law and Social Entrepreneurship. We were particularly pleased that our colleagues at BOMA Investments and ADAP and our client, John Berger of Relevée, were able to share this honor with us. The Grunin Prize helped validate the work we’ve been doing for years in the impact space, as we strive to help companies and entrepreneurs pursue their business objectives while also endeavoring to solve endemic social problems. We are very proud that our Performance Aligned Equity investment structure can help businesses operating in the Impact Economy receive the funding they need to achieve their business and social goals.”

– Pam Rothenberg, Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP
 2018 Grunin Prize Winner: Performance Aligned Equity

 

“The Grunin Prize distinguished the important and impactful role lawyers can play in advancing responsible access to financial services for financially underserved consumers. The Grunin Prize and the Grunin Center have also enabled us to share our work with a broader range of stakeholders – and hopefully will enable the project to serve as a demonstration model for other legal practitioners seeking to protect consumers in emerging markets as the financial services landscape evolves.”

– Jessica Cassel Galimberti, Accion.
2018 Grunin Prize Finalist: Model Legal Framework for Financial Consumer Protection