Posted on January 7, 2025
CREDO Mobile Helps EveryLibrary Protect Local Libraries
As the only national political action committee dedicated to building voter support for libraries, EveryLibrary helps ensure that Americans will be able to continue using these vital resources for generations to come. EveryLibrary supports public, school, and college libraries by advocating for public funding and supporting grassroots campaigns to both protect libraries and fight against book banning, political interference, and other threats to these valuable institutions. Read more about our partnership here: https://www.everylibrary.org/credo_mobile_donations_power_everylibrary_advocacy
EveryLibrary has an impressive record of success. They have helped important pro-library ballot initiatives to succeed and have overturned book bans across the nation, ensuring books remain on shelves and librarians keep their jobs. Many of their victories are hyper-local and make a huge impact on a specific community, such as a single town or county. This “no cause too small” dedication is part of what makes EveryLibrary so special—and so important.
CREDO Mobile is proud to support EveryLibrary in their work. Libraries are part of the very fabric of America, providing all-important access to information, art, and other resources. Here’s how we help them create an impact.
Protecting Libraries at the Ballot Box and Beyond
“We are deeply grateful to CREDO Mobile and its customers for recognizing the importance of libraries in our society,” said John Chrastka, Executive Director of EveryLibrary. “Their support enables us to continue our work in safeguarding and advancing the central role of libraries in democracy and lifelong learning.”
EveryLibrary has supported more than 100 grassroots campaigns to save or support local libraries, and funding from CREDO Mobile will make sure that the organization can continue this work going forward. One important aspect of their mission is the creation and maintenance of a repository of library-related legislation in the United States. By tracking and reporting on both anti-library and pro-library legislation, EveryLibrary helps bring visibility to important causes on the local, state, and national level.
“EveryLibrary is honored to be among the organizations supported by CREDO Mobile’s donations program,” says Chrastka, “This funding will enhance our capacity to advocate for library funding, support library ballot measures in 2025, and promote policies that ensure libraries remain vital resources for education, information, and community engagement”
The organization uses social media, petitions, and events to promote awareness around library-related issues. They have engaged with hundreds of thousands of individuals, and most of their campaigns rely on small donations to succeed. They are truly a grassroots organization, but their impact is incredible—EveryLibrary has helped secure over $2.8 billion in stable tax revenue for libraries across the country.
Much of EveryLibrary’s success comes from their pro-bono support of pro-library ballot initiatives. The organization is able to leverage its reach to bring attention to local library funding campaigns, improvements for school libraries, and other important political causes. All of this work is done by EveryLibrary without any chargebacks, fees, or other hidden financial arrangements—it is truly offered pro-bono. They can do this because of the support they receive from individual donors and organizations like us. It’s part of what makes EverLibrary such an ideal partner for CREDO Mobile.
How CREDO Mobile Helps EveryLibrary Protect American Institutions
We are able to offer support for EveryLibrary and other important organizations because it’s part of our fundamental mission as a business. Our customers know that by choosing CREDO Mobile, they will be providing important financial support to progressive causes simply by using their phones.
Through our efforts over the past 30 years, we have helped donate over $95 million to nonprofits supporting social justice, environmental protection, and other essential causes. Our work with EveryLibrary is just one example of our commitment to building a better world.
A library is a place where people—especially children—can learn about themselves and find shared experiences with others. For those who are searching or struggling, this can literally be life-saving information. So many book bans are driven by a tiny number of people targeting LGBTQ+ content with a goal to make it harder for LGBTQ+ youth to learn about themselves. It’s impossible to understate the importance of knowing that whatever they’re experiencing, they’re not the first and they’re not alone.
We are proud to support EveryLibrary, and we look forward to helping them protect and preserve libraries throughout the country for many years to come.
Posted on January 3, 2025
Our positive impact in 2024
Thank you.
The start of the new year is a time to take stock of where we have been and where we are going. And while 2024 had some tough days, there is one emotion we are feeling above all others – Gratitude. We are thankful for this community and our shared belief in building a better world.
Thanks for supporting us, for voting in our monthly donations program, for reading our blog posts and emails, for telling your friends and family about us.
