Posted on June 2, 2022
We Can Build the World We Want with a More Peaceful U.S. Foreign Policy
Note from the CREDO team: This June, Win Without War is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO community will help Win Without War build a more progressive and just U.S. foreign policy that values people and the planet over war and profit.
Read this important blog post from Annika London, Senior Digital Associate, Win Without War below, 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 June.
At this point, it is clear that current U.S. foreign policy is not only astoundingly inadequate in addressing the real security threats we face — pandemics, climate change, social inequality and more — but also certainly causes and exacerbates these threats as well.
Over and over, the U.S. government has prioritized the Pentagon’s bloated budget and weapons contractors’ profits over the needs of communities at home and abroad. It has centered violence and war profiteering over building true security and honoring human rights, especially for people most impacted by U.S. actions abroad who live in fear of drone strikes in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia, or see their chance at a decent quality of life chipped away by blanket sanctions in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.
But that’s where a group like Win Without War comes in. For almost two decades, our team has worked to democratize U.S. foreign policy and provide progressive alternatives, so that we can achieve more peaceful, just, and common sense policies that ensure that all people can find and take advantage of opportunity equally and feel secure.
The end of the Trump administration was an opportunity to double down on our commitment to this mission, but the reality is that our work is critical no matter who is in the White House. This year, we’ve organized to prevent direct U.S./Russia military confrontation resulting from war in Ukraine while protecting communities at risk, including LGBTQ+ people and, African and Middle Eastern diasporas. We also continue to work to avoid war with Iran and support a return to diplomacy with Iran, by defending the Iran nuclear deal in Congress and pushing back against Trump’s failed “maximum pressure” sanctions strategy that has resulted in the unnecessary suffering of millions of Iranians.
Looking ahead, we will continue to push back on the misguided notion touted by weapons manufacturers and the gun lobby that a near-trillion dollar budget for weapons and war along with weak checks around human rights and safety will ultimately make people in the United States or across the globe safer. And we will not stop challenging the hypocrisy of U.S. policy as it picks and chooses which human rights it will value and which human lives are deserving of dignity and security solely based on whether it can turn a profit or gain more power from such actions.
Transforming U.S. foreign policy is a monumental task, but it is how we will finally end our endless wars, get accountability and justice for those impacted by U.S. militarism and violence, and truly achieve peace and security. This is a mission that takes more than one person, organization, or even generation — we look forward to making this transformation happen alongside a collective of other organizations, activists, and community leaders, and we hope you’ll join us too!
Please don’t forget to vote on this month’s CREDO grantees, and learn more about our work and take action with us at www.winwithoutwar.org.
Posted on June 1, 2022
Our May grantees thank you for your support
Our May 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 climate justice, civil rights and LGBTQ rights. In May, CREDO members voted to distribute our monthly donation to 350.org, Center for Constitutional Rights and National LGBTQ Task Force. 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 May grant recipients thank you.
350.org
“Thank you CREDO Members! While our vision is ambitious, with your support we can achieve it. Your efforts will help to build a powerful climate movement and engage the generations that will lead us tomorrow toward a better future.” – May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org
To learn more, visit www.350.org.
Center for Constitutional Rights
“Thank you for standing with the Center for Constitutional Rights! Every vote from CREDO members like you amplifies our ability to challenge oppressive systems of power and strengthen progressive social movements striving for justice and liberation.” – Vince Warren, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights
To learn more, visit ccrjustice.org.
National LGBTQ Task Force
“Thank you for supporting our work! The Task Force has been at it for almost 50 years and we won’t stop until we are all free. We are organizing for our rights, demanding that our full humanity is honored and affirmed, and fighting for our democracy.” – Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force
To learn more, visit https://www.thetaskforce.org/.
Now check out the three groups we are funding in June, 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 May 31, 2022
At CREDO, Pride Month is every month
You see it every June: corporations rainbow-stripe their logos for a month-long marketing campaign targeting the LGBTQ community — in an effort to co-opt a movement, gesture support and make profits.
