Organizations we support
350.org is an international environmental organization founded by author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, with the goal of building a global grassroots movement to raise awareness about human-driven climate change, to confront climate change denial, and to cut emissions of carbon dioxide in order to slow the rate of global warming.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), founded in 1920, is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." Current positions of the ACLU include: opposing the death penalty; supporting same-sex marriage and the right of LGBT people to adopt; supporting birth control and abortion rights; eliminating discrimination against women, minorities, and LGBT people; supporting the rights of prisoners and opposing torture; and opposing government preference for religion over non-religion, or for particular faiths over others.
ADAPT is a grassroots United States disability rights organization with chapters in 30 states. ADAPT advocates for the disability community, organizing for legislation such as the Disability Integration Act. Its members played a major role in the protests against the recent healthcare legislation, protesting representatives' offices and raising awareness of the potential disastrous effects of the GOP healthcare bill. These visible and harrowing actions ultimately helped usher in its defeat in the Senate.
Brand New Congress was created by former staffers and supporters of the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. Their stated goal is to run and support candidates who are politically aligned with the mission of the Sanders campaign for over 400 United States Congressional seats for the 2018 midterm elections. Of the 535 total seats in the United States Congress (combining House and Senate), 468 will be up for reelection in 2018. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated incumbent Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th district, received early support from Brand New Congress.
The Center for Popular Democracy is an advocacy group committed to highlighting and fighting for a host of progressive issues, including racial justice, immigrant rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, minimum wage and other labor rights, housing, and teachers unions. Activist Ady Barkan, one of the most visible activists confronting members of Congress during the healthcare debate and the tax bill who suffers from ALS, is the director for Center for Popular Democracy Action (CPD Action)'s Fed Up Campaign.
Color of Change is a civil rights advocacy organization that was formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. With over one million members, Color of Change aims to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America by targeting specific issues though online campaigns, petitions, and public pressure. Some of their current campaigns include saving Net Neutrality, stopping corporate funders of hate groups, ending private prisons, and petitioning media companies such as Twitter to end their tolerance for hate speech disseminated on their platform.
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) is civil rights and advocacy group, and is America's largest Muslim civil liberties organization, with regional offices nationwide. Founded in 1994, their mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding, through civil rights actions, media relations, civic engagement, and education.
Defenders of Wildlife is a U.S.-based conservation organization whose mission is to protect all native animals and plants to North America in their natural communities. They work on the ground, in the courts, and on Capitol Hill to protect and restore imperiled wildlife across North America and around the world. These goals are sought through grassroots efforts at the state and local level; developing programs that protect and restore key species and habitats; working with state, national and international policy makers to secure laws and policies that protect animals and their habitats; and, by taking a leading role in establishing legal safeguards for native wildlife and fighting efforts in the courts to roll back environmental protections.
Democracy for America (DFA) is a progressive political action committee, headquartered in Vermont. They focus on endorsing candidates, often orchestrated by members of local groups, at all levels of office, both local and national. DFA leads public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists, and provides funding directly to candidates for office. The organization has more than a million members in the United States and internationally. DFA was an early advocate against the Iraq War back in 2003. Among other progressive issues, DFA advocated for universal heathcare after the 2008 election, and worked for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in 2010. In response to the financial crisis, DFA launched their "Move Your Money Campaign", urging citizens to move money out of the big banks and into more community driven financial institutions. DFA endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 U.S. presidential race after earning a record-breaking 87.9% of the vote in their online poll.
Democratic Socialists of America
Founded in 1982, the Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States. Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—and its two predecessor organizations, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM)—had their origins in the early 1970s, at the beginning of a long-term rightward shift of U.S. and global politics. The organization has roots from the Socialist Party of America, whose most prominent leaders included Eugene V. Debs and Michael Harrington. DSA has seen an explosion in membership since 2016, which, in part, has been credited to Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign for presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and the surprise victory of Trump in the 2016 presidential race (from November 9, 2016, to July 1, 2017, over 13,000 people, mostly between the ages of 18 and 35, joined DSA). By the end of 2017, DSA membership had risen from over 6,000 to over 32,000—as of June 2018, membership stood at 42,000 and the number of local chapters had increased from 40 to 181. DSA is committed to advance the causes of democratic socialism, eco-socialism, socialist feminism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, and anti-racism. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the upset winner of New York's 14th congressional district Democratic Party primary, is a self-declared member of DSA.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest organization based in the United States dedicated to litigating environmental issues. Earthjustice is a nonprofit and does not charge any of its clients for its services. Funding for the organization comes from individual donations and foundations. It does not receive any funding from corporations or governments. As of January 2009, the group had provided free legal representation to more than 700 clients ranging from the Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, and the American Lung Association to smaller state and community groups.
