Donation Utilization

The Genital Autonomy Legal Defense and Education Fund (GALDEF) prides itself on being fiscally conservative and financially transparent. We realize that donors place their trust in us to use their donations wisely to achieve maximum impact.

Because our mission involves supporting groundbreaking litigation, we realize that it’s not unusual for some legal cases to range from $100,000 to $500,000 or more. While we can’t expect to fund the entire cost of a lawsuit, we can assist plaintiffs and their attorneys with some of the legal costs to ease the financial burden. Whenever possible, we will ask attorneys to assist plaintiffs on either a pro bono, contingency or flat fee basis.

Since one of our primary purposes involves raising the funds necessary to support successful litigation, GALDEF’s board has unanimously voted to allocate a minimum of 80% of all donations received to a segregated sub-account earmarked for the sole purpose of litigation support. Examples of this support may include:

·   Creation of a national online Attorney Directory for legal professionals to list their services at no charge, which plaintiffs anywhere in the US can access to find an appropriate attorney for their specific case;

·   Providing attorney training materials to educate attorneys on the specific medical aspects of penile anatomy, physiology, development, and care as well as the adverse physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, and self esteem outcomes of circumcision;

·   Reimbursement for case-specific costs including, but not limited to: photocopies, faxes, postage, courier fees, expert/consultant fees, court filing fees, court reporter costs, witness subpoena fees, service of process fees, notary services, long distance telephone costs, certain travel and hotel costs (within reason), costs associated with obtaining medical records, costs of discovery, expenses related to obtaining expert witnesses, and/or partial indemnification of attorneys who face penalties for so-called frivolous lawsuits (“taxation of costs”).

The use of donor funds for litigation is overseen by a Grant Selection Review Committee composed of attorneys and GALDEF board members. The Committee reviews grant applications from plaintiffs or their attorneys and assesses them as to their potential for successful outcome and awards grant funding as appropriate.

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