Here at CREDO, we don’t change our logo — because we don’t need to.
Our brand has embodied equality and LGBTQ rights since our founding more than 35 years ago, all year-round, long before companies saw Pride as a once-a-year party they could crash.
In fact, since 1985, our members have helped us donate $15 million to progressive organizations fighting for equality and civil rights — groups like the National LGBTQ Task Force, the ACLU, Freedom For All Americans and the Transgender Law Center, who are on our donations ballot this month.
With unprecedented, discriminatory attacks on LGTBQ people sweeping state legislatures across the country, it’s more important than ever that companies embrace and fight for LGBTQ rights forcefully and authentically.
If they truly support LGBTQ rights, corporations should ditch the fake logos, press releases, marketing campaigns — and donations to anti-LGBTQ politicians — and take time to understand that Pride Month was founded on resistance — the kind of resistance and allyship the LGBTQ community desperately needs from all corners of our country, including from corporate America — all year long, not just in June.
If you’d like to vote for the Transgender Law Center and our other amazing grantees this month, please visit CREDODonations.com and take a minute to cast your ballot!
Posted on May 19, 2022
How to add your personal pronouns to your next Zoom call
Many of us here at CREDO include our preferred pronouns on our social media profiles and email signatures as a sign of respect and to ensure we refer to each other correctly.
But did you know you can include your pronouns on Zoom calls, too?
Including your pronouns on your video calls is not only an easy way to prevent others from misgendering you, but it also lets others know that you don’t want to misgender them, while creating a more welcoming space for your colleagues and friends who are trans, nonbinary or gender-nonconforming.
In this week’s tip, we’ll show you a few quick steps on how you can include your preferred pronouns on your Zoom calls.
There are two ways to add your pronouns to Zoom — either permanently, so they appear every time you enter a call; or just during certain meetings that you choose.
Before you start, make sure you are running the most recent version of Zoom on your computer or device (here’s how to upgrade).
Adding your pronouns permanently to your Zoom account
- Sign into the Zoom web portal.
- In the navigation, click Profile, then choose Edit.
- In the Pronouns field, add your pronouns.
- In the dropdown field directly below, choose how you would like to share your pronouns:
- Always share in meetings and webinars
- Ask me every time after joining meetings and webinar
- Do not share in meetings and webinars
- Click Save.
Add your pronouns on Zoom during a specific meeting
- Enter your meeting and click Participants.
- Hover over your name and click More >> Rename
- Your name will then appear in a popup box. You can add your pronouns after your name in parentheses — for example, Jane Doe (they/them)
Posted on May 17, 2022
Five things 350.org learned from the IPCC climate impacts report
This latest climate impacts report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is important. This is potentially the last report on impacts we’re going to get while we have the chance to avoid the worst impacts of global heating.
And the report is bad, but it also offers a way forward and shows us what we need to do. This is the decade that we can and need to change things.
Here are 350’s five takeaways from the report and ways you can fight for a safe and livable future.
1. Impacts are already here
Some of the climate impacts the fossil fuel industry has inflicted upon us are here to stay. Some of these aren’t reversible – at least not in a timeframe that’s meaningful for people and life on earth.
The level of warming we’re at is already having dire impacts on people across the world: half of the entire population of the planet faces water scarcity for an entire month every year. Droughts, fires, floods and diseases are already happening more often, and they are more severe.
2. 1.5°c of warming would have deadly, irreversible consequences
The more we go over 1.5°c, and the longer we stay there, the more we will end up in a vicious cycle of climate impacts. Existing impacts will be made worse, happen faster and release even more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which will lead to even more, and likely permanent, impacts.
Every fraction of warming means more suffering for most life on our planet. More fossil fuels and more emissions will mean that impacts will be harder to manage.