Started in 1987, Feminist Majority is a non-profit organization with a mission is to to empower feminists and to win equality for women at the decision-making tables of the state, nation, and the world. The Feminist Majority promotes non-discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, religion, ethnicity, age, marital status, nation of origin, size or disability. From 1989 to 1992, the FMF conducted the Feminization of Power campaign, recruiting an unprecedented number of women to run for public office, which resulted in doubling women's representation in the United States Congress in 1992. Feminist Majority is among the few organizations to be a tireless promoter of the Equal Rights Amendment, they support workers’ collective bargaining, pay equity, and end of sweatshops. FMF is also the publisher of Ms. Magazine, co-founded by Gloria Steinem.
United Way of Genesee County is using all funds raised through its Flint Water Fund for the purchase and distribution of bottled water to Flint, Michigan. The Flint water crisis began in 2014 when the drinking water source for the city of Flint, Michigan was changed from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the cheaper Flint River. Due to insufficient water treatment, over 100,000 residents were exposed to high levels of lead in the drinking water. Recently, Michigan has ended its free bottled water program to residents of Flint claiming the water quality has been restored, although lead pipes in the city have not been fully replaced.
Greenpeace is a global NGO with offices in over 39 countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Founded in 1971 during the then-burgenioning popularity of the environmental movement, Greenpeace aims to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, and anti-nuclear issues. The global organization does not accept funding from governments, corporations, or political parties, relying on 2.9 million individual supporters and foundation grants. Along with lobbying and research, Greenpeace is most known for its direct action tactics, making the organization one of the most visible and quite literally on the front lines in the fight to save the plant from climate change.
Healthcare-NOW! is a non-profit grassroots coalition in support of the single-payer health care movement for the United States. Founded in 2004, they aim to implement a national single-payer healthcare system that will cover everyone in the United States. Healthcare-NOW! uses various community organizing methods and national strategy meetings with health care activists to advocate for a single-payer public health system, and have partnered with various other organizations on this issue, including California Nurses Association, led by Rose Ann DeMoro, who is also a board member.
The Human Utility is a nonprofit that provides assistance to struggling families to help cover the cost of their water bills at home. Originally launched 2014 as the Detroit Water Project, The Human Utility provides assistance with water bills to residents in Maryland and Michigan. As of 2017, The Human Utility has helped over 1,000 families keep their water running and care for their basic needs.
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) aims to work with and educate immigrants, community organizations, and the legal sector to continue to build a democratic society that values diversity and the rights of all people. ILRC works though civic participation, educating and assist attorneys and legal advocates in their work to help immigrants, and engages in advocacy with government agencies and elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, on policies that directly impact immigrants. ILRC also partners with a wide variety of other Immigrants rights organizations to assist in fighting for equal rights for immigrants.
The Immigrant Defense Project's mission is to secure fairness and justice for immigrants in the United States. Working with allies, they use impact litigation, primarily before the federal courts, and advocacy to challenge unfair laws and policies, and media and communications to counter the pervasive demonization of immigrants. IDP provides legal training, detention litigation, legal advice, defender support and advocacy, as well as providing informational resources to communities, criminal defense attorneys, family court attorneys, and immigration lawyers. IDP is based out of New York City.
What started as a widely-circulated Google document written by Congressional staffers has turned into an invaluable organization during the Trump era, mobilizing millions of citizens to put pressure on their representatives to stop Trump's agenda and support progressive policies. The goal of Indivisible, according to Peter Dreier, is to "save American democracy" and "resume the project of creating a humane America that is more like social democracy than corporate plutocracy." Their website serves as a hub with further resources on using the guide, organizing local movements, and daily and weekly actionable steps to take to encourage voter mobilization and citizen engagement.
