It's not often that a lawsuit benefits a charity, but on July 18th, 47 charities operating in the state of Ohio received some of the benefits of a $46 million settlement in which a significant number of the class action suit's plaintiffs could not be located.

The charities were notified how the $13.5 million windfall would be split in a luncheon in Cleveland, OH, on July 18th, but even though some will receive more than others all of them are grateful to be included. Take Nick Rees, vice president of development for the Buckeye Ranch foundation, who said, "I can tell you that in today's economy, running any nonprofit organization is going to be difficult. Any time a company wants to step up and help us, it's going to help us achieve our goals."

So, why is this windfall even in existence?

In 1998 the Dworken & Bernstein law firm brought a suit against Grange Insurance claiming that the company had been overcharging their customers for both under- and un-insured motorist coverage. When settlement was finally reached in 2007, it was agreed that affected policyholders would each receive between $100 and $400, and that Grange would part with a total of $35 million of all 220,000 customers were located, or only $30 million plus attorney fees, if not, and anything left after all the policyholders who could be found would go to charity.

Only 65,000 policyholders were found, and they received roughly $16.5 million. Grange also paid the attorneys about $16 million.

At least ten of the charities were picked by Grange, explains their vice president and chief administrative officer, Mark C. Russell, who elaborated. "We picked 10 charities that lined up with our philanthropic strategy, and that's mostly to benefit families and children."