The report is clear, every fraction of a degree of warming we can stop is worth fighting for
3. Adaptation is necessary, but there is a limit to what it can do
Around three and half billion people, 40% of the world’s population, live in places extremely vulnerable to the risks of the climate crisis. In these places, the impacts of global heating could destroy the fragile ecosystems that support human life, as well as many other species.
We might be able to adapt to some of these impacts. But not all of them, and not all of us.
Where adaptation is even possible, countries on the frontline need resources. And many are faced with the prospect of not being able to fund a fair transition to clean, renewable energy because they are spending their money dealing with climate impacts caused by countries that produce the most fossil fuels.
We have to make sure the cost of damages caused by fossil fuel companies, and fossil fuel producing countries, are met by those who caused those damages in the first place.
4. There is still time to act – that action must start with ending the era of fossil fuels
“The world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson in our only home.” That is a direct quote from the UN Secretary General launching the IPCC climate impacts report.
We’ve known that all along – fossil fuel companies are responsible. And the clearest way to take action to secure a safe and livable planet is to stop our dependency on them and fairly transition to renewable energy.
195 countries signed off the report. This means 195 governments acknowledge that we need to act now. If they’re not doing what it takes, we can make them with people power – just like we have before.
Our movement stopped a huge, open-pit coal mine from going ahead in Brazil. We pressured the French Government into pulling funding from a gas pipeline in the Arctic. Activists in our movement stopped the Keystone XL pipeline in North America. New coal plants are becoming harder and harder to build.
Every battle won is another step towards a safe, livable planet. And they’re worth fighting because every fraction of a degree matters.
Every fraction of a degree we prevent could save or improve the lives of thousands, maybe even millions of people.
5. Every voice can make a difference.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said this, exactly – “Every voice can make a difference.”
Your voice matters. And to keep winning, we need to build this movement.
One of the most powerful things you can do in the fight for a safe and livable future is to have a voice – simply talking to your friends and loved ones can have a huge impact. Every conversation could inspire another person to join our fight against the fossil fuel industry. And the more of us who join the fight, the more powerful we become.
Want to learn more about how to have these conversations with friends and loved ones? Check out our handy resource here.
Posted on May 17, 2022
Thanks to CREDO members, Rainforest Foundation is tackling biodiversity loss, climate change, and human rights violations
Our grantee partners at Rainforest Foundation US support indigenous peoples of the world’s rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights. Global tropical forests are absolutely vital to combating the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
In June 2021, CREDO members voted to distribute $53,250 to help Rainforest Foundation US ensure that tropical forests can keep capturing and storing carbon, while also producing fresh air and clean water for generations to come.
Here are a few of the organization’s accomplishments, thanks to CREDO’s financial support:
Rainforest Foundation US accomplishments
In partnership with the Amerindian People’s Association (APA), Rainforest Foundation US published an evidence-based report on indigenous peoples’ land tenure in Guyana. As a culmination of eight years of participatory research, the report identifies key threats to indigenous people’s territories. The report will be key in the battle for greater territorial recognition, as well as the battle against illegal land-grabbing. By documenting the historic occupation and sacred significance of these landscapes, we are helping build a case for continued and expanded territorial recognition.
The organization also expanded Rainforest Alert, a technology-based forest patrol program to 21 new communities in 2021. That’s 573.6 square miles protected, and 63 new community-based forest patrollers trained.
New initiatives by Rainforest Foundation US
Together with the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, Rainforest Foundation US launched a new project to bolster sovereignty of local indigenous peoples’ organizations in Central America. The project will help AMPB register as a legal entity, allowing it to better support threatened national indigenous leaders — a problem that pervades the indigenous peoples’ rights movement in the region. It will also provide support to channel finance to territories, enhance women’s coordination, and strengthen capacities for territorial governance.