Jobs with Justice is a union rights organization founded in 1987, and is made up of individuals and affiliated grassroots organizations across the country. JWJ uses organizing and direct action to advance workers’ rights and economic justice. Some of their most recent campaigns include Change Walmart, Change the Economy, Debt-Free Future, and Caring Across Generations.
Justice Democrats, a political action committee, is "a unified campaign to replace every corporate-backed member of Congress and rebuild the Democratic Party from scratch". Born out of the 2016 election, Justice Democrats is committed to taking money out of politics by recruiting and supporting activists and members of the community to run for office. They seek to create a left-wing populist movement to support alternative Democratic candidates beginning with the 2018 mid-term elections. Justice Democrats have been challenging establishment incumbents in the primaries. Their most visible victory of the year was the defeat of the powerful incumbent Joe Crowley by challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for New York's 14th Congressional House district. Incumbent representatives Ro Khanna (CA-17), Raul Grijalva (AZ-03), and Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) are also Justice Democrats. All supported candidates refuse financial contributions from billionaires and corporations, and have a list of progressive platforms including Abolishing ICE, Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, criminal justice reform, a clean energy economy, a jobs guarantee and livable wage, and fighting inequality.
Founded in 1909 as a bi-racial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans, the NAACP is the nation's most widely recognized civil rights organization. The NAACP uses grassroots organizing, legal support, and lobbying on the local, state, and federal levels to advance equal rights and protections to minority communities, improve public education, voting rights, and economic justice. The NAACP fought Jim Crow and disenfranchisement, fought for anti-lynching legislation, and fought through the desegregation and civil rights era. Currently, the organization has a million members and 2,200 chapters across cities, regions, and university campuses, with headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.
National Organization of Women
Founded in 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of women's rights, equality, and fair pay. Inspired by the failure of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women's rights advocates sought to form a type of "NAACP for women, in order to exert pressure and combat gender discrimination. NOW has been at the forefront of women's rights, including legalizing abortion, expanding abortion access and fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment. With 550 chapters across the country, NOW seeks to promote feminist ideals, lead societal change, eliminate discrimination, and achieve and protect the equal rights of all women and girls in all aspects of social, political, and economic life.
Born out of the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, Our Revolution is a political action organization conceived to carry the torch of the Sanders campaign and support and mobilize a new generation of candidates and activists to remake the Democratic Party from within. OR's campaign platforms are: reducing income and wealth inequality, supporting the rights of minorities and Native Americans, working towards single-payer healthcare, reducing the price of prescription drugs, instituting a $15 minimum wage, expanding Social Security, creating jobs, and making public colleges and universities tuition-free. In about 2 years time, Our Revolution has seen significant victories from the local, state, and federal level—as well as in leadership positions within the Democratic Party infrastructure—and has amassed an election win rate of about 50%. The 50% success rate is even more impressive given the candidates endorsed by OR are typically underdogs who, by nature of refusing to accept corporate cash, are outspent by their rivals.
The People’s Policy Project is the only think tank funded by crowdsourced donations. Founded by Matt Bruenig—a lawyer, blogger, policy analyst, and commentator—3P aims to solve the dearth of left-of-center think tanks and policy research to fulfill a burgeoning popularity for progressive and leftist-leaning analysis and concrete policy proposals. Bruenig's vision for the People's Policy Project is to “publish ideas and analysis that assist in the development of an economic system that serves the many, not the few.” Much of its research revolves around social welfare policy, housing, mass incarceration, and wealth inequality. Rather than relying on large donor and corporate money, which is a common model in Democratic think tanks, 3P relies on small contributions; currently, it receives between $5 and $15 per month from about 1,600 individual contributors. In Bruenig's own words, “The existing think tank world is politically constrained. There’s this milieu of center-left think tanks, running all the way to the far right, but there’s nothing to the left of that. So we have ideas like single-payer [health care], which is supported by the vast majority of Democratic voters, that have no policy support whatsoever among these institutions.”
