“Our goals are simple,” two officers of the Illinois Bar Foundation told the ISBA Board of Governors on Oct. 13 in Chicago.

“To provide 100 per funding to all worthwhile grant applicants; to provide and endow scholarships for our 13 law schools; to continue to assist every lawyer and family in need to the fullest extent necessary.”

But the means to achieve those goals is not as simple, retiring President Russell K. Scott and incoming President David B. Sosin said.

They have set an ambitious target of $10 million in total assets by 2010 – a three-fold increase from today's $3.3 million in only four years – just to meet an exponential rise in grant requests.

Last year, the Bar Foundation contributed $39,250 to seven statewide programs, $53,202 to 21 agencies outside of Cook County, and $122,250 to 26 agencies in Cook County.

“We now fund 45 percent of the grant requests we deem worthy of our support,” Scott and Sosin said. Annual law student scholarships have been hiked from $2,000 to $3,000, but law school costs have doubled in the past 15 years.

“We hope to endow our scholarship program in a school-by-school basis,” they announced. “A gift of $50,000 or more will endow a scholarship in a lawyer's name.”

Scott and Sosin pointed with pride to interaction between the bar association and foundation, which “has never been greater”; 87 percent of foundation board members have served on the ISBA Board or Assembly.

The foundation has worked with the Agricultural Law Section Council on a major grant for farm-related assistance. The Trusts and Estates Section Council has helped plan the foundation's giving initiative.

The past chair of the Young Lawyers Division Council has been made an advisory member of the Bar Foundation board, and will become a voting member under new bylaws. The foundation administers the YLD Children's Assistance Fund and helps staff its annual benefit golf outing.

Scott and Sosin expressed appreciation for bar leadership support of recruitment of Assembly members to become Fellows of the Bar Foundation. The addition of 34 new Fellows since June has boosted the roster to 1,300 and surpassed the $1 million mark in total contributions.

The foundation officials ticked off eight ways in which members of the bar can support its charitable and educational missions. They are:

Write a check, attend the annual gala, become a Fellow, honor somebody special, transfer stock, establish a named fund, make a bequest, and set up a charitable trust.

“There is so much we can do together,” they pointed out. “We supplement ISBA programs with funding when feasible, and we improve the image of the profession in so many ways.”