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.
Posted on May 3, 2022
The National LGBTQ Task Force is fighting for full freedom, justice and equality for LGBTQ people
Note from the CREDO team: This May, the National LGBTQ Task Force is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. As they approach a historic 50th anniversary in 2023, we hope they can count on your vote of support, especially at this time when the LGBTQ community, trans youth, freedom of speech, sexual freedom, bodily autonomy, communities of color and our very democracy is under relentless attack at both the state and national levels.
Read this important blog post from the National LGBTQ Task Force 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.
The National LGBTQ Task Force lives its values every day – fighting for a just and compassionate world for ALL. We understand that we have multiple, complex identities and full liberation for one means equality for all. Our organization continues to lead the work in Queering Democracy, Equity and Faith advocacy, which is carried out in close partnership LGBTQ and cross-movement partners. We do so by working hard to get out the vote for local and state elections, amplify the voices of our communities – your voices – and make sure to highlight what those with multiple marginalized identities need so that we have full nondiscrimination protections. We’re making sure that we see full representation of our communities across the country through participation in the Census and access to affirming care for our communities, our families and our loved ones. We all deserve to live full lives, have access to employment, and fully participate in our communities, knowing we have protection from discrimination.
The last 2+ years have been challenging, yet the National LGBTQ Task Force has kept fighting for all of us. We’ve helped to support efforts such as the Equal Pay Queering Equity Win earlier this year, where the world learned that the four-time World Cup champions of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won a $24 million equal pay and sex discrimination class action settlement and U.S. Soccer publicly promised to equalize pay and working conditions.
We continue to Queer Faith Communities through our Cross-Movement Leadership to create new messaging framework on non-discrimination in health care to shift the narrative towards bodily autonomy in health care, countering political extremists’ anti-woman, anti-trans and anti-queer tactics.
The National LGBTQ Task has also had a hand in registering thousands of new voters, and through our work in Queer the Census, we continue to partner with the Census Bureau to bring more focus to LGBTQ people, those people experiencing homelessness, and in reframing how it will communicate citizenship, race and ethnicity on survey questions. And we have been a key organization fighting for passage of the Equality Act, so there will finally be federal-level protections for LGBTQ people and people of color in employment, accommodations and many other areas.
Change is possible! Access to democracy, for everyone, depends on full representation in all our communities and census data, and the enforcement of LGBTQ civil rights depends on nondiscrimination protections. Today and always, we fight to better the lives of LGBTQ+ people, especially those most vulnerable in our community, Black and Brown people, transgender and non-binary folx, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty.
You can learn more about our work at www.thetaskforce.org and vote for us today at CREDODonations.com!
Posted on May 3, 2022
Our April 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, international medical relief and voting rights. In April, CREDO members voted to distribute our monthly donation to Amazon Watch, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières and Fair Fight Action. 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 April grant recipients thank you.
Amazon Watch
“The Amazon is at the tipping point of ecological collapse, but we still have time to avert this crisis. CREDO members like you strengthen the call for the permanent protection of the rainforest & amplify Indigenous rights, resistance, and solutions!” – Leila Salazar-López, Executive Director, Amazon Watch
To learn more, visit amazonwatch.org.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières
“Thank you, CREDO members! Your support helps Doctors Without Borders respond to emergencies and provide life-saving medical care to millions of patients, including refugees, women & children, survivors of sexual violence, and other vulnerable people.” – Dr. Northan Hurtado, Head of Medical Unit, MSF USA
To learn more, visit doctorswithoutborders.org.
Fair Fight Action
“From the entire Fair Fight Action family, thank you! CREDO members, like all Americans, deserve to have their fundamental freedom to vote protected. With your support, we are closer to ensuring a future where elections are free and fair for all.” – Cianti Stewart-Reid, Executive Director of Fair Fight Action and Fair Fight PAC
To learn more, visit fairfight.com.
Now check out the three groups we are funding in May, 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 April 28, 2022
Protect your privacy and turn geotagging off your smartphone photos
Did you know that when you take a photo with your smartphone and send it to someone, you are also sharing your exact location, too — all without your knowledge?
