Posted on November 17, 2022
Turn off this one setting to save your smartphone battery
If you’ve noticed your smartphone’s battery draining faster than usual, you’re not alone. It happens to all of us — and we make sure our charger is always close by.
So what can you do to save the charge in your battery day after day?
We have a super simple solution: Turn off background app refresh. In this week’s tip, we’ll show you how to turn off this setting to save your battery.
Background app refresh is a feature on Android and iPhone devices that allows apps to download data in the background when you’re not using them so you have up-to-date information when you start to use the app again. This can be useful for messaging or news apps so you can have fresh information every time you access them.
However, this setting can use extra data and battery in the background. While some say that this feature doesn’t affect your device’s performance, both Android and Apple’s power saving modes turn off background app refresh, so we recommend turning it off, too, unless you really need it. Here’s how:
Turn off background app refresh on iPhone
- Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh > then tap Background App Refresh again
- To turn this setting off completely, tap Off. You can also choose whether or not you want this setting to work only over WiFi.
- If you want to choose certain apps to use this setting, tap Back, then toggle which apps you want to turn on and off.
Turn off background app refresh on Android
Turning off this setting may vary by phone. Please check with your manufacturer if the below steps don’t work for your device.
- Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Data Saver
- Turn Data Saver on
Like the iPhone, you can also use this setting to choose which apps you would like to use this feature if you don’t want to turn off all apps from refreshing in the background.
Posted on November 10, 2022
Here’s what to do if your smartphone gets wet
We all dread the day when it happens: you’ve dropped your smartphone in a puddle or pool, or even worse, a toilet.
So what now? You rush to wipe it off and throw it in a bowl of rice, right?
Not so fast, and don’t panic. Here are some quick tips and tricks to dry your phone and save it from certain doom — the right way.
Device Insurance
Before we dive into the official tips for trying to save your smartphone from potential ruin, we would be remiss if we didn’t plead with you to purchase insurance for your device.
Consumers lose millions of dollars every year from accidental damage, and water damage ranks near the top of the list. If you have an Apple device, look into purchasing AppleCare. If you have a device from another manufacturer, check with their customer service team — or check to see if your CREDO device is eligible for insurance.
Tips if your iPhone gets wet
Many newer iPhones have pretty good water resistance, so don’t fret if your device gets wet — but you’ll still want to dry it off as soon as possible to prevent any damage. Here are some tips straight from Apple’s website to dry out and save your device:
- Remove the device from the liquid and wipe your phone off with a lint-free cloth.
- Tap it gently against your hand with the Lightning connector facing down to remove excess liquid.
- Leave your iPhone in a dry area with some airflow. Placing your iPhone in front of a fan blowing cool air directly into the Lightning connector might help the drying process.
- Don’t use an external heat source or stick anything like a napkin or cotton swab in the ports.
- Don’t try to charge your device for at least five hours with a cable.
- If you see a liquid detection alert on your screen, visit Apple’s website here.
Tips if your Samsung/Android device gets wet
If you have an Android device, including those from Samsung, the official steps are fairly similar. Here’s what Samsung suggests:
- Remove the device from the liquid and wipe it off with a clean cloth or towel.
- Remove any water from the battery or any other openings. Samsung suggests you can use a “cotton bud” to ensure complete moisture removal.
- Air dry in a well-ventilated area or use cool air from a fan. Do not use external heat, like from a hair dryer.
- The manufacturer recommends bringing the device to a service center in case excess moisture remains in the device.
If all else fails, some users have found certain drying agents, like silica gel, couscous and instant rice may help speed up the drying process, but we suggest that you seek a certified repair technician recommended by your manufacturer to recover your device and/or the data stored on it.
Posted on November 10, 2022
CREDO members are helping Earthjustice protect the planet
Our long-time grantee Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. They wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to stand up to polluters, advance clean energy, protect public health, and fight for justice for people and the planet.
In March 2022, CREDO members voted to distribute $36,850 help Earthjustice take on the most consequential legal fights of our time, moving urgently to zero emissions and 100% clean energy to address the climate crisis and ensure a healthy environment for all. In total, our members have enabled us to donate $903,909 to empower Earthjustice’s critical work to protect our environment since 1998.
