Pro Bono Institute (PBI) is pleased to honor Accenture in partnership with Welcome.US and the Welcome Legal Alliance (WLA) with the 2023 CPBO Partner Award. PBI will present the award on Monday, October 16, at the PBI Annual Dinner. Honorees for this award have a demonstrated and sustained impact addressing a critical legal need in a vulnerable community through pro bono legal work. CPBO, a project of PBI, created the CPBO Pro Bono Partner Award to recognize innovative pro bono collaborations of in-house legal departments with law firms and public interest organizations.
“Accenture, in partnership with Welcome.US and WLA, utilized smart and efficient methods to create a scalable and sustainable pro bono program to respond to a recent crisis in a very impactful way,” said Eve Runyon, PBI President and CEO. “This program stands out for the speed and thoroughness of assistance provided to Afghan refugees. PBI applauds the partners for their remarkable agility and commends them for their important work in addressing an overwhelming problem.”
Since the beginning of Accenture’s partnership with the Welcome Legal Alliance, more than 240 Accenture pro bono volunteers — including nearly 100 attorneys and an additional 66 legal professionals — have contributed over 1,100 pro bono hours in service of more than 660 Welcome Legal Alliance clients.
“Accenture is honored to be recognized alongside Welcome.US, the Welcome Legal Alliance and various other partners, for our shared commitment to scale important pro bono resources to help Afghans resettling across the U.S.,” said Joel Unruch, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Accenture.
Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, over 80,000 Afghan refugees relocated to the U.S., with 90 percent entering the U.S. under humanitarian parole, which allows refugees to remain in the U.S. for two years. In response, Welcome.US was created to support newcomers seeking refuge.
Welcome.US formed the Welcome.US CEO Council, co-led by Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO of Accenture and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, to gather and streamline private sector resources to aid newcomers seeking refuge in the U.S. and help find solutions to address immediate and short-term needs of the newcomers. Knowing that newcomers would ultimately have to attain legal status, Accenture also joined the Welcome.US Legal Alliance to expand the legal support available to support clients as they navigated the challenging process of applying for permanent status.
Accenture collaborated with WLA partners to quickly pilot and scale new models of pro bono asylum support available to newcomers, including:
- Conducting intake screenings
- Launching new clinic formats that enable more volunteers, both attorneys and other non-legal professionals, to participate and provide end-to-end support for newcomers
- Providing technical assistance to document and drive adoption of new clinic formats
The Welcome Legal Alliance (WLA) is a collaborative partnership among Welcome.US, the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration, Human Rights First, the Immigration Justice Campaign, and VECINA. Strategic advisory support has been provided by the Afghan-American Foundation and Gibson Dunn.
READ THE FULL ACCENTURE PROFILE HERE.
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About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent and innovation led company with 732,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Accenture Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients succeed and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com.
About Welcome.US
At Welcome.US, our mission is to unleash the desire and capacity of Americans to welcome newcomers and help them thrive. We operate on the evidence that direct participation with newcomers transforms both the welcomer and those being welcomed. By making it easier for Americans from all walks of life to participate in the work of welcoming — and telling their stories — we are building a movement that celebrates America’s welcoming spirit by providing an opportunity to serve for all who seek to welcome. Our diverse community of Welcomers reaches across real and perceived divides to meet the needs of newcomers more effectively. In partnership with local and national resettlement agencies, diaspora organizations and leaders, refugees, community sponsorship groups, nonprofits, businesses, faith-based institutions, veterans, universities, four former Presidents and four former First Ladies, Welcome.US is a single point of entry for Americans who want to get involved and support those who are starting new lives in the United States. To learn more about Welcome.US, please visit Welcome.US.
About the Welcome Legal Alliance
The Welcome Legal Alliance (WLA), a collaborative partnership among Welcome.US, the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration, Human Rights First, the Immigration Justice Campaign, VECINA, the Afghan-American Foundation, and Gibson Dunn, was created to mobilize thousands of volunteers across the United States to scale access to critical legal services to help our Afghan neighbors navigate the asylum application process and help them build their lives in the United States in safety and stability. The purpose of the WLA is to bring mission-critical legal services to the population that needs it most and the private sector can play a pivotal role in scaling and providing resources to this community and provide meaningful, responsible counsel.
About Pro Bono Institute
Founded in 1996, Pro Bono Institute (PBI) is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization. With an unparalleled depth of knowledge, resources and expertise, PBI is the respected resource for all things pro bono. Through our work with law firms, in-house corporate legal departments, and public interest organizations, PBI is the global thought leader in exploring, identifying, evaluating, catalyzing, and taking to scale new approaches to and resources for the provision of legal services to the poor, disadvantaged, and other individuals or groups unable to secure legal assistance to address critical problems.
About the Corporate Pro Bono project
The Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) project, launched in 2000, is the initiative of PBI that supports, enhances, and transforms the pro bono efforts of in-house corporate legal departments. Since its inception, the CPBO project has worked with hundreds of legal departments around the globe to strengthen in-house pro bono.