Yes, it’s true, and it’s called “geotagging.” By default, every photo you take with your iPhone or Android tags your GPS location and stores that data with your photo.
If you’re not interested in giving out your location when sharing photos, we suggest you turn this feature off to protect your privacy. Here’s how.
What is geotagging?
The photos you take with your smartphone store little bits of hidden information right inside the photo itself, called EXIF data or metadata. This information includes your phone’s make and model, the camera settings, the date and time that the photo was taken, and your GPS location.
This data can be very useful to help you organize your photos. Photo storage apps and online photo services can use this data to organize your photos, and help you better search your entire photo collection, say for that trip you took to Yosemite or your cousin’s birthday three towns away.
To look at the metadata data in your photos:
- On an iPhone, choose a photo in your Photos app > Tap the information button (the circle with an “i”).
- On Android, open a photo in the Google Photos app > Swipe up or tap the three dots in the top right corner.
So why would you want to disable geotagging?
In a word: privacy.
When you post a photo online or text one to a friend (or stranger), the image’s EXIF data, including your GPS location, may be sent along with the image.
There are a whole host of reasons why you may not feel comfortable sharing your location. Maybe you just met someone on a dating app and are trading photos. Do you want a near-total stranger to know your location just yet? Or, you’re posting photos from a protest and worried about making your location public in live-time. Or you just want to keep some privacy in an over-sharing online world.
Luckily, most social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram scrub this information when you post, but many other websites or services won’t — and your location data is accessible to anyone who can see your photo.
How to disable geotagging on your smartphone photos
Disabling geotagging is very easy, and you can always re-enable the feature whenever you want to preserve your location on your photos.
- On your iPhone, open Settings > tap Privacy > tap Location Services > tap Camera. Click “Never” to disable geotagging.
- On your Android device, open your Camera app > tap Settings (it may also be three horizontal lines or a gear image) > tap GPS (it also may be geo tag, location tag, location info) > and turn it off.
Posted on April 21, 2022
Every day is Earth Day, thanks to CREDO members
Every year on Earth Day, companies like to use the old line “Every day is Earth Day.” But here at CREDO, it’s not a cliche; it’s our reality.
Thanks to CREDO members like you who help power millions in donations to dozens of frontline climate justice organizations, we are fighting every single day to combat the climate crisis, protect our air, water and land, and ensure a cleaner, healthier planet for generations to come.
We’ve donated more than $20 million to climate justice and environmental nonprofits. Since 1985, thanks to CREDO members like you who use our products and services every day, we’ve donated $20,275,199 to groups like Earthjustice, Sunrise Movement, Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity and Rainforest Action Network.
Nearly every month, we include a climate justice nonprofit on our donations ballot. This April, you can vote to help us distribute a portion of our monthly donation to Amazon Watch, just by casting your vote at CREDODonations.com.
Fighting for the environment and climate is baked into our DNA. Since we were founded more than 35 years ago, environmental protection and climate justice have been a core mission of CREDO. Whether we’re raising concerns about plastic pollution in the ocean, protesting oil pipelines on indigenous lands, or advocating for renewable energy, we don’t just talk the talk about the environment — it’s part of our lived experience.
We’ve planted four million trees. We print our bills on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, and we’ve planted 100 trees for every ton of paper we use (enough trees to make another ton). To date, we’ve planted close to 4 million trees worldwide through our donations to tree-planting organizations.
Phone recycling. Got an old phone you don’t use any more? We have tips on how you can reuse it — but we also make it free and easy for our members to recycle their phones through our partnership with Eco-Cell. Recycling your old device is not only good for the environment, but it’s also good for the progressive nonprofits CREDO Mobile supports.
Posted on April 14, 2022
Enable this hidden phone setting to alert loved ones during an emergency
We never know when there will be an emergency — a car accident, an unexpected fall, a sudden illness — so it’s always good to be prepared ahead of time.
Luckily, our smartphones can be programmed to alert loved ones in the event of an emergency.
In this week’s tip, we’ll walk through a few simple steps to show you how to create emergency contacts and use Emergency SOS from your phone.
The Emergency SOS feature on both iPhone and Android devices allow you to quickly and easily contact 911 or your local emergency number. After setting up one or more emergency contacts, your phone will also send a text message to your loved ones with your current location and updates if your location changes.
