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Useful Social and Political Action Organizations: Organizations

A guide to political and social action organizations currently engaged in defending social justice causes.

American Civil Liberties Union

 

The American Civil Liberties Union

"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonpartisan, non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation and lobbying. The ACLU has 1,000,000 members and an annual budget of over $100 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in almost all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union; accessed August 9, 2024..

https://www.aclu.org/; accessed August 9, 2024.

Equal Justice Initiative

 

Equal Justice Initiative

The Equal Justice Initiative (or EJI) is a non-profit organization, based in Montgomery, Alabama, that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and others who may have been denied a fair trial. It guarantees the defense of anyone in Alabama in a death penalty case.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Justice_Initiative; accessed August 9, 2024.

 http://eji.org/; accessed August 9, 2024.

FIRE - Defending Individual Rights in Higher Education

 

FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), formerly called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit civil liberties group founded in 1999 with the mission of protecting freedom of speech on college campuses in the United States. FIRE changed its name in June 2022, when it broadened its focus from colleges to freedom of speech throughout American society.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Individual_Rights_and_Expression ; accessed August 13, 2024

https://www.thefire.org ; accessed August 9, 2024.

Human Rights Foundation

 

                                               

 

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a non-profit organization that focuses on promoting and protecting human rights globally, with an emphasis on closed societies. HRF organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum. The Human Rights Foundation was founded in 2005 by Thor Halvorssen Mendoza, a Venezuelan film producer and human rights advocate. The current chairman is Russian opposition activist Yulia Navalnaya, and Javier El-Hage is the current chief legal officer. The foundation's head office is in the Empire State Building in New York City.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Foundation; accessed August 9, 2024..

https://www.hrf.org/; accessed August 9, 2024.

 

The Institute for Justice

 

The Institute for Justice

The Institute for Justice (IJ) is a non-profit public interest law firm in the United States. It has litigated twelve cases before the United States Supreme Court dealing with eminent domain, interstate commerce, public financing for elections, school vouchers, tax credits for private school tuition, civil asset forfeiture, and residency requirements for liquor license. The organization was founded on September 3, 1991.[7] As of 2023, it employed a staff of 157 full-time staff members (including 64 attorneys) in Arlington, Virginia and seven offices across the United States.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Justice ; accessed August 13, 2024

http://ij.org/;accessed August 9, 2024.

International Refugee Assistance Project

 

International Refugee Assistance Project

 The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) organizes law students and lawyers to develop and enforce a set of legal and human rights for refugees and displaced persons. Mobilizing direct legal aid and systemic policy advocacy, IRAP serves the world’s most persecuted individuals and empowers the next generation of human rights leaders.

IRAP is on the frontlines of the fight against the discriminatory executive order signed by President Trump. By mobilizing an emergency taskforce of legal advocates and leading the fight in the courts and the press, IRAP is playing a critical role in protecting the rights of thousands of affected refugees and immigrants.

From https://refugeerights.org/; accessed August 9, 2024.

MALDEF - The Latino Legal Voice for Civil Rights in America

 

MALDEF - The Latino Legal Voice for Civil Rights in America

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) is a national non-profit civil rights organization formed in 1968 to protect the rights of Latinos in the United States. Founded in San Antonio, Texas, it is currently headquartered in Los Angeles, California and maintains regional offices in Sacramento, San Antonio, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_American_Legal_Defense_and_Educational_Fund; accessed August 9, 2024.

http://www.maldef.org/; accessed August 9, 2024.

NAACP

 

 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)[a] is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey, Ida B. Wells, Lillian Wald, and Henry Moskowitz. Over the years, leaders of the organization have included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins.

Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination". National NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts, and litigation strategies developed by its legal team. The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people, referring to those with some African ancestry.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Colored_People; accessed August 9, 2024.

http://www.naacp.org/; accessed August 9, 2024.

NRDC

 

 

National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a New York City-based, non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bozeman, Montana, and Beijing, China. Founded in 1970, NRDC today has 2.4 million members and online activities nationwide and a staff of about 500 lawyers, scientists and other policy experts.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Resources_Defense_Council; accessed August 9, 2024.

https://www.nrdc.org/ ; accessed August 9, 2024.

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is an American nonprofit organization that provides reproductive and sexual healthcare and sexual education in the United States and globally. It is a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

PPFA has its roots in Brooklyn, New York, where Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, in 1916. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921,and 14 years after her exit as its president, ABCL's successor organization became Planned Parenthood in 1942.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood; accessed August 9, 2024.

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/; accessed August 9, 2024.

ProPublica

                                            

 

ProPublica

ProPublica (/prˈpʌblɪkə/), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City dedicated to investigative journalism. ProPublica states that its investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time investigative reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to news partners for publication or broadcast. In some cases, reporters from both ProPublica and its partners work together on a story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations and has won several Pulitzer Prizes.

In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize; the story chronicled the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital's exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina, and was published both in The New York Times Magazine[and ProPublica's website.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProPublica; accessed August 13, 2024.

https://www.propublica.org/ ; accessed August 13, 2024.

Sierra Club

 

 

Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the progressive movement, it was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world. Since the 1950s, it has lobbied politicians to promote environmentalist policies, even if they are controversial. Recent goals include promoting sustainable energy and mitigating global warming, as well as opposing the use of coal, hydropower, and nuclear power. Its political endorsements generally favor liberal and progressive candidates in elections.

In addition to political advocacy, the Sierra Club organizes outdoor recreation activities, and has historically been a notable organization for mountaineering and rock climbing in the United States. Members of the Sierra Club pioneered the Yosemite Decimal System of climbing, and were responsible for a substantial amount of the early development of climbing. Much of this activity occurred in the group's namesake, the Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Club operates only in the United States and holds the legal status of 501(c)(4) nonprofit social welfare organization. Sierra Club Canada is a separate entity.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Club ; accessed August 13, 2024.

http://www.sierraclub.org/ ; accessed August 13, 2024.

Southern Poverty Law Center

 

 

Southern Poverty Law