Here’s an update from Earthjustice highlighting some of their recent victories and new projects, thanks to funding from CREDO members:
Recent victories
Earthjustice has made significant forward movement to accelerate the nationwide transition to zero emissionsand 100% clean energy that is climate-safe and disaster-resilient.
- Our Right to Zero campaign, which began in California, is now bicoastal.
- We helped persuade New Jersey and New York to adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks Rule, which we helped get passed first in California. We are now helping Washington D.C. implement the rule and celebrate its recent adoption in Oregon and Washington state.
- Thanks to our work, Maryland is committing to zero-emissions wind power; Arizona is making energy rates equitable for solar customers; Colorado is fast-tracking electric vehicles; and California is calling out bad behavior from gas utility companies.
It has been an extraordinary year for Earthjustice in our work enforcing and defending the Clean Water Act and using other laws and advocacy to protect our waters from pollution. After successfully defending the Clean Water Act in the Supreme Court in a case over the Lahaina sewage plant in Maui County, Hawai‘i, we returned to federal district court and won a ruling enforcing our Supreme Court victory.
We celebrate our historic win at the D.C. District Court this summer, which invalidated the Biden administration’s reckless decision to offer oil and gas leases on a staggering 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico — the largest offshore lease sale in U.S. history. The decision marks a pivotal victory in our fight to defend Gulf communities and the planet from the worsening climate crisis. We will continue to pressure President Biden to make good on his campaign promises to stop offshore leasing once and for all.
Earthjustice has also halted lease sales in Utah’s Uinta Basin and new oil and gas permits in California’s Kern County.
New projects
In April, Earthjustice, CleanAirNow, the Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California challenging the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) decision to replace the vast majority of its delivery fleet with polluting and fuel-guzzling combustion mail trucks. The Postal Service signed a contract and spent millions of dollars on a new combustion fleet before it even began conducting an environmental analysis.The agency received over 35,000 comments from federal and state agencies, scientists, labor organizations,environmentalists, and community groups all concerned about the gaping holes in the analysis and the long-term consequences of this mistake.
Earthjustice is representing CleanAirNow and the Sierra Club in the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California, and the Center for Biological Diversity is representing itself. NRDC, representing the United Auto Workers, also filed suit against the Postal Service. And well over a dozen states,including California, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland,Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the City of New York and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District also filed a lawsuit against the Postal Service for its plans to invest in thousands of polluting mail trucks.
In August, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in federal court for allowing hundreds of toxic coal ash landfills to avoid compliance with important federal health and environmental protections. Earthjustice mined databases buried in EPA archives and found that the agency exempted at least half a billion tons of coal ash in nearly 300 landfills in 38 states from standards designed to protect people from cancer-causing chemicals. The landfills are sited disproportionately in low-income communities and communities of color. It is enough coal ash to fill train cars that could go around the earth two times. Earthjustice filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on behalf of plaintiffs Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (TN), Indiana State Conference and LaPorte County Branch of the National Association forAdvancement of Colored People, Hoosier Environmental Council (IN), Sierra Club, Clean Power Lake County (IL),and Environmental Integrity Project.
If you’d like to learn more or get involved with Earthjustice, please visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok..
Posted on November 9, 2022
Thanks to CREDO members, When We All Vote is building an informed and engaged electorate
Since 2018, our grantee partners at When We All Vote, an initiative of Civic Nation, have brought together individuals, institutions, brands, and organizations to register new voters across the country, advance civic education for voters of every age, and build an informed and engaged electorate for generations to come.
In March 2022, CREDO members voted to distribute $35,750 to help the organization’s voter programs ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections. With direct attacks on our democracy, WWAV remains committed to changing the culture around voting, increasing voter participation, and closing the race and age voting gap.
Here’s an update from WWAV highlighting some recent victories and new projects, thanks to funding from CREDO members:
Recent victories
We are incredibly grateful for CREDO’s support and are pleased to share some of our successes and accomplishments over the course of the year.