How to make an Emergency SOS call from an iPhone
Here’s how to make an Emergency SOS call from an iPhone 8 or later:
- Press and hold your power button and one of the side volume buttons until the Emergency SOS slider appears.
- Drag the slide to begin your call.
- If you continue holding the buttons, a countdown begins, an alarm will sound and your phone will automatically call emergency services.
To begin an Emergency SOS call from an iPhone 7, quickly press the power button five times in a row until the slider appears.
Setting up emergency contacts on an iPhone
Here are the steps to set up emergency contacts who will be notified when you make an Emergency SOS call on an iPhone 8 or later:
- Open the Health app and tap your profile picture
- Tap Medical ID.
- Tap Edit (or Setup), then scroll to Emergency Contacts.
- Tap the Add button to add an emergency contact.
- Tap a contact, then add their relationship.
- Tap Done to save your changes.
How to set up emergency contacts and make an Emergency SOS call from Android
On an Android device, you will need to first enable Emergency SOS. In these settings, you will also be able to set up how your emergency contacts will be notified. (Note that these instructions may vary depending on your Android version and your phone’s manufacturer)
- Open your phone’s Settings app.
- Tap Safety & emergency > Emergency SOS.
- If this is the first time setting up Emergency SOS, you may be presented with a setup wizard.
- Choose your settings.
- Choose your emergency SOS action: From here, you have a number of Emergency SOS settings you can customize, like changing your emergency number, playing an alarm, and setting up emergency actions, including notifying your emergency contacts.
To make your emergency SOS call, press the power button 5 or more times quickly. Here is additional information about using your Android device in an emergency from Google.
Posted on April 11, 2022
With CREDO funding, Mercy Corps is empowering people to survive through crisis
Working alongside local communities, our grantees at Mercy Corps respond to the world’s toughest challenges, providing immediate life-saving support to meet the urgent needs of today as well as opportunities and community well-being for a stronger tomorrow.
In August 2021, CREDO members voted to distribute $40,440 to help Mercy Corps empower people to survive through crisis and transform their communities for good, respond quickly to urgent humanitarian needs and pivot to recovery building. Since 1999, CREDO has donated a total of $387,172 to the organization thanks to our members.
Here are a few of the organization’s accomplishments thanks to CREDO’s financial support:
From providing clean water to distributing small business grants, Mercy Corps has prioritized helping people recover and build resilience in the second year of a global health crisis. Many of the communities the organization supports have been facing challenges like climate change, natural disasters, hunger, and conflict. COVID‑19 made it more difficult to rebuild lives and livelihoods—but it isn’t impossible.
In 2021, Mercy Corps teams reached over 50 million people in more than 40 countries to meet urgent needs, support sustainable livelihoods, and build stronger communities. Working alongside communities, the group provided critical support for people hardest hit by the pandemic, economic turmoil, conflict, and disasters, like the August 2021 earthquake in Haiti.
As the group confronted unequal COVID‑19 vaccine distribution across the world, Mercy Corps continued to advocate for more equitable vaccine allocation while delivering prevention campaigns, which included distributing hygiene kits and raising awareness.
Here are some more projects that CREDO funding helped make possible:
Responding to the crisis in Ukraine
Mercy Corps is on the ground in Ukraine, Romania, and Poland, providing funding and support to local organizations in their relief efforts and delivery of humanitarian aid. They are working with partners to provide emergency cash assistance, allowing those affected to meet their most pressing needs as well as providing up-to-date information in multiple languages to families on the move.
Mercy Corps provided humanitarian assistance in Ukraine following the 2014 conflict, helping over 200,000 people with emergency cash, food, water, and sanitation supplies.
Hear Mercy Corps’ CEO Tjada D’Oyen McKenna on the Masters of Scale podcast discussing Mercy Corps’ response in Ukraine, as well as their continued response to conflicts in Nigeria, the Sahel, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere.
Responded to the Haiti earthquake
On August 14, 2021, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Haiti. Days later, Tropical Storm Grace caused mudslides, cutting off roads. But Mercy Corps team members worked nonstop to help even the most remote communities. Today, Mercy Corps has delivered urgent supplies to 15,000+ Haitians, while paving the way to long-term recovery.
