Posted on October 1, 2017
Vote for these great causes in October
Each month, CREDO members help decide how we donate tens of thousands of dollars to three great nonprofit groups fighting for our progressive values. This month, you can help fund organizations fighting the climate crisis, for civil rights for disabled people and for global humanitarian aid by voting for 350.org, ADAPT and Mercy Corps. Learn more about each of these causes, and then cast your vote for one, two or all three by October 31.
350.org
350.org uses online campaigns, grassroots organizing and mass public actions to oppose new coal, oil and gas projects, take money out of the companies that are heating up the planet and build 100% clean energy solutions that work for all.
While Trump and his climate-denying administration refuse to take action to slow the climate crisis, it’s more important than ever to find new and creative ways to stop fossil fuels from burning our planet. Support from CREDO will help 350.org keep fossil fuels in the ground by halting or delaying new fossil fuel infrastructure projects through resistance and legislative tactics, weaken the power of the fossil fuel industry through divestment campaigns and by removing access to financing, keep Trump from dismantling wins from the Obama administration and much more.
Posted on September 29, 2017
CREDO stands up to protect our precious public lands
Republicans’ longtime plan to hand over national parks, monuments and other public lands to developers and the fossil fuel industry has a very good friend in Donald Trump.
During his campaign, Trump made every indication he would be a close ally of polluters and the fossil fuel industry and no friend of public lands, saying that he was “very much into fracking and drilling” and would attempt to revive the coal industry and open up federal lands to drilling. In 2014, Trump even praised right-wing anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy, best known for an armed standoff with federal and state officials over the use of public land.
And since Trump began occupying the White House, he hasn’t let his friends and donors in the fossil fuel industry down. Trump and his administration have been working to dismantle decades of conservation and environmental progress by appointing anti-environmentalists and zealous climate deniers to head up critical posts, speeding up the permit approval process to allow polluters to drill on public lands, and signing executive orders to put two decades of public lands designations – including iconic national monuments – in jeopardy.
CREDO has been a long-time supporter of public lands, and we have a history of fighting to protect them. During the Obama administration, we called on Pres. Obama to designate Bears Ears and Gold Butte as national monuments and pressured Congress not to block the designation of the Katahdin Woods and Water monument.
All three were major victories, but now these monuments, along with other important and fragile public lands, are under serious threat . In fact, the Washington Post recently reported that Ryan Zinke, Trump’s climate-denying interior secretary, will recommend that a number of national monuments designated by President Obama be shrunk and to allow drilling, mining or timber harvesting.
But we’re not backing down from this fight.
We’re organizing with our environmental allies nationwide to stop the Trump administration’s reckless giveaway to the fossil fuel industry. More than 125,000 CREDO members submitted public comments to the Department of the Interior urging the Trump administration to protect our national monuments. Just last week, CREDO launched a petition demanding Congress block the sale of public lands to developers, including in Utah’s Red Cliffs Conservation Area. You can sign that petition here.
Sept. 30 is National Public Lands Day, a day established to celebrate America’s public lands, where admission is free to all national parks and other public lands. We hope you will take advantage of this important day to enjoy our public lands – while remembering that it could only be a matter of time before right-wing politicians and corporate fossil fuel interests turn these protected areas into things of the past.
Posted on September 12, 2017
At CREDO, staying green is a core value
Here at CREDO, we live our progressive values every day, and one of our strongest values is doing business as sustainably as we can. That’s why we’ve implemented green practices throughout our company. Here are some of the ways we’re committed to staying green:
*We’re working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2 emissions. We offset the carbon emissions of the phones we sell through Carbonfund.org. This includes the carbon produced by the shipping of phones and the carbon produced by the electricity used to charge them throughout their lifespan.
*We empower grassroots environmental action. Our members’ activism has helped shut down coal-burning power plants, pressured organizations to divest from dirty fossil fuel companies, banned fracking in New York, stopped oil and gas pipelines from being built and protected public land from fossil fuel development. Learn more at CREDOaction.com.