This year, When We All Vote:
- Volunteers reached more than one million voters via text
- Recruited more than 3,000 people to serve as poll workers
- Hosted more than 200 parties at or near polling locations as a part of the organization’s Party at the Polls Program
- Recruited and partnered with more than 200 high schools to launch My School Votes clubs and secured three district-wide partnerships
- Partnered with nearly 100 media, corporate and nonprofit organizations, and an additional 14 professional sports teams and leagues joined When We All Vote as part of the Rally the Vote coalition
- Hosted over 20 virtual rallies and trainings that reached nearly 10,000 volunteers
This year, WWAV has recruited and trained 366 chapter leaders in 44 states through our new Chapter Leader Program, which includes monthly trainings to support both entry-level and super volunteers up and down the ladder of engagement. This new infrastructure lends to more stability and deeper, long-term relationships that we can build on. WWAV also launched the VOTE LOUD HBCU Squad Challenge in March, as part of our Voting Squad Program, to empower HBCU students to take a leading role in voter registration, education, and mobilization. These Squads will help register students and the surrounding communities to vote in 2022 and beyond.
Additionally, My School Votes (MSV), our high school student engagement program, is running a Student Ambassador (SA) program. The SA Program is a paid six-week leadership opportunity for 31 current high school students, recent graduates, and college students. Student Ambassadors will help expand MSV into target districts.
During the week of September 19, WWAV embarked on our National Week Of Action to get thousands of voters registered and ready to vote. Our volunteers & MSV students hosted more than 150 voter registration events all across the country.
New projects
In order to combat disinformation that plagues our nation, our multifaceted marketing and communications strategy is designed to empower Americans with knowledge about our government and its role in it and to combat disinformation that seeks to erode our democracy.
One key element of our strategy was our Culture of Democracy Summit. On June 10, 2022, WWAV hosted the first ever Culture of Democracy Summit featuring WWAV founder, Michelle Obama, and several other co-chairs, celebrity ambassadors, and voting rights activists who support WWAV’s work and vision, including Chris Paul, Selena Gomez, Liza Koshy, Bretman Rock, Kerry Washington, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Magic Johnson, Doc Rivers, David Hogg, Nikole Hannah Jones, and more.
The inspiring four-day nonpartisan convening brought together artists, athletes, academics, grassroots organizers, and business leaders to discuss the role different industries play in protecting and strengthening democracy through voter registration, education, mobilization, and culture change. The summit allowed leaders to discuss how we can collectively support each other in this work for the midterms and beyond, connecting on common themes of funding, fighting voter suppression, and voter engagement. More than 1,300 people convened at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles for the final day of the Summit. WWAV also announced the winners of the first-ever Culture of Democracy Awards, which recognized leaders across industries and communities doing critical work to advance WWAV’s mission.
In September, following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, WWAV and a group of climate and community organizations, led by Climate Power, announced Vote Future, a new effort to boost youth voter participation in the 2022 midterm elections. The joint nonpartisan campaign educated young voters about the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate legislation ever passed in the U.S., and equipped them with the tools to make their voices heard at the ballot box.
Most recently, When We All Vote launched Party at the Polls, a celebratory voter engagement strategy proven to increase voter participation. When We All Vote joined partners and volunteers to host more than 200 celebrations at or near polling locations across the country to increase voter turnout and bring communities together to celebrate voting with music, food and fun activities.
If you’d like to learn more or get involved with When We All Vote, please visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Posted on November 8, 2022
Our October grantees thank you for your support
Each month, CREDO members vote on how we distribute funding to three incredible nonprofits. Those small actions add up – with one click, you can help fund groups working for economic justice, civil rights and climate justice. In October, CREDO members voted to distribute our monthly donation among Americans for Tax Fairness, Legal Defense Fund and Rainforest Action Network.
These donations are made possible by CREDO customers and the revenue they generate by using our services. The distribution depends entirely on the votes of CREDO members like you. And for that, our October grant recipients thank you.
Americans for Tax Fairness
“Thank you for supporting our efforts to make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share in taxes so we can raise the revenue needed to invest in working families across the country! Small-dollar donations make our work possible.” – Frank Clemente, Executive Director, Americans for Tax Fairness
To learn more, visit https://americansfortaxfairness.org.