From October 8-12 2021, nearly 200 women representing indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin gathered in Cundinamarca, Colombia for the first-ever Indigenous Amazonian Women’s Summit. Indigenous Amazonian women play a critical role as caretakers, territory-defenders, guardians of knowledge, activists, scholars and seed-keepers of the forest, critically contributing to the greater battle against climate change. Hosted by the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon and Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, the summit featured workshops, panels and traditional rituals focused on advancing women’s livelihoods, rights, community resilience and pandemic mitigation. This historic summit laid the groundwork for future gatherings for Amazonian women to strategically align and coordinate as they continue their work defending the future of the Amazon.
If you’d like to learn more or get involved with Rainforest Foundation US’s important work, please visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Posted on May 7, 2022
How CREDO grantee Center for Constitutional Rights is fighting oppressive systems of power
Note from the CREDO team: This May, Center for Constitutional Rights is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO community will help CCR to fight oppressive systems of power, protect social movements and communities under threat, and build a more just and liberatory world.
Read this important blog post from Charisse Waugh, Center for Constitutional Right’s Grant Writer below, 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 May.
During the 1964 Democratic National Convention, civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer learned that national Democratic party members were holding a secret meeting to decide the number of seats her Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party would get to have on the convention floor. Hamer had rejected a two-seat compromise earlier, frustrating Democratic party power brokers. She knew her exclusion from the impromptu deal-making was not an accident and she pushed her way into the meeting. Party members pleaded with her to just “listen to the leaders.” Hamer responded, “Who is the leader? I know you ain’t been in Mississippi working with us. I can’t see a leader leading me nowhere if he’s in New York and I’m down here catching hell.”
Two years later, Hamer and local organizers in Mississippi hit a wall in their battle to secure voting rights for Black people. Beaten, jailed, and terrorized, Hamer and fellow organizers still managed to register about 300 Black citizens to vote in the town of Sunflower, but they were not allowed to cast ballots in the municipal election. Hamer asked a group of progressive lawyers that included Ben Smith and three New Yorkers – Morton Stavis, William Kunstler, and Arthur Kinoy – for help. They filed a federal lawsuit and set precedent when they convinced a judge to toss out the results of the municipal election because racially discriminatory practices had kept Black voters from participating. Following their victory, the four attorneys launched the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. More than 50 years later, the Center continues to fight for justice by following the blueprint that Hamer gave us: We take orders from people impacted by injustice and work in service of their needs. Still headquartered in New York City, the Center is now the oldest and largest Black-led organization in the U.S. employing movement lawyering – which means we partner with social justice movements to bring strategic litigation that supports their vision of liberation, justice, and accountability.
In 2021, retired special education teacher Sharon Lavigne was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for stopping the construction of a $1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant near her home in St. James Parish, LA. When she visited our New York office a few years ago, Sharon told us how she got activated. “When I found out a $9.4 billion industry was coming a mile and a half from where I live, that’s when I became angry because we were already bombarded with ten chemical plants within a 7-mile radius, and I feel like adding another one to where I live, I just couldn’t take it. So many people were dying of cancer… And that’s why I started to fight.”Since 2017, the Center has provided legal support to Sharon’s group, RISE St. James, and other Black-led community organizations and environmental activists fighting environmental racism in Louisiana’s notorious “Death Alley” (formerly known as “Cancer Alley”) – where Black and indigenous communities have long borne the brunt of the petrochemical economy. We successfully defended landowners whose land was expropriated under eminent domain by a private pipeline corporation, and when one of the companies blocked Sharon and her neighbors from visiting the burial sites of their enslaved ancestors and threatened them with arrest, the Center sued and won them access. Right now we’re partnering with local groups to stop the construction of a massive grain terminal whose particulates would further pollute the air.
Social justice movements’ demands sit at the heart of our work, and we remain accountable to those demands. We keep our work as closely connected to the people as possible. That’s why we have returned to our roots and re-established an office in the South. At this second home in Jackson, MS, the Center will continue to further our mission to dismantle the four power structures that subjugate marginalized communities: systemic racism, structural gender oppression, oppressive economic structures, and abusive state power.
