START UP ANOTHER AVENUE OF FUNDING IS TO TARGET BUSINESSES WITH CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PROGRAMS, PARTICULARLY WHEN THERE ARE LINKS TO BE MADE BETWEEN THE BUSINESS DOMAIN AND ISSUES FACING UNDOCUMENTED OR STATELESS PERSONS. over nationality matters, or where political shifts result in unpredictable or significant cuts to funding. Another avenue of funding is to target businesses with corporate social responsibility programs, particularly when there are links to be made between the business domain and issues facing undocumented or stateless persons. For example, the groups your project serves may not be able to access banking services, due to their lack of legal identity documents. This may incentivize banks, which often have large social responsibility programs, to take up the issue and donate. Some countries may have laws requiring businesses to donate a certain percentage of their profits to charity. Using the law clinic model to deliver paralegal services, as discussed in 7.1 Identifying and Recruiting Staff and/or Volunteers, may also expose practitioners to other sources of income, as students and staff may be eligible for certain university funding streams and scholarships, such as for databases, conference travel, or research. Universities often fund clinics directly. Make sure to understand legal aid laws and factor in benefits the state provides for low income or stateless individuals, which may be available to your clients. This might extend to free legal aid, or reduced or zero fees for administrative processes such as residence registration. 3.5 Key Ideas for Fundraising Messages Many potential donors may not understand statelessness, the importance of basic documentation, and nationality as the foundation of other human rights. Many will not have these issues on their agenda. Four key tools are: 1. E  xplain how your project will support issues they already support. The table below links many issues that donor institutions will recognize to statelessness and documentation. 2. H  uman interest stories illustrate impact and can be used to demonstrate the connection between the issues you address and donors’ goals. 3. R  eferencing the Sustainable Development Goals will suggest that documentation of legal identity is not controversial. Specifically, SDG 16 relates to access to justice, and SDG 16.9 calls on states to provide access to legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030. Because it blocks the entry of affected people into the formal economy, statelessness and denial of documentation make the other Sustainable Development Goals much harder to achieve. 4. B  e prepared to explain why overhead costs (money that is not directly spent on clients) are generally high in paralegal projects. The cost of employing paralegals is the main expense for most paralegal projects. Some donors may require minimal overhead costs without having considered the specific nature of paralegal assistance. 36 | A C O M M U N I T Y- B A S E D P R A C T I T I O N E R ’ S G U I D E : D O C U M E N T I N G C I T I Z E N S H I P A N D OT H E R F O R M S O F L E G A L I D E N T I T Y