Thanks especially if you’re a customer of CREDO Mobile. Because just by using our service, you generate much-needed donations for the nonprofits that depend on us to fund the vital work they do. Groups like Reproductive Freedom for All, Friends of the Earth, and Social Security Works.
Also thanking you are the nonprofits we support. Please take a moment to read messages of gratitude from a few of the groups that rely on us—and you—to do what they do.
Posted on January 1, 2025
Donations spotlight: Power the Zinn Education Project’s effort to teach people’s history in U.S. classrooms
Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This January, the Zinn Education Project is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will be vital to the nonprofit and support its campaign to bring students a more accurate, complex and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks.
Read this important blog post from the Zinn Education Project, then visit CREDODonations.com and cast your vote to help send much-needed grant money to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding January grantees.
The 2024 election revealed a troubling reality. Widespread miseducation and fear-mongering continue to shape political outcomes at the expense of people of color and marginalized communities.
This is why the right launched a nationwide anti-critical race theory campaign and book bans—to restrict teaching about systemic racism and erase the histories of immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities.
These attacks leave students and their families susceptible to rhetoric that scapegoats the most marginalized among us.
We cannot despair
SNCC veteran Courtland Cox asks: Who is going to control the narrative?
The answer is that we can shift the narrative if we equip young people with people’s history and critical thinking skills to make them impervious to lies.
When students learn about the mass deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression, they realize that politicians today use the same divide-and-conquer rhetoric about “protecting jobs.”
When students study the climate crisis, they recognize the enormity of our predicament and learn strategies to address it.
A study of McCarthyism helps students recognize Red Scare tactics today.
When students learn about the Haitian revolution—the only successful slave revolt to create a new nation of the formerly enslaved—they are less susceptible to the sort of lies told during the election that demonized Haitian immigrants.
This is why we must support the educators who boldly teach honest, inclusive history. These teachers equip students with the tools to think critically, question harmful rhetoric and understand the systemic forces shaping the world. Supporting them isn’t just about protecting academic freedom—it’s about building a future where justice, not fear, guides public understanding.
Together, we can build knowledge and stop misinformation
You can take action by teaching people’s history lessons, forming a Teaching for Black Lives study group, organizing for the Teach Truth Day of Action, testifying at school board meetings against the censorship of social justice education and much more.
Together, we can ensure that future generations have the knowledge and critical thinking skills necessary to dismantle misinformation and build a more equitable world.
Posted on December 30, 2024
CREDO in 2024: Year in Review
As we close the door on 2024, we are proud to look back on the 36 nonprofits we were able to support this year. New groups, like Heath Care Voices – working to make the health care system work better for everyone. Groups we’ve funded in the past like the People for the American Way Foundation and Rainforest Action Network. Groups working for Civil Rights like Advocates for Trans Equality and the Legal Defense Fund. Groups working for the Environment like Planet Reimagined and Friends of the Earth. Voting rights groups like Vote.org and Black Voters Matter Fund. From All Hands and Hearts to the Women’s March Network.
There is a lot to be done in 2025. We start the year energized and ready to support another 36 progressive organizations working for a better world. Together we can light the way.
Posted on December 30, 2024
Top CREDO Tips of 2024
It’s the end of the year and we are reflecting on the last 12 months — with a list of our Top 10 Tips!
In case you missed them the first time around, here are the most popular tips — from charging your phone to what to do if your personal information is exposed in a data breach.
#10: Try these alternatives to Amazon
Amazon. If you’re like us, you’ve got feelings. On the one hand, it’s so convenient. A few clicks and whatever you want is at your door in a day.
On the other hand, a lot goes on at Amazon that conscious consumers are not OK with, like its impact on local economies. Like its opposition to unionization by its employees. Like its massive CO2 emissions: 69 million metric tons in 2023, which is about what the nation of Hungary emits in a year.
Add it all up and you might decide it’s time to look for options. Unfortunately, they aren’t easy to find—which is why lot of people haven’t found them. One-fourth of Americans shop at Amazon at least once a week and half of Americans now have an Amazon Prime account. But options are out there.
