Support Progressive Values with your Phone Company

We talk a lot here about voting with your dollars, and one of the best ways you can support progressive organizations and fight for a better world with by switching your phone company.

Wait, what? What does my phone company have to do with civil rights, reproductive freedom, racial justice, and governmental transparency?

You can resist in lots of ways. Your phone is just one way!

That’s right: you can choose a phone company that donates to progressive causes. Each month CREDO Mobile chooses three organizations to donate to, all dedicated to building a better world. The average monthly donation is about $150,000. For some non-profits, this can represent a huge chunk of their annual operating budgets. For some more perspective, in 2015, CREDO was able to donate $2.4 million.

Building a Better Nation Each Month

Each month I get an email from CREDO asking me which group I want to support this month (with the choice of choosing all three). I love these emails, and I love knowing that when the phone bill is paid (thanks, boss!) it’s going to support organizations that I would give my personal money to, as well. Here are just a few of the organizations that CREDO is planning to fund (or have funding already) in 2017:

Americans for Tax Fairness
Detention Watch Network
Rainforest Action Network
Center for Media and Democracy
Free Press
Friends of the Earth
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): (January donation: $89,154)
Demos: (January donation: $36,594)
Electronic Frontier Foundation: (January donation: $34,054)

In the aftermath of the election and subsequent Republican administration backlash against progress, environment, and human rights, CREDO stepped up their outreach and doubled their donations. Click here to see how their $300,000 was distributed to Black Lives groups, native and immigrant rights and climate justice.

Taking Action for Progressive Causes with CREDO Action

Not only does CREDO fight with cash, they leverage their subscribers with CREDO Action. This arm of CREDO focuses on activism and engagement. Here is a sampling of some of the campaigns we’ve helped promote:

Your Phone Company Does Not Care About You: Privacy and Progress

If you’re not convinced yet that switching is a good option, perhaps consider this: in 2011, FastCompany confirmed CREDO’s assertion that Verizon was funding Tea Party members like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Pat Toomey. Many people consider

Many people consider the rise of the Tea Party the reason we have our current administration, and if this is something you want to fight against, switching your phone company to one that supports organizations you love is a great place to start.

And finally, CREDO is fighting for your right to privacy. In a big statement released in November 2016, CREDO was finally able to discuss the lawsuit they filed but had been held under a gag order. Here’s the synopsis of their lawsuit:

“In 2013, CREDO received two National Security Letters from the FBI. We filed a lawsuit against the FBI challenging the constitutionality of National Security Letters or NSLs. NSLs are a tool the federal government can use to secretly demand information about our customers. The federal government forced us to remain silent about these requests and our fight against them with a gag order. For three long years, we have been forced to keep this lawsuit a secret.

“Unlike other phone companies who profit by selling your information to the federal government, privacy is a core value for CREDO, and we will fight to defend it.”

Ray Morris, CREDO CEO, explained in the full press release with Electronic Frontiers Foundation: “We were proud to fight these NSLs all these years, and now we are proud to publish the letters and take full part in the ensuing debate.”

So… what does your phone company stand for..?

Disclaimer: CREDO is our company phone carrier and a former sponsor, but we really do think this phone company is super great. If you click on the links in the images and switch over to CREDO, we receive a cash bonus. Image By Alisdare Hickson (UK) CC BY-SA 2.0, other images from CREDO.

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Tags: CREDO mobile, politics, progressive organizations, resistance, Tea Party, Trump, vote with your dollars

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