Physicians for a National Health Program
Physicians for a National Health Program (PHNP) is the only national physician organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to implementing a single-payer national health program. PHNP is made up of over 20,000 physicians, medical students, and health professionals and has chapters across the country. Through scientific research, substantive policy proposals, speaking engagements and town halls, the organization works to educate physicians and other health professionals about the benefits of a single-payer system. In 1987—the year PNHP was founded—one of the founders of PHNP wrote in the New York Times "Education is a right, and we provide it to all, regardless of differences in need. In the same way, nobody would be 'uninsurable' if we acknowledged health care for all as a public responsibility. A universal national health program would provide everyone secure access to necessary health care."
The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival is an anti-poverty campaign led by Rev. William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. The campaign takes its name from the original 1968 Poor People's Campaign, which was an effort to gain economic justice for poor people in the United States, organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and carried out under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy in the wake of King's assassination. The Poor People's Campaign is a series of nonviolent demonstrations to call attention to an unjust system of racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation. They believe that people should not live in or die from poverty in the richest nation ever to exist, and in the dismantling of unjust criminalization systems that exploit poor communities and communities of color and the transformation of the “War Economy” into a “Peace Economy” that values all humanity.
Founded by Ralph Nader in 1971, Public Citizen is a non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group and think tank based in Washington, D.C. Their slogan, “Corporations have their lobbyists in Washington, D.C. The People need advocates too.” encapsulates their commitment to corporate accountability and strong government regulation, particularly in the areas of transport, healthcare, and nuclear power. The organization's priorities range from campaign finance reform to drug and auto safety and financial reform. The unifying theme is an effort to curb the impact of corporate power on American democracy. The organization has over 400,000 members and supporters nationwide, and they do not participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. As an advocacy-only organization, they receive no government or corporate money. Public Citizen has had numerous victories over the years, to name a few: playing key role in creation of Consumer Product Safety Commission, winning a lawsuit which ruled that President Nixon’s firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was illegal, aiding in the passage of the Superfund law, which requires cleanup of toxic waste sites without limits on liability, publishing research about Judge Robert Bork, helping block his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, suing the George H.W. Bush administration for release of Oliver North’s diaries from the Iran-Contra affair, and successfully lobbying for federal regulation requiring air bags or passive seat belts in all cars takes full effect after a 20-year battle with automakers.
Founded in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery, Alabama, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. SPLC is noted for its successful legal cases against white supremacist groups, its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs. They tackle hate and extremism, children's rights, immigrant justice, LGBT rights, Economic Justice, Criminal Justice reform, and voting rights. SPLC's Hatewatch reporting and documentation of hate groups locations and their actions is considered a definitive resource used by others seeking justice and equality for all.
Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United for a Fair Economy (UFE) is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that supports social movements working for a resilient, sustainable and equitable economy by challenging the concentration of wealth and power. With popular economics education, trainings, and creative communications, they support social movements working for a resilient, sustainable and equitable economy. The pillars of their mission is to fight for jobs with dignity and living wages, equal opportunity and equal justice for marginalized communities, a robust public sector that works for the common good, funded through progressive taxes and accountable to the people, and sustainability and equity, where individuals do not accumulate excesses of wealth to the detriment of others or the planet. United for a Fair Economy has been sounding the alarm on the excessive concentration of wealth & power since 1994, when its first mission was bringing this issue to the public's attention. Action components in 1995-1998 were concerned with corporate welfare, income stagnation, and the widening CEO/worker pay gap, in general focusing on issues of income disparity.
United We Dream is a nonprofit organization advocating for a fairer and more just immigration policy system in the U.S. The group specifically advocates for access to higher education and for legal status for those caught up in the U.S. complex and inhumane immigration system. United We Dream began informally in the early 2000s as an effort, organized by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), to advocate for greater access to higher education for immigrants. Led by immigrant youth, the organization has over 400,000 members across the country, as well as 5 statewide branches and over 100 local groups across 28 states. They seek to build power by organizing at the local, regional, and national levels and aim to provide tools and resources to support local leaders and member organizations, as well as create meaningful alliances with other advocacy organizations. Members of United We Dream are at the forefront of many of the demonstrations, strikes, and protests regarding immigration policy over the last few years.