CREDO Tip: How to vote with your wallet all year long

There’s hardly anything more important to our democracy than our right and duty to vote, yet casting our ballots is a fairly infrequent event – speaking of which, are you registered to vote?

Luckily, you don’t have to wait in line at the polls once a year to wield your voting power. You have enormous political influence at checkout when you make regular purchases every day. Your wallet is an important weapon to fight back against Trump’s hateful agenda.

For example, in 2017, after Trump announced his racist Muslim ban, protests across the nation broke out, and taxi drivers at JFK Airport in New York City joined to strike in protest. Uber decided to capitalize on the taxi strike, profit off the lack of competition and picked up passengers at the terminals among the protests. That night, the hashtag #DeleteUber went viral, and in the following days, hundreds of thousands of Uber customers dropped the service.

To ensure your hard-earned money isn’t funding the Trump agenda, during this holiday season and all year long, here are five apps and websites to help you make purchases based on your values.

1. Grab Your Wallet

Founded in the wake of Trump’s misogynistic comments in the “Access Hollywood” tapes, the #GrabYourWallet campaign was founded as a way for shoppers to boycott stores and websites carrying Ivanka Trump’s brand. The result: More than 70 companies severed ties with the Trump family. In July 2018, Ivanka Trump officially shut down her company. 

The website, a simple yet effective Google Sheet, has grown to include a comprehensive list of companies with ties to the Trump administration. The list includes reasons why you should avoid certain brands (Bank of America donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, for example), contact information to express your concerns, a way for companies to be removed and other companies on #GrabYourWallet’s radar.

Check out which brands they recommend that you avoid at #GrabYourWallet’s website.

2. Goods Unite Us

The Goods Unite Us mission is to empower people to become political consumers so that it can help put an end to corporate political donations for good. 

With over 150,000 users, the Goods Unite Us app is easy to use. Simply download, enter a company name, and view a list of political donations made by the company and many of its senior employees. 

A great feature of the app is the “Wallet Vote” that, after a brief questionnaire, lets you know how much of your own spending is funding Republican and Democratic politicians and PACs during every election cycle. 

The app is available for both iOS and Android users. 

3. Buycott

Buycott is a simple app that helps you understand the politics behind your purchases. Simply scan any barcode when shopping to learn about the product’s history and whether the company aligns with your values.

You can create or join a campaign, like Boycott Trump Products, so you can have a greater collective impact. Buycott campaigns feature important progressive causes, including civil rights, immigration, LGBTQ and women’s rights. A few popular campaigns include boycott the NRA, boycott income inequality, and save and support the bees as much as you can!

With millions of users from 192 different countries, Buycott is a comprehensive crowd-sourced list with thousands of new UPC barcodes being added every day. 

Buycott is available for both iOS and Android users. 

4. Zippia 

Although Zippia is a career search and information site, its website includes a tool that helps users view political donations by company employees. 

To give it a try, visit Zippia’s search tool and type in a company’s name. Click on the “political” tab to give you a breakdown of top employee donors and political contribution amounts and a company-wide percentage of employees who donated to Republican and Democratic candidates. 

A quick look at AT&T reveals that the company’s CEO Randall Stephenson donated a combined amount of nearly $309,700 to the Republican Party, while 59.8% of the company’s employees as a whole supported Democrats.

Note: It appears, however, the site does not include lobbying expenditures, donations by corporate PACs or contributions to dark money political organizations. For example, AT&T donated $2 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, which is not included in Zippia’s data. You can find additional corporate donor information at OpenSecrets.org.

5. Bonus Tip: CREDO Mobile

Does your mobile carrier donate to Republicans and right-wing causes or support the Trump agenda? (Find out above!)

By joining CREDO Mobile, your monthly bill will support issues like climate justice, voting rights and economic equality. That’s because we donate a portion of our revenue every month – more than $1 million a year – to the progressive causes you care about. You can rest assured that your phone bill will never support the right-wing agenda, and CREDO will never donate to Republicans, ever.

For years, corporations have backed Republican politicians and right-wing causes without scrutiny from the public, but these apps and websites are here to change that. Armed with these great resources, voting with your wallet is now easier than ever.