#9: How to use your phone to scan your important tax documents
It’s tax season and that means you’re likely receiving a lot of tax documents in the mail. When you go to file your taxes online or with an accountant, it can get a little cumbersome entering all that information manually, not to mention keeping all your paper files organized.
Luckily, you can use your smartphone to easily digitize and organize all of your important tax documents, without needing a scanner. We’ll show you how.
#8: Spring cleaning for your phone – delete those zombie apps
If you’re like most people, you’ve got a lot of apps on your phone you never use. Indeed, a quarter of all apps downloaded are used just once and never again, and far more are used a few times then forgotten.
These zombie apps are, well, if not an apocalypse, at least a big problem for your phone. They hog storage and memory, clutter up your screen and open the door to serious security threats. They should be deleted and you can learn how at our recent blog post.
#7: Eating canned fish is one of the best ways you can fight climate change
If you’re of a certain age, you might remember the days when canned tuna was a regular purchase at the grocery store—and made regular appearances on the dinner table, in dishes like tuna casserole, tuna salad and tuna-stuffed tomatoes.
Those days are gone. Consumption of canned tuna has dropped by almost half over the past three decades.
There are various explanations for the decline.
#6: Quick ways to extend your phone’s battery life
Smartphones are small computers. And, like any computer, they use a lot of power. Also like any computer, they’re useless if they don’t have a charge. So a part of most people’s routine these days is periodically checking the battery level on their phone.
If you find yourself constantly dealing with a low battery, there are ways you can extend the life of your charge. Like charging your phone more often, unplugging it when it’s fully charged and checking to see which apps are using the most power.
Here’s how to extend your phone’s battery life.
#5: What to do if your personal information is exposed in data breach
Your personal information is valuable. And bad actors are working harder than ever to get their hands on it. Data breaches were up 20% in 2023 from 2022. There were 3,205 data breaches in 2023 and 353 million victims in total.
If you’re unlucky enough to be one of them, the consequences can be life-changing. You may suffer serious financial loss, reputational damage, your credit score can be wrecked and the emotional stress can be severe. You might spend weeks or months — maybe years — trying to recover.
If you do get a notification that your personal data was exposed in a breach, take these five steps to limit the impact, prevent identity theft or other fraud and save yourself a great deal of trouble.
#4: Is your phone slowing down? Try these tips to speed it up
We all slow down with age. And your phone is no different. As it gets older, you might notice that it just doesn’t have the zip it once did.
But before you embark on an upgrade, there are a few steps you can take to speed up your old phone and keep on using the device you’ve come to know and like.
#3: Mobile banking Trojans are built to hack your bank account and steal your money
If you have a bank account, you probably use your phone to access it. Almost half of consumers now do the majority of their banking on their mobile.
It’s quick and convenient. But it can be risky, because bank accounts are a rich target for hackers, who every year create more ways to infiltrate your phone and steal your banking credentials.
One fast-increasing threat is mobile banking Trojans. Learn more about them—and how to protect yourself.
#2: Phone porting fraud: First, scammers steal your number—then your money
It’s a nightmare scenario. You wake up, grab your phone and discover that you have no service. You can’t call or text. But you still have WiFi, so you check your email—and see a message from your bank saying someone just transferred thousands of dollars from your account to an account you’ve never heard of.
What just happened? You’ve become a victim of phone porting fraud, a rapidly growing scam in which hackers call your carrier and pretend they’re you, then ask the carrier to port your phone number over to a mobile account that they control. Or they steal your number by calling your carrier and asking for a replacement SIM card to be sent to them.
Take these steps to prevent port out fraud.
#1: Are you charging your phone wrong?
Phones are awesome. We love our phones. But let’s be honest. There are times when our phones annoy us, especially as they get older. They respond sluggishly to taps and prompts. They load apps slowly. Sometimes the screen freezes.
If your phone is acting like this, there’s a good chance the battery is to blame. Because as your battery ages, its health degrades and it’s not able to supply the juice your phone needs to run at peak efficiency.
Your goal is to keep your battery young and fit. And to do that, you have to charge it right. Here’s how.
Posted on December 17, 2024
On gun violence: CREDO Mobile makes a difference
Earlier this year, we sent a donation to Brady: United Against Gun Violence to power its work to free America from the devastation of gun violence.