Posted on September 12, 2017
How you can help those affected by Hurricane Irma
For the second time in just a few weeks, a massive and highly destructive hurricane — Hurricane Irma — hit the United States, causing untold damage, displacing millions, and killing dozens of people. Everyone here at CREDO has the victims of these disasters in their hearts and thoughts.
As always, CREDO Mobile and Long Distance have sought to protect its customers and have enacted a forgiveness policy during these recent disasters. For accounts in areas affected by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, CREDO will not disconnect customers and will waive excess data and overage fees upon request.
Many people in Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and surrounding areas are in desperate need of help. If you and your friends and family are looking for ways to help victims of Irma, here are some ways you can chip in:
- Volunteer Florida is the lead agency in Florida for volunteers and donations before, during, and after disasters. Volunteer Florida is mobilizing and deploying assistance for those responding to and recovering from Irma. You can sign up to volunteer or donate here.
- The New Florida Majority, a progressive organization in Florida working to increase the voting and political power of Florida’s low-income black and Latino communities, has helped to establish the Hurricane Irma Community Recovery Fund with their progressive allies in region. You can make a donation to this fund here.
- The Miami Workers Center is a leading progressive social change nonprofit organization that fights for social, racial, economic and gender justice in Miami who will be helping with the relief efforts for low-income communities, communities of color and LGBTQ communities during the aftermath of Irma. You can make a donation to help their important work here.
- Guakia Colectivo Agroecologico is a frontline environmental justice organization based in Puerto Rico. Donations to Guakia will go to supporting critical local relief efforts. You can make a donation by calling 787-414-9794 or emailing guakiapr@gmail.com.
- Make the Homeless Smile is on the ground in the Miami area providing food, supplies, and clothing for those impacted by Irma. You can contribute to their Make the Homeless Smile Irma Relief Fund here.
Posted on September 7, 2017
CREDO and OUR Walmart are standing up for workers’ rights
As the largest corporation in the world, Walmart has the resources to pay its all of its employees a living wage and give them access to consistent, full-time hours. Instead, the company reportedly continues to exploit workers, pay its employees poverty wages and fight its workers’ right to organize at every turn.
But dedicated advocates fighting for workers’ rights are pushing back. This August, CREDO was honored to host Andrea Dehlendorf and Tyfani Faulkner of OUR Walmart to talk about the organization’s new app, WorkIt, which helps people working in hourly jobs get answers to questions about workplace policies and rights from trusted and trained peer advisors. They also discussed their work around multiracial organizing and women’s economic stability.
Since 2014, CREDO members have voted to donate more than $150,000 to OUR Walmart, and funding from CREDO helped build their new app, WorkIt. CREDO has been proud to stand with OUR Walmart and Walmart workers in their fight for $15 an hour and full-time, consistent schedules.
In 2016, CREDO teamed up with OUR Walmart to co-sponsor a mobile billboard truck outside its corporate headquarters in Arkansas during a shareholder meeting with a sign reading “Walmart’s CEO earned $9,323/hr last year. Walmart can afford $15/hour and full time.” We also delivered petitions with more than 125,000 signatures by CREDO members in a strong show of solidarity with courageous Walmart workers.
Posted on September 6, 2017
CREDO at Netroots Nation 2017
This year, members of our CREDO Action team were well-represented at one of the nation’s largest progressive conferences, Netroots Nation. The event, which was held this year in Atlanta, brings together progressive leaders, activists, organizers and elected officials (including progressive champion Elizabeth Warren) for five days of panels, trainings, speeches and brainstorming sessions to help grow and expand our movement and work to resist the dangerous and hateful Trump agenda.
From panels featuring how CREDO’s digital organizing played a massive role in the Betsy DeVos confirmation battle to preparing for a major crisis in the Trump era, here’s a quick recap of the panels CREDO Action campaigners helped to lead at Netroots.
How Betsy DeVos Became So Unpopular
Watch CREDO Action Deputy Political Director Josh Nelson at Netroots Nation, talking about our activism against Trump-appointee Betsy DeVos with our allies in the movement.
Posted by CREDO Mobile on Friday, August 11, 2017
Deputy Political Director Josh Nelson joined allies in the labor and progressive communities to talk about how close coordination by digital organizers and dedicated efforts by activists, educators and parents led to outing a relatively unknown Republican donor as the wildly unpopular and unqualified pick for secretary of education.