Legal Defense Fund
“Thank you for joining LDF’s fight for racial justice and equality! We appreciate your recognition of the importance of our work. With help from friends like you, LDF will continue to protect and expand America’s democracy.” – Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
To learn more, visit www.naacpldf.org.
Rainforest Action Network
“Thank you for supporting Rainforest Action Network (RAN)! CREDO members like you further RAN’s mission to protect people and the planet by addressing the root causes of climate change, deforestation, and exploitation within extractive industries.” – Ginger Cassady, Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network (RAN)
To learn more, visit https://www.ran.org.
Now check out the three groups we are funding in November, and cast your vote to help distribute our donations.
CREDO members who use our products are the reason why we are able to make these donations each month. Learn more about CREDO Mobile, the carrier with a conscience.
Posted on November 7, 2022
Grantee Highlight: NILC Immigrant Justice Fund
Note from the CREDO team: This November, the NILC Immigrant Justice Fund is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO community will fuel the organization’s legislative advocacy, messaging research, and electoral work geared toward advancing inclusive, equitable policies that improve the lives of low-income immigrants and their loved ones.
Please take a minute to read this important blog post from IJF, then click here to visit CREDODonations.com to cast your vote to help determine how we distribute our monthly grant to this organization and our other amazing grantees this November.
Immigrants make up the fabric of communities across the country. They are our neighbors, family members, friends, and coworkers. Immigrants are essential to our nation’s strength and future. And the issues that matter most to immigrants are much the same as the broader public: having access to a doctor to care for a child or other family member, being able to live in safe communities, work in good jobs, and pursue an education, and having the freedom to live free from fear.
But every two years, as Election Day approaches, right-wing politicians and MAGA media personalities compete to see who can conjure the most extreme rhetoric to exploit their base’s fear of immigrants. In their telling, this extreme xenophobia is good politics. However, poll after poll shows that American voters reject right-wing anti-immigrant extremism. Instead, these polls show how an overwhelming number of voters support politicians and policies that do what’s necessary to build a just, fair, and humane immigration system.
The NILC Immigrant Justice Fund (or IJF, the sister organization of the National Immigration Law Center) is working to translate this popular support into concrete political power. To accomplish this goal, we are building a political program that will help candidates become strong advocates, messengers, and policymakers on issues that affect immigrant communities through robust research and supporter engagement. This work builds on the integral role the IJF has played since 2013 to:
- advance a broad and humane overhaul of the nation’s immigration systems,
- amplify the need to reform the nation’s immigration enforcement policies so they protect civil and human rights,
- promote the importance of expanding aspiring citizens’ access to the programs and services they need to live healthy lives, and
- advocate for policies that address the needs of immigrant youth.
At IJF, we are focusing on electing as many pro-immigrant leaders as possible by educating political candidates, their campaign staff, and other stakeholders on the issues that matter most to immigrant communities. Our hope is that these pro-immigrant policies will make it into campaign platforms and that more elected officials will become champions of immigrants’ rights if elected or re-elected.
We are working hard to demonstrate to candidates and policymakers that embracing pro-immigrant policies is also good politics. Just a few days ago, we published a five-state polling project in the most hotly-contested Senate battlegrounds showing that an overwhelming number of voters — including Independents and swing voters — overwhelming support Congress taking action to protect immigrant youth, maintain the legal right to asylum, and create a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants.
Earlier this year, just before the President’s first State of the Union address, we showed the Biden administration through our polling that the public broadly supports pro-immigrant policies. We also polled likely midterm voters in key swing Senate races ahead of the 2022 elections to demonstrate to candidates and elected officials that embracing a pro-immigrant platform will help them win on November 8, and that they should deliver on defending and providing relief for our communities. Topline results from our poll include the following:
- 74% of voters said they would more likely support a candidate who favors providing a pathway to citizenship to Dreamers, including 92% of Democrats.
- 73% support a pathway to citizenship if certain requirements are met, including background checks, for undocumented immigrants.