Every day, over 300 people are shot and over 100 are killed with guns. Guns are the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens. And it’s estimated that gun violence now costs the country over $500 billion a year—more than is spent on transportation, science, education and health combined.
Despite what the gun industry claims, this crisis can be stopped — if we enact sensible, evidence-based solutions. Brady works to enact those solutions to change the laws, change the industry, and change the culture to end gun violence, and that’s why CREDO Mobile supports Brady.
Since receiving our donation, Brady has launched vital new efforts and expanded existing ones.
It created a Spanish-language version of its End Family Fire project, the first-ever national public-education effort dedicated to safe firearm storage tailored specifically to Hispanic gun owners.
It launched the Show Gun Safety campaign to harness the influence of culture-makers — including writers, directors and actors — and reshape America’s relationship with guns.
It organized the Philadelphia Summit on Combating Crime Guns, which brought together over 130 community leaders, gun-violence survivors, policymakers and law enforcement to discuss the impact of gun trafficking and explore ways to hold negligent gun dealers accountable.
In Illinois, it initiated “Pause to Heal,” a statewide public-education campaign on Firearm Restraining Orders (FROs), to educate the public on the proven life-saving potential of FROs in preventing gun violence.
Brady was able to do all these things because our customers do one thing: use our service. When they do, they raise much-needed donations for progressive nonprofit groups like Brady. If you’re a CREDO Mobile member, thank you. If you’re not, please join us now and make a difference in the world—just by using your phone.
Posted on December 13, 2024
How CREDO Mobile Helps Earth Guardians
How CREDO Mobile Helps Earth Guardians Protect Our Planet
Earth Guardians is an international climate and environmental justice nonprofit that trains, educates, and provides resources for youth globally to become leaders within the climate and environmental movements. The organization was founded in Hawaii in 1992 as a high school program that focused on making an impact locally. They were instrumental in banning plastic bags and ending the practice of burning sugar cane fields, among other things. The success of Earth Guardians eventually earned them recognition by the Dalai Lama and the group was awarded the Torch of Hope.
Today, Earth Guardians is an international movement. The organization encourages young people to address climate change and environmental degradation through on-the-ground projects; nonviolent, direct action; art-ivism, and civic engagement.
CREDO Mobile has partnered with Earth Guardians since 2017. We are proud to support an organization that not only makes a meaningful impact in the preservation of our environment, but one that ensures future generations are active and involved in this important movement. Here’s how we help this group make a difference.
Local Work Makes a Global Impact
Earth Guardians’ central program is their Crews. This program helps to resource, onboard, and mentor young people all over the world into local squads, called Crews, and perform climate action and environmental justice work. Crews address local environmental issues in their communities, but this work has a global impact. There are currently 98 active Crews in 35 countries, doing everything from planting a hundred thousand mangroves in Sierra Leone to fossil fuel resistance training among Indigenous youth in the United States. Crews around the globe connect virtually to learn from one another and share what kind of work that they’re doing.
A large part of the Earth Guardians mission is to give a platform and a voice to youth that are normally underserved, and it runs several programs, including an indigenous youth program, to better serve these communities. These programs train and support indigenous youth at the intersection of environmental climate and social justice, with a specific focus on indigenous sovereignty, climate justice organizing, as well as media and storytelling. The organization’s leadership reflects its commitment to these communities as well; Earth Guardians staff is about 85% black and indigenous, and primarily under 30 years old.
On-the-ground work done by Crews isn’t the only way Earth Guardians make an impact. The organization runs a program called Earth Voices which empowers young speakers to give supplementary climate education in public schools, teach young people how to become environmental and climate organizers, and then help them start a crew in their schools. They also have a Speakers Bureau, a collection of professional speakers—many of whom started out as Crews members or as Earth Voices trainees—who speak at engagements like the UN Conference of Parties, the US Senate, and more.
One of the core beliefs of Earth Guardians is “you protect what you love.” If a young person doesn’t have a relationship with nature, then they’re not going be motivated to protect it. The group seeks to forge these connections and open the door for young people to discover just how they want to become activated within the climate movement, whether it’s through art, policy, direct action, or something else. Earth Guardians’ goal is for young people to get engaged in a relationship with nature and then learn what their calling is in terms of how to protect nature.