Posted on September 6, 2017
Back to school: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a threat to our children
As summer winds down and back-to-school season hits full swing, kids, young adults and people of all ages are heading back to schools, universities and colleges across the country.
However, this fall is very different than years past: Betsy DeVos, the anti-public school billionaire bigot, is the secretary of education – the most influential person overseeing public education policy in the country.
But an expert in public education she is not. DeVos is grossly incompetent, has no relevant experience as an educator and did not attend or send her children to public school. She was appointed because she’s a major Republican donor, not because she knows anything about public education in the United States.
DeVos is a right-wing voucher and charter school activist whose numerous projects include the disastrous effort to spread charters in Detroit, which failed to increase student achievement while allowing charters to operate with little accountability or oversight. She is looking to gut Obama administration guidance on how the DOE should use Title IX, which mandates gender equality in education, to protect survivors of campus sexual assault.
Her comments in front of Congress earlier this year indicating schools should have flexibility to discriminate against LGBTQ students prove she is a clear threat to children, especially transgender students, who face prejudice, harassment and bullying in schools and suffer from higher rates of depression and suicide than non-LGBTQ classmates.
We at CREDO understand that having an anti-public school bigot running the Department of Education not only sends a terrible message to our children, but poses a threat to their education and well-being. That’s why, earlier this year, CREDO, along with our allies in the progressive community, led the resistance to DeVos’s nomination.
In January, we launched a petition demanding that senators “block and resist Betsy DeVos’ confirmation as secretary of education.” The petition went wildly viral, garnering more than 1.5 million signatures. To our knowledge, this was the largest petition in U.S. history in opposition to a cabinet nominee.
Building on the incredible momentum fueled by CREDO activists, we ramped up calls to key Republican senators leading up to the floor vote. Altogether, CREDO members made more than 93,000 calls to key Republicans and another 8,700 calls to Democrats on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
We organized petition deliveries at the local offices of Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski the Monday before the committee vote to help generate local media coverage in Maine and Alaska. Both Collins and Murkowski ultimately voted against confirmation.
In the end, however, Betsy DeVos was confirmed by Mike Pence’s tie-breaking vote in the Senate — but that doesn’t mean our work to hold this billionaire bigot accountable is over.
The incredible activism by CREDO members and our allies across the country exposed DeVos as a unqualified fraud who has absolutely no business overseeing an agency whose primary job is to make sure our children have access to exceptional primary and higher education. It weakened her credibility and ultimately her ability to be as effective and dangerous as she could have been immediately out of her confirmation hearing.
Since her confirmation, we’ve been committed to holding DeVos accountable for her rhetoric and threats to students, teachers and the public education system. We’ve called on CREDO members to demand she protect survivors of sexual assault and released viral videos that have accumulated millions of views and tens of thousands of shares.
As long as Betsy DeVos remains the head of the education department, CREDO and our members will continue to resist in no uncertain terms her bigoted and dangerous actions that would harm the very children she is charged with educating and protecting.
Posted on September 1, 2017
Our August grantees thank you for your support
Each month, CREDO members vote on how we distribute funding to three amazing organizations. Those small actions add up – with one click, you can dedicate resources to improve labor practices, support independent media and fight back against Big Oil. Just last month, over 70,000 CREDO members voted to distribute our funds to China Labor Watch, Democracy Now! and Stand Up to Oil.
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 August grant recipients thank you.
China Labor Watch
“Thank you for voting for China Labor Watch. Support from CREDO members like you helps us to identify serious labor rights violations in China. The exposure of these violations will help improve millions of Chinese workers’ working conditions.” To learn more, visit chinalaborwatch.org.
Democracy Now!
“Thank you for helping Democracy Now! put a spotlight on corporate and government abuses of power and lift up the voices of ordinary people working to make change in these extraordinary times.” To learn more, visit democracynow.org.
Stand Up to Oil
“Thank you for supporting the Stand Up To Oil campaign! The campaign is working to stop the construction of new oil infrastructure, which could receive more than 1 million barrels of crude oil every day, threatening the safety of communities and waterways across the Northwest.” To learn more, visit standuptooil.org.