We asked Sharon what success looks like for her. “My daughter who moved away because of headaches, I want her to come back to St. James. I would love that. I would love if they could all come home, and they’re out in the yard playing on the green grass and picking pecans when it’s pecan season. I would like for it to be flourishing again. I would like to plant our gardens again; plant our fruit trees again. Because all of that has been destroyed. I would like for it to come back the way it was before the industry came. The first industry came in 1969. My daddy welcomed it, not knowing it would be harmful to our health. We want to restore our health. We want to restore our community. That’s what I would like to see.” Can you imagine? The Center for Constitutional Rights can.
Posted on May 5, 2022
CREDO will always fight for reproductive rights. AT&T funds anti-abortion politicians.
When we heard the stunning news this week that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and block abortion access for millions, we were collectively devastated and our hearts sank.
Yet, this news also reaffirmed our efforts, as an ethical and progressive company, to fight even harder for reproductive justice and to hold other companies accountable for funding anti-abortion efforts.
Recent investigative reporting by Popular Information found that six major corporations — including AT&T, a notorious donor to conservative causes — are financing an assault on reproductive rights, donating thousands of dollars in multiple states to politicians who support abortion bans.
In their reporting for Popular Information, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria and Rebecca Crosby dug into the political giving of major corporations to politicians in several states who support abortion bans and harsh restrictions on reproductive freedom.
They found that six major corporations — CVS, Merck, Comcast, United Health, Anheuser-Busch, and yes, AT&T — collectively donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to anti-abortion politicians in states like Texas, Idaho and Oklahoma where some of the most restrictive abortion bills have been introduced.
As Popular Information points out, AT&T executives have, in the recent past, gone out of their way to praise their alleged women-centered policies, boasting that the company’s core values include “gender equity and the empowerment of women” and that AT&T would “continue to be an ally by advocating for and honoring women.”
Yet, their analysis paints a starkly different picture of AT&T’s allyship of women — to the tune of almost $350,000 donated to anti-abortion politicians:
Since 2020, AT&T has given a total of $40,100 to 33 co-sponsors of 15-week abortion bans in Florida and Arizona; and 10 co-sponsors of 6-week abortion bans in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Idaho.
AT&T also donated more than $300,000 to the co-sponsors of Texas’ abortion ban.
We’re not at all surprised that AT&T makes this list. As we’ve detailed time and time again, AT&T has funded right-wing causes and politicians for years.
Unlike AT&T, we will never compromise women’s rights, reproductive justice or our progressive values for profit. In fact, our philanthropy, which is powered by our members who use our products and services every day, funds the causes that align with our values — including groups like Fair Fight Action, Rainforest Action Network, Amnesty International and Color of Change.
If you’re not already a CREDO member and would like to switch to the mobile company that shares your values and donates to progressive groups every month, please check out CREDO Mobile here.
Posted on May 5, 2022
CREDO grantee Hollaback! is now Right To Be
Hollaback! is now Right To Be!
In October 2021, CREDO chose Right To Be (formerly Hollaback!) as a grant recipient to support their work in preventing and reducing harassment in public spaces. During that time, Right To Be was expanding their programming to rapidly serve communities in need – including expanded bystander intervention trainings to address rising hate and harassment across the nation.
In 2022, Right To Be worked with brand consultants Wunderdogs to rebrand, creating a name, logo, and mission that was more reflective of the enduring Institution that they had become. Hollaback! began over 15 years ago as a small blog with a mission to end gender-based “street harassment,” a relatively unknown term at the time. Their mission has grown substantially since that point. In the words of Right To Be Deputy Director, Jorge Arteaga:
“Hollaback! was the call to speak up about their experience. And now we’re in a different phase. Now we want you to go out there and start a change in your communities. If you’re in a community board, in your kid’s schools, if you are a CEO, what are the changes you’re doing there so that your folks feel like they have the right to be themselves while they’re there?”