- 71% believe that refugees should be able to legally request asylum — this includes 88% of Democrats, 71% of Independents/unaffiliated voters, and 54% of Republicans.
- When asked about the egregious migrant bussing conducted by extremists Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, by a 29-point margin, voters viewed this as “mainly a stunt by the governors (57%)” rather than a genuine effort to improve the asylum system (28%).
In the final days before the 2022 midterms, IJF used this data to encourage candidates to embrace our popular, pro-immigrant agenda. We recognize that the political atmosphere can make these conversations more challenging. Too often, we see even supportive policymakers shrink away from embracing pro-immigrant policies in favor of hesitance, silence, or even deference to conservative stances – particularly around border issues. We are working hard to confront and change this reality, and we have made real progress. But it’s clear there is more work to be done to convince policymakers to champion and proactively embrace these positions, especially during a heated mid-term election cycle.
Only two years ago, a historic multiracial, multigenerational coalition of voters elected Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress in part because they championed building a just and humane immigration system. At IJF, we’re fighting to make progress for immigrant communities by pushing our country’s leaders to become more fearless champions of justice for all. Together, with your support, we can push forward the changes and solutions our communities and loved ones desperately need.
Posted on November 7, 2022
Vote for Good360, Government Accountability Project and NILC Immigrant Justice Fund this November
Every month, CREDO members vote to distribute our monthly grant to three incredible progressive causes – and every vote makes a difference. This November, you can support economic justice, civil rights and immigrant rights by voting to fund Good360, Government Accountability Project and NILC Immigrant Justice Fund.
Good360
As the global leader in product philanthropy, Good360 closes the need gap by partnering with 400+ socially responsible companies to source highly needed donated goods and distribute them through a network of 100,000+ nonprofits that support people in need.
Funding from the CREDO community will help Good360 distribute needed goods to communities around the globe. Whether facing poverty, rebuilding after a disaster, overcoming displacement, or striving to give children a brighter future, funds will help them close the need gap.
Government Accountability Project
Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization. Its mission is to promote accountability by protecting whistleblowers, advancing occupational free speech, and empowering citizen activists.
Funding from CREDO will allow the Government Accountability Project to expand whistleblower protections and to disclose corruption within jails and detention centers, on factory farms, at nuclear power plants, within the oil industry, at banks, by big pharma, and throughout society.
NILC Immigrant Justice Fund
As more politicians run on anti-immigrant platforms, NILC-IJF builds power on all fronts by: pushing for Congress to advance key legislation, supporting pro-immigrant candidates running for office, and building partnerships to achieve electoral wins.
Funding from CREDO will fuel NILC-IJF’s legislative advocacy, messaging research, and electoral work geared toward advancing inclusive, equitable policies that improve the lives of low-income immigrants and their loved ones.
Your vote this month will determine how we divide our monthly donations among these three progressive groups. Be sure to cast your vote to support one, two or all three by November 30.
CREDO members who use our products and services everyday are the reason we are able to make these donations each month. Learn more about CREDO Mobile and join our movement.
Posted on November 4, 2022
Good360 Closes the Need Gap for Disaster Survivors and Beyond
Note from the CREDO team: This November, Good360 is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO community will help Good360 distribute needed goods to communities around the globe facing poverty, rebuilding after a disaster, overcoming displacement, or striving to give children a brighter future.
Read this important blog post from Good360’s Shari Rudolph, Chief Development officer and Chief Marketing Officer, then click here to visit CREDODonations.com to cast your vote to help determine how we distribute our monthly grant to this organization and our other amazing grantees this November.
More than enough, not enough to get by.
These two realities shouldn’t coexist. We live in a world of plenty, yet millions of people find themselves in critical need every day, creating a vast gap.
At Good360, we’re on a mission to close what we’re calling the “need gap.” We know there’s more than enough to go around. Enough mattresses to make sure everyone has a good night’s sleep. Enough shoes to make sure no child goes barefoot. And enough goodwill to make sure nobody will go without the essentials they need to thrive.
The Need Gap
The world isn’t lacking goods. In fact, we’re swimming in excess stuff as consumption continues to grow. The World Bank estimates that global waste will increase by 70% by 2050 as the result of rapid urbanization, population growth and economic development. Much of this waste can be diverted from landfills with programs that support the circular economy.