Now check out the three causes we are funding in September, 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 September 1, 2017
Your chance to vote for three great causes this September
Every month, CREDO members help decide how we donate tens of thousands of dollars to three great nonprofit groups fighting for our progressive values. This month, you can help fund organizations fighting for immigrants, civil rights and peace by voting for America’s Voice, Color Of Change and J Street. Learn more about each of these causes, and then cast your vote for one, two or all three by September 30.
America’s Voice
America’s Voice is a media savvy advocacy group that combines grassroots activism and high-profile media campaigns to fight for immigrant families threatened with deportation and family separation under Trump.
With Donald Trump’s unrelenting attacks on immigrant communities, funding from CREDO members is critically important at this time. A CREDO donation will enable America’s Voice to expand its deportation defense work at the local level, especially in areas without a strong infrastructure of community organizations, and empower local communities to own and direct the desperately needed deportation defense work.
Color Of Change
Color Of Change designs campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back and champions solutions that move us all forward.
Whether fighting back against emboldened white supremacists, the institutions that support them and Trump’s attempts to roll back civil rights or mobilizing to prevent the election of local prosecutors adverse to criminal justice reform, support from CREDO will help Color Of Change continue testing and adapting its tactics and deploy organizing tools in ways that ensure it can remain nimble and responsive to the rapidly changing social, economic and political landscape.
J Street
J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the Jewish people.
Funding from CREDO members will help J Street fight against the Trump administration’s goal of dismantling the Iran deal, which would have devastating consequences for the United States, Israel and global security. It will also enable J Street fight any attempt by the Trump administration to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, which goes against long-standing UN and American policy.
Your vote this September will determine how we divide our monthly donation among these three progressive causes. Be sure to cast your vote to support one, two or all three by September 30.
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 August 29, 2017
How you can help victims of Hurricane Harvey
Here at CREDO, our hearts go out to the tens of thousands of victims of Hurricane Harvey. The massive storm and devastating flooding have left more than a dozen dead, dozens more injured and at least 30,000 in desperate need of food, shelter, medicine and other aid.
Recent reporting confirms that the storm and its aftermath are having a disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities, people of color and immigrant families. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials left 50 immigrant women and children stranded at a closed bus station directly in the path of the storm, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it would continue making arrests during Harvey, so it’s unclear how many immigrants may have chosen not to seek help during or after the storm.
If you and your friends and family are looking for ways to help victims of Harvey, here are some ways you can chip in:
- Volunteer. If you live in Texas or the Gulf region or are willing to travel, many organizations are looking for a helping hand. Volunteer Houston and All Hands Volunteers are coordinating volunteer relief efforts.
- Communities of color. The Texas Organizing Project, a nonprofit that promotes social and economic equality for low to moderate income Texans, has established a Hurricane Harvey Community Relief Fund to ensure marginalized communities get immediate relief and have the tools to rebuild and advocate for themselves in the long run.
- People with disabilities. Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies is coordinating with the local, state and federal government to address urgent requests for evacuation and medical equipment from older people and people with disabilities, including trans people, undocumented immigrants and other extremely vulnerable communities who are disabled.
- Food donations. Food banks across Texas and the region are in need of donations. The Houston Press has compiled a good list here. To make an immediate online gift, Feeding Texas coordinates with food banks across the state.
- Infants and children. The Texas Diaper Bank is accepting donations and emergency diapers for families affected by Harvey. Click here to make a donation and specify your donation is for disaster relief.
- Immigrants. Immigrants in the Gulf region are especially at risk during this crisis. Mijente, a pro-Latinx advocacy organization, was immediately organizing before Harvey hit the Texas coast to protect immigrants from Trump’s out of control Custom and Border Patrol during the hurricane. You can donate to them here.
- Environmental justice. Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (TEJAS) provides community members with the tools necessary to create sustainable, environmentally healthy communities by educating individuals on health concerns and implications arising from environmental pollution. Click here to make a donation.
- Pets and animals. Austin Pets Alive! is working with shelters directly affected by Hurricane Harvey and in need of immediate funding to save animals impacted by the storm.
