Nonprofit Pre-Settlement Lending - The Milestone Foundation - Podcast PIMM111

This episode of the Personal Injury Marketing Minute highlights a critical issue faced by personal injury clients: managing immediate financial burdens while awaiting settlement payouts. Traditional funding options, such as personal loans and settlement advancement loans, often prove inaccessible or predatory, adding stress to an already difficult situation. In response to this challenge, the Milestone Foundation has emerged as a nonprofit alternative, providing pre-settlement funding that aims to protect clients from exploitative practices. Rachel McCarthy from the Milestone Foundation joins us to share the organization’s innovative model and its mission to address the financial inequities within the legal system. She explains the foundation's non-recourse settlement advancement model, which sets it apart from traditional funding methods, and its low, simple interest structure designed to offer clients a fair and transparent solution during their time of need. Visit The Milestone Foundation online here: https://themilestonefoundation.org/. See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/. https://youtu.be/kpS4dNg3XfY Transcript: Welcome to the personal injury marketing minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. One of the biggest challenges that clients face after a personal injury accident is how do I pay the bills that I have right now with a good personal injury lawyer? They know the settlement is coming and it will cover things on the backend, but what about today? There are options for personal loans, but it can be tough to qualify. Then there are settlement advancement loans, but those can be insanely predatory and will eat away a client settlement. Fortunately, a nonprofit settlement funding foundation is now providing an alternative for settlement advancement. Rachel McCarthy: from the milestone foundation joins us today to discuss the foundation's groundbreaking mission, the inspiration behind its creation. and the critical need for a non-profit alternative to traditional funding methods. Thank you so much for joining us today, Rachel. Rachel McCarthy: Thanks, Lindsey. I'm happy to be here. Lindsey: Well, could you give us a brief overview of the Milestone Foundation and its mission? Rachel McCarthy: Absolutely. So the Milestone Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization, and we exist to help plaintiffs who are having trouble covering their basic living expenses while they are pursuing justice. So most of the families and individuals, we provide financial assistance to help them cover basic living expenses like housing or vehicle or utilities, groceries, while they are going through the duration of their personal injury lawsuit. Lindsey: Well, what inspired the creation of the Milestone Foundation as a non-profit pre-settlement funding option? Rachel McCarthy: So our founder, John Baer, was a settlement planner, and he... He would work with families who were going to be receiving a settlement, figuring out the financial plan for these folks once they have their settlement funds. And he kept noticing that plaintiffs would owe a huge, a significant portion of their settlement to these for-profit lending companies. And he thought there has to be an alternative for these folks, and there wasn't. There was no alternative. So his wife, Amy, and him decided to start a non-profit model that would do pre-settlement funding, so advancing a small amount of funding on the settlement, and do it as a non-profit. So not looking to make money, but just looking to help people bridge the gap and then grow the work that we do as much as we can. Lindsey: And that is huge. mean, A, to acknowledge that need, and then to do something about it, that speaks volumes about- about where they are in terms of wanting to actually help their ...