How CREDO Mobile Helps Earth Guardians Protect Nature
CREDO Mobile has been a proud partner to Earth Guardians for over eight years, providing important financial funding and working to raise public awareness about the many programs offered by Earth Guardians.
“CREDO Mobile has been an awesome partner,” says Kellie Berns, International Program Director at Earth Guardians, “They’ve really helped us with our Crews program. Not only do they help fund our programs, but then they also speak to a public audience about what we’re doing, so that more people can find out about our work and get engaged in our work with us.”
Through Earth Guardians, CREDO Mobile has helped to fund the planting of 7,000 trees in Brazil, 20,000 trees and other endemic plant species in a reforestation project in Togo, and 12,000 mangroves in Sia, India. With the support of CREDO Mobile, Earth Guardians has been able to organize fossil fuel resistance marches, conscious consumerism and fashion workshops, and numerous mentorship and training programs for youth around the world
“CREDO Mobile is consistent in supporting our work and work like ours, and they’ve been doing this for years,” says Berns, “It’s truly something they believe in, to be supporting nonprofit work across the environmental and social justice spectrum and connecting nonprofits together to be able to work together in this fight for humanity.”
Earth Guardians is able to achieve its goals because of the customers choosing CREDO Mobile’s phone service. If you’re ready to make a difference in the world simply by using your phone, switch to CREDO Mobile today!
Posted on December 12, 2024
Your mobile apps are watching you: Change these settings to stop them
The apps on your phone know a lot about you. They know where you are every moment of the day and night. They know what websites you visit and what you look at when you’re there. They know all your basic info—age, gender, email, phone number, birthplace, address—and far more beyond that.
This is the price we pay for “free” (or cheap) apps. We get to use them and, in return, we let them collect our personal information by agreeing to a list of permissions that most of us never read.
And what do the apps do with all this information? They build profiles of us that are accurate to the smallest detail. Are you a woman in your late 30s who votes blue, has houseplants and likes salsa dancing? Facebook knows this. Google knows it too. So do the massive data brokers that compile profiles of individuals and sell those profiles to advertisers so the advertisers can send targeted ads to people.
It’s called surveillance capitalism and, realistically, there is no way to opt out of it. But there are steps you can take to at least limit the amount of personal information that your apps collect.
Check what data apps want
You can see what personal data an app will be gathering before you download it. Open the Play Store and tap the app you want to download. Then scroll all the way down to Data safety to see a list of the data types collected.
Read the permissions
When you download and install an app, your phone will ask you if you want to grant the app permission to access various features of your phone, like your camera and your messages. You should deny any permissions that don’t make sense. For example, why does that weather app want to access your photos?
If you’re concerned about the permissions granted to the apps already on your phone, you can review them and revoke any that seem suspicious. Here’s how.
Android
Open Settings. Tap Apps. Tap the app you want to review. (If you can’t find it, tap See all apps.) Tap Permissions. Now you can choose to Allow or Not allow various permissions for the app.
iOS
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security. Tap a category of information, such as Calendars, Reminders or Motion & Fitness. A list will appear showing the apps that have access to this information. You can turn access on or off for any app on the list.
Disable ad ID tracking
Your mobile device has an ad identifier that enables third parties like advertisers and data brokers to track your activity. You can disable it, which will make it harder for them to track you. This will reduce (but not completely stop) the collection of your personal information by mobile apps.
Android
These steps should work for most Android versions. Open Settings. Tap Security and privacy > Ads. Tap Delete advertising ID.
iOS
Go to Settings. Tap Privacy & Security > Apple advertising. Toggle off Personalized ads.
Switch to CREDO Mobile
We’re the one mobile service that cares about privacy as much as you do. That’s why we support the ACLU, whose Privacy and Technology division defends your right to privacy and protects you against surveillance technologies. And Fight for the Future, which advocates technology as a force for liberation, not oppression.
Join CREDO Mobile and you’ll get all you want from your phone company: the nation’s largest, most reliable network, competitive plans, great deals on new phones and friendly customer service.
And you’ll get much more. You’ll get an easy, effective way to make change in the world.
Switching is easy. You can bring your current phone and your current number. Just go to CREDOMobile.com.
Posted on December 8, 2024
Donations spotlight: Support the Innocence Project in its work to free wrongfully convicted people
Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This December, the Innocence Project is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will be vital to the nonprofit as it campaigns to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions and create fair, compassionate and equitable systems of justice for everyone.
Read this important blog post from the Innocence Project, then visit CREDODonations.com and cast your vote to help send much-needed grant money to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding December grantees.
Election cycles cause many of us to reflect on the meaning and promise of democracy. Issues like voting rights, election integrity and the freedom of the press are high in the public consciousness. Reform of the legal system should be too.
The Innocence Project (IP) advocates for more fair, equitable and compassionate systems of justice that are accessible to everyone. In doing this work, we uphold fundamental democratic values. Since our founding in 1992, we’ve used DNA and other scientific advancements to help free or exonerate more than 250 people who, collectively, spent almost 4,000 years behind bars. Our efforts have also led to the passage of more than 250 transformative state laws and federal reforms.
Last year, IP won seven exonerations in New York, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia. Collectively, these seven clients spent 182 years in jail after being wrongfully convicted. In several cases, we partnered with elected prosecutors from across the political spectrum to secure our clients’ freedom. With our Innocence Network colleagues, we passed more than 15 critical reforms in state legislatures to prevent wrongful convictions and ensure the system operates more fairly and effectively.
In 2025, we’ll expand our efforts to pass new laws to reveal, prevent and rectify wrongful convictions. Our initiatives include improving access to post-conviction courts, strengthening police and prosecutorial accountability to prevent wrongful convictions, compensating wrongfully convicted people, as well as a range of other efforts, such as reforming practices that enable eyewitness misidentifications, unreliable informant testimony, coerced guilty pleas and false confessions.
The following list highlights a few of our priorities for the coming year.
Eyewitness misidentification
Eyewitnesses are often expected to identify perpetrators of crimes based on memory, which is incredibly malleable. Common law-enforcement practices, including the administration of lineups and photo arrays, can also contribute to misidentification. Eyewitness misidentification played a role in 63% of our exonerated clients’ wrongful convictions.
To improve the reliability of eyewitness identification, we advocate for reforms in state legislatures and courts that include the following provisions:
- Double-blind or blinded administration: A “double-blind” lineup is one in which neither the administrator nor the eyewitness knows the identity of the suspect at a given time. This prevents the administrator from providing inadvertent or intentional cues to influence the eyewitness to pick the suspect.
- Instructions: Lineup administrators can instruct eyewitnesses to deter them from feeling compelled to identify a suspect. One recommended instruction includes the directive that the suspect may or may not be present in the lineup.
- Composing the lineup: Non-suspect photographs and/or live lineup members (fillers) should be selected based on their resemblance to the description provided by the eyewitness—as opposed to their resemblance to the police suspect. In addition, the suspect should not noticeably stand out from the other fillers.
Use of police deception in juvenile interrogations
Young people are especially vulnerable to making false confessions because the parts of the brain responsible for future planning, judgment and decision-making are not fully developed until we reach our mid-20s. Of the 268 exonerees who were wrongly convicted as children, 34% falsely confessed, whereas just 10% of exonerees who were wrongly convicted after the age of 18 falsely confessed, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. Coercive and deceptive interrogation methods, coupled with the recognized vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of children as a group, have led to an unacceptably high rate of false confessions among juvenile suspects.
IP works to pass legislation and administrative reforms that ban the use of police deception in the interrogation of juveniles, allow false-confession experts to testify in court and convince judges to hold pretrial reliability hearings before a confession is admitted. We also advocate for state legislatures to pass laws that make a child’s statements inadmissible in court if police used deception during the interrogation. By supporting these efforts, we aim to ensure fairer outcomes for adolescents and reduce the risk of wrongful convictions among one of the most vulnerable groups in the criminal legal system.
Coerced pleas—or the trial penalty
Coercive plea deals often pressure innocent people to plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. More than 95% of felony convictions in the U.S. are obtained through this method and an estimated 11% of exonerations are innocent individuals who were pressured to plead guilty.