The Wunderdogs team shared, “Hollaback! was guiding a change in culture where we no longer stand by but stand with. It started as a call to action against street harassment but it has the power to become a call to power for each of us to build the world we want free of harassment and filled with humanity.”
Right To Be is driven by the same vision, that the world we want isn’t some far-off destination, but something that each one of us actively creates and recreates, bit by bit, day by day. Right To Be works to turn the care that we have for each other into action. The organization is creating space for everyone to join in this journey: Space for people experiencing harassment to share their stories for affirmation and support, space for allies to listen, learn, and show up for each other, and space for each of us to grow and heal.
Right To Be is built on inclusivity and intersectionality. “Everyone is invited to the movement. Come be yourself, whoever you are. Show up and take care of each other,” says Arteaga.
Right To Be has broadened their work to reach a wide audience, partnering with community-based organizations to offer bystander intervention programming at moments of heightened need. The organization works to provide:
- Story Sharing and Mapping: Share your stories of experiencing or intervening in harassment to raise awareness of the realities of harassment in public space. You can offer support to people who have shared their stories, and all stories are used to inform programming and direct action against harassment.
- Training People and Preparing New Leaders: Right To Be equips people with the tools to combat harassment in their everyday lives and to create impact in the organizations, institutions, and businesses around them. They provide trainings across a number of topics including Bystander Intervention; How to Respond to Harassment; Conflict De-Escalation; Resilience; and more. Join an upcoming free training or access the organization’s resource page to learn more about how you can recognize, respond to, and heal from harassment.
As a result of CREDO’s support, Right To Be has been able to train tens of thousands of people in bystander intervention, a best practice in de-escalating violence. As a CREDO supporter, you’re invited to join in one of their free upcoming trainings, including Bystander Intervention to Stand Up Against Street Harassment on May 3rd and Bystander Intervention to Stop Anti-Asian/American and Xenophobic Harassment on May 9th (also available in Chinese).
Together, we’re working to build a world that’s free of harassment and filled with humanity – where everyone has the right to be their full selves. Thank you for your support – and for showing up when it matters most.
Posted on May 4, 2022
Vote for 350.org, Center for Constitutional Rights and National LGBTQ Task Force this May
Every month, CREDO members vote to distribute our monthly donation to three incredible progressive causes – and every vote makes a difference. This May, you can support climate justice, civil rights and LGBTQ rights by voting to fund 350.org, Center for Constitutional Rights and National LGBTQ Task Force.
350.org
350.org’s mission is to inspire, train and mobilize people to join a broad and diverse climate movement. The organization is the backbone of climate action and is co-creating the conditions for a globally coordinated campaigns to succeed.
Funding from CREDO would enable 350.org to continue to combat climate change by halting fossil fuel projects, promoting renewable energy, passing additional fracking bans and pressuring global financial institutions to divest and divert from fossil fuels.
Center for Constitutional Rights
Through high-impact litigation, advocacy campaigns, and strategic communications, CCR partners with progressive social movements to dismantle structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and abusive government power.
Your support will help CCR to fight oppressive systems of power, protect social movements and communities under threat, and build a more just and liberatory world. In the courtroom and on the frontlines, CCR is there — because justice takes a fight!
National LGBTQ Task Force
The Task Force mobilizes, trains, and empowers people living with marginalized identities, including people of color, youth and senior citizens, low-income people, trans and gender non-conforming people, immigrants, and progressive people of faith.
Funding from CREDO will help the Task Force engage in proactive and intentional movement building across the nation. The organization will educate, engage, and train LGBTQ and allied people and organizations through dynamic, comprehensive programming.
Your vote this month will determine how we divide our monthly donation among these three progressive groups. Be sure to cast your vote to support one, two or all three by May 31.
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.