Consider this staggering statistic: The global self-storage market is expected to balloon to $65 billion by 2026, according to a report by Mordor Intelligence Research.
What’s driving such demand for more storage space? Growing families with “more material possessions,” the report says.
Meanwhile, income and wealth inequality continues to widen. According to Pew Research, the wealth gap between America’s richest and poorest families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016. The highest-earning 20% of families made more than half of all U.S. income in 2018.
Then came the pandemic. COVID-19 was the ultimate intensifier of need. The World Bank estimates that 119 to 124 million people worldwide were pushed into extreme poverty due to the unprecedented health crisis. During the height of the pandemic, 11% of American households said there were times when they didn’t have enough to eat.
Now, ongoing geopolitical strife and soaring living costs continue to squeeze the resources available for individuals and families worldwide.
Disaster Recovery and Current Hurricane Response
On top of all this, global warming is making natural disasters more frequent and more severe, increasing devastation and suffering for millions, but especially for those already in critical need.
In the 1980s, the number of billion-dollar disasters was 29, according to Climate.gov. During the 2010s, that figure grew to 119.
Even now, Good360 is working tirelessly with our partners on the ground who are just beginning the years-long recovery process after Hurricanes Ian and Fiona devastated much of Puerto Rico and Florida.
In the early days, needed donations include drinking water, cleaning and mucking supplies, mold remediation products, and more. As long-term recovery efforts kick into high gear, we’ll be ready with rebuilding materials and furnishings to help families during the full recovery process.
These same goods are the ones many companies have in excess. At the same time, many of the families most impacted by natural disasters, like Hurricanes Ian and Fiona, are already likely to be impacted by other economic disparities.
A Distribution Problem
Clearly, we don’t have a supply problem when it comes to available goods and funding. What we have is a distribution problem. That’s why we work to get the right products to the right people at the right time.
This is where Good360 is uniquely positioned to make an impact — a big impact, thanks to our network of more than 100,000 vetted and diverse nonprofits, our strong and growing donor partnerships, our logistics expertise and, of course, our people.
Last year, we impacted more than 14 million lives by distributing more than $1.5 billion in product donations. This year, we’re on track to distribute more than $2 billion in needed goods.
Opening Opportunity for All
Ultimately, we are enabling people striving to do more with what they have for their communities, all on behalf of individuals and families who deserve dignity and the opportunity to live better lives.
And that’s a great place to be. Because when we close the need gap, we create more opportunity: for donors to use their goods for good and nonprofits to better serve their
communities; for communities to become more resilient and for us all to waste less; and for people to reach their boundless potential.
When we get goods to where they can do the most good, we begin to close the need gap. Between those with plenty and those with not enough. Between corporations with so much to give, and organizations with so many people to help. Between a person in a tough situation, and a better world. A world where there’s more than enough to go around. More opportunity. More joy. More resilient communities. More good.
We’re Good360. And we’re on a mission to close the need gap and open opportunity for all.
Posted on November 2, 2022
We’re donating 400,000 meals to families in need this holiday season
Right now, 34 million people in the United States, including more than 9 million children, are facing hunger. It’s more than just a devastating statistic — it’s the lives of millions of families making tough decisions about how to put food on the table and not knowing where their next meal might come from.
That’s why we want to do our part to help fight food insecurity this coming holiday season.
Thanks to you and our incredible CREDO members, we are donating 400,000 meals to families in need this November through our partners at Feeding America, the 1 Billion Meals challenge, and their 200 food banks across the country.
This donation goes above and beyond our regular monthly giving to the causes and organizations who are fighting for economic justice, civil rights, climate justice and so much more — all powered by our amazing CREDO customers who use our products and services every day to help make our world a better place.
These donations are only possible because of you — so we can’t thank you enough for helping thousands of families have greater access to meals this coming holiday season, just by choosing CREDO as your mobile phone provider.