Often prosecutors use the threat of the “trial penalty”: a sentence that will be more severe if an individual refuses a plea deal and insists on a trial instead. Even innocent people may be coerced into accepting a plea deal. The goal is to discourage innocent people from exercising their constitutional right to a trial and encourage them to admit to a crime they did not commit, while waiving fundamental rights critical to a fair criminal legal process.
As a member of the End the Trial Penalty Coalition, IP is working to enact policies that reduce the disparity between plea-deal sentences and potential trial sentences and restore fundamental rights, including the right to a jury trial.
Police and prosecutorial accountability
Police and prosecutorial misconduct has contributed to many exoneration cases since 1989. We advocate for policy reforms to address the issue, focusing on implementing state-level oversight measures that encourage transparency and accountability without impeding the work of conscientious law enforcement professionals.
Police misconduct has disproportionately contributed to the wrongful conviction of people of color, many of whom live in communities that are more heavily policed. In some cases, police officers have abused their authority and violated people’s constitutional rights by using coercive interrogation techniques, lying on the stand, failing to turn over exculpatory evidence, working with unreliable informants, displaying outright prejudice and more. Prosecutorial misconduct occurs when a prosecutor seriously violates the law or a code of ethics while prosecuting a case. This includes making improper arguments at trial, purposely withholding evidence of innocence or other favorable evidence in what is known as a Brady violation.
For these reasons, addressing police and prosecutorial accountability is essential to preventing wrongful convictions. IP advances reform efforts, including strengthening discovery rules, ending qualified immunity, and creating public databases and rigorous certification and decertification systems to prevent official misconduct.
At the forefront of criminal justice reform
For 32 years, we’ve worked to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions and create fair, compassionate and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Our work has been and will always be guided by science and grounded in anti-racism. As we look to the future, we’ll continue to collaborate with a broad range of actors at the community, local, state and federal levels, as well as in the public and private sectors, to drive the transformational reforms we seek.
For more information on the Innocence Project’s local and state advocacy efforts, visit InnocenceProject.org or contact our team to learn how to support our initiatives in your community.
Posted on December 4, 2024
This December, CREDO Mobile is supporting All Hands and Hearts, Innocence Project and League of Conservation Voters (LCV).
This month, CREDO Mobile is thrilled to be supporting 3 amazing nonprofits. We will allocate the grant at the end of the month based on the number of votes for each organization. You can vote for 1, 2 or all 3 nonprofits at www.credodonations.com.
All Hands and Hearts
All Hands and Hearts provides community-inspired, volunteer-powered disaster relief. They have worked alongside 140 disaster-affected communities, inviting over 68,000 volunteers to clear debris, repair homes, build schools and much more. Recently, they have been working to provide relief for those affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton as well as Hawaii, Mexico and elsewhere. Support from CREDO Mobile helps ensure that they are prepared to respond the moment disaster strikes, as well as ensuring the communities with the greatest needs are still being served, even after public attention and the media have moved on.
Innocence Project
Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair systems of justice for everyone. Their work is guided by science and grounded in anti-racism. Since 1992, IP has freed or exonerated 251 people and passed 250 policy reforms. CREDO funding will help IP provide legal representation to innocent people across the country, support them as they rebuild their lives after decades of wrongful imprisonment, and advocate for policies that improve access to the courts, strengthen police accountability, and provide compensation to exonerees.
League of Conservation Voters (LCV)
LCV envisions a world in which tackling the climate crisis, confronting environmental injustice, and strengthening our democracy lead to cleaner and healthier communities, good, well-paying jobs, and a just, equitable, and sustainable future for all. Funding from CREDO members funds some of the most effective campaigns in the country. Through those campaigns, we win urgently needed progress that advances climate action, strengthens democracy, and addresses environmental injustice.
Voting is quick, easy and free. Be sure to vote by the end of the month. Tell your friends and family to vote for the groups that they want to support. The more voters the better.
These donations are only possible because of CREDO Mobile customers. Learn more about CREDO Mobile and help make progressive change every time you use your phone. It is easy to switch and you will be glad you did.