Published research about the effect of COVID-19 on global conflict
While there have been medical, economic, and cultural shifts due to the impact of the COVID‑19 crises, limited research remains as to the effect of the pandemic on conflict—especially from the perspectives of communities who directly experience its repercussions. To fill this gap, Mercy Corps research and crisis analytics teams jointly led a year of in-depth research for its “Clash of Contagions” report, published in August 2022. The group spoke to over 600 men and women in Colombia, Nigeria, and Afghanistan—representing a cross section of communities in the more than 40 countries where its teams work. What its interviewees told them is that COVID‑19 has exacerbated existing tensions and challenges in ways that are not obvious or expected.
Merged with Energy 4 Impact
In September 2022, Mercy Corps and Energy 4 Impact announced a merger to join forces to increase access to climate-smart, sustainable energy, improving the lives of millions of people around the world. Today, more than 800 million people lack access to energy globally, 8 in 10 of whom live in “fragile” states where communities also face a myriad of complex challenges related to conflict, weak governance, and insecurity, as well as the growing impacts of climate change. Mercy Corps and Energy 4 Impact will together create opportunities to increase energy access and use for the communities that need them most, and to integrate energy into sectors such as agricultural development, economic growth, youth employment, humanitarian recovery, and climate resilience.
Responded to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia
Mount Semeru, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, erupted on December 4, killing more than 30 people and forcing thousands to flee from their homes. The group’s Indonesian Response Team was able to quickly respond, constructing clean water access points for displaced families; distributing emergency relief supplies; and partnering with community members and local leaders to build a long-term recovery plan.
Advocated for urgently needed climate adaption funding
At The New York Times’ October 2021 “Netting Zero” virtual event series leading up to #COP26 in Glasgow, Tjada conveyed the urgency of climate adaptation to help the communities already facing the impacts of the climate crisis today:
If you’d like to learn more or get involved with Mercy Corps’ important work, please visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Posted on April 11, 2022
Thanks to CREDO members, Slow Food USA is fighting to create a radically better food system
As a network of over 115 chapters and 5000 members in the US, our grantee partners at Slow Food USA are centering food as a delicious solution to climate justice and helping to mobilize a dynamic network to push for radical change in our food systems.
In May 2021, CREDO members voted to distribute $40,965 to Slow Food USA to defend cultural and biological diversity, educate and mobilize citizens, and influence food policies in public and private sectors.
Here are a few of the organization’s accomplishments thanks to CREDO’s financial support:
Slow Food USA accomplishments
- In the fifth year of SFUSA’s Plant a Seed, Share a Seed campaign, 250 growing kits containing Ark of Taste-honored seeds were sent to school gardens, and 325 individual gardeners purchased kits for home use. Share a Seed piloted in Washington, D.C. and hosted community seed exchanges.
- SFUSA deepened relationships with Slow Food Turtle Island Association (the Indigenous-led entity) through winning a grant to support Native American / American Indian farmers, and through an ongoing partnership with SFTIA and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) that culminated in a vibrant virtual event, Co-Producers Unite!.
- SFUSA convened Slow Fish 2021, a virtual gathering of fishers and friends of our waters and foodways that featured 45 speakers across six days for 354 attendees.
- SFUSA’s Slow Food Live series featured 19 panel discussions and workshops that engaged thousands of attendees and revealed the many facets of our movement toward good, clean and fair food for all.
New Initiatives by Slow Food USA
- The Snail of Approval program in the US expanded from 16 individual chapter initiatives into a national network of 345 businesses, all displayed in an interactive map and governed by a unified set of criteria centered on sourcing, environmental impact, cultural connection, community involvement, staff support, and business values.
- SFUSA hosted its first Slow Seed Summit in March 2021. This six-day virtual symposium featured 55 speakers addressing the intersections of histories and meanings of seeds. 340 people attended the summit, which will be reprised in spring 2022.
- The 2022 Slow Food Summit will take place May 13-15, and tickets will go on sale Thursday, April 14.
If you’d like to learn more or get involved with Slow Food’s important work, please visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