Posted on November 1, 2022
How CREDO funding helps protect whistleblowers with the Government Accountability Project
Note from the CREDO team: This November, the Government Accountability Project is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO community will help the organization expand whistleblower protections and to disclose corruption within jails and detention centers, on factory farms, at nuclear power plants, within the oil industry, at banks, by big pharma, and throughout society.
Read this important blog post from Louis Clark, Executive Director and CEO of the Government Accountability Project, then click here to visit CREDODonations.com to cast your vote to help determine how we distribute our monthly grant to this organization and our other amazing grantees this November.
Nurse Dawn Wooten was horrified when the women under her care confided in her about their medical abuse at an immigration detention center. Many of these women were receiving unnecessary hysterectomies and other invasive medical operations without their consent. Subsequently, she also learned that some of the victims who complained about losing their ability to ever have children were quickly deported. Raised in a religious home by a mother and grandmother that encouraged her to speak up about injustice, she blew the whistle on what was happening at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia. She was immediately fired. Soon we at Government Accountability Project, headquartered in Washington DC, took up her cause. When we went public, news media from every part of the world contacted us to report about the human rights violations. 173 members of Congress including Speaker Pelosi signed on to a demand that the Department of Homeland Security thoroughly investigate, leading to the firing of the doctor responsible and the permanent closing of the detention center. At events honoring her courage and tenacity, Ms. Wooten explained: “All these poor, vulnerable people who I cared for were seeking was just a better life for their families. And this nation—the ‘land of the free and home of the brave’—denied these young women their ability and right to ever have children.”
At all times, we at the Government Accountability Project represent a hundred or more clients just like Nurse Wooten. While everyone around them remains silent out of fear or complacency, these courageous truth-tellers are moved to speak up. It is our mission to ensure that they do not drown beneath the waves that they make. Not only do we fight to keep them on the job or to get their jobs back, but we also launch campaigns like we did for Nurse Wooten to force governments and corporations to end corrupt practices and institute reforms that will ensure that the exposed wrongdoing will never again take place. Finally, we convince elected leaders to enact whistleblower protections and develop effective channels to address whistleblower concerns. Over the last 45 years, we developed over 35 federal laws that Congress later enacted and are working to do the same for 27 nations of the European Union.
Whistleblowers are society’s most powerful tool to fight abuses of power, illegality, public health dangers, environmental threats, gross waste, politicized science, and other forms of wrongdoing. Insider information effectively investigated, strategically applied, and brought to public attention has the potential to transform companies and agencies in profound ways. In actual fact, truth-tellers are the antidote to corruption because they bring the sunlight to the dark corners of our society that need reform. They cannot perform this positive function without organized, experienced, and expert help, such as what we provide daily. When whistleblowers stand alone, it is easy for bureaucracies and corporations to focus on and then destroy the messenger, rather than clean house. As soon as we become involved, we change the narrative. We focus instead on the wayward institution and bring government regulators, government officials, the news media, other public organizations, citizen groups to bear on the wrongdoing institution. Of course, we fight just as hard to see that the truth-teller is made whole as well.
Government Accountability Project also represents whistleblowers in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, intelligence, education, nuclear energy, and countless other fields. Wherever a whistleblower stands up to speak the truth, Government Accountability Project is there to stand with them. Since our founding in the wake of Watergate in 1977, we have become the world’s leading advocate for whistleblowers and advocate for addressing their concerns. We have achieved success in bringing significant change based upon the information whistleblowers disclose on a wide range of public interest issues, including climate change denialism, food integrity, drug safety, fossil fuel contamination, banking and financial fraud, nuclear weapons cleanup dangers, nuclear power quality assurance violations, medical malpractice at Veterans Administration hospitals, international money laundering, and scientific fraud.
Just as whistleblowers need legal and advocacy support to challenge powerful institutions and interests, Government Accountability Project needs your support to stand up for truth and democracy. By sharing our message with your community, reaching out to your elected representatives to express your support for whistleblowers, and honoring us with your vote of confidence and donations, you become an active participant in the fight for accountability and justice. We cannot do what we do without you. When we stand together, we can successfully challenge even the most powerful forces in our society. You will also demonstrate that you agree with us that truth deserves a champion.
