Donations update: Support People For the American Way Foundation as it fights to stop the rising tide of authoritarianism in the U.S.

Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This April, People For the American Way Foundation is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will support People For the American Way Foundation in its work to stop authoritarianism in the U.S. and promote freedom of expression, civic engagement, fair courts and legal and lived equality for LGBTQ people.

Read this important blog post about People For the American Way Foundation’s critical work, then visit CREDODonations.com and cast your vote to help send funding to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding April grantees.

People For the American Way Foundation (People For) inspires and mobilizes community and cultural leaders to advance truth, justice and the American way. We convene courageous Americans, produce compelling media and organize campaigns to defend our democracy from authoritarian threats — advancing America’s promise that everyone will enjoy freedom, safety and a vote that counts.

For over 40 years, People For has engaged cultural and community leaders and individual activists in campaigns promoting freedom of expression, civic engagement, fair courts, and legal and lived equality for LGBTQ+ people. Together, we have battled voter suppression, censorship and injustice in our judicial system.

Television producer Norman Lear was moved to create People For at a time when core American values were undermined by the emerging religious-right political movement. Its leaders weaponized media platforms with claims that the only “real” Americans were people who shared their religious beliefs and political worldview. Norman, a Jewish American and World War II veteran, knew how wrong they were. He recruited people of many faiths and political backgrounds, including the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, to join him in saying, “That’s not the American Way.”

The integrity of our elections and our voting rights are under unprecedented assault and Black voters are the primary targets of those attacks. Authoritarian forces are stepping up voter suppression efforts across the country. They use strategies like disinformation, intimidation and legislation to make it harder for people to vote. They also undermine voter confidence with false narratives that elections are “rigged.”

People For has long known that one of the most important strategies to combat authoritarianism and anti-democratic forces in our society is to create a vibrant, inclusive electorate. We know that boosting Black voter turnout is critical to building an electorate that is prepared to turn back the rising authoritarian tide, as well as defend workers’ rights, women’s rights, voting rights, civil rights and the future of our planet.

And that’s why we launched Defend the Black Vote. Since 2020, our Defend the Black Vote program has mobilized a critical constituency — Black men — to get to the polls. Our focus is specific and strategic: hard-to-reach Black male voters between the ages of 18-60, who have only voted in one of three or four of the last election cycles. Our program is one of the largest get-out-the-vote programs directly focused on low-propensity Black men. We reach these voters where they live, with targeted advertising, church-based engagement and peer-to-peer texting. The effectiveness of our efforts has been emphasized in numerous outlets, including this recent piece in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

In 2022, our campaign launched in 15 states, with a goal of getting 1 million Black male voters to the polls. Our program sent 4 million texts and our radio ads ran in Maryland, North Carolina and Wisconsin, while our digital ads garnered 93,000 impressions. We relaunched our campaign for the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff, sending over 1 million text messages to Black male voters, as well as a blitz of ads including radio, digital and billboards.

In the 2023 Virginia elections, we reached 240,000 voters six or more times via digital ads, as well as an additional 274,000 voters via bilingual radio ads. Aside from Virginia, Defend the Black Vote sent more than 1 million GOTV-related texts to over 400,000 unique voters across other 2023 statewide elections, including Kentucky, Ohio, New Jersey, Mississippi and Louisiana.

While our 2024 plans are still being formed, we will endeavor to engage every Black male with a mobile phone number on the national voter file, via text-based get-out-the-vote outreach.

To learn more about what we do, visit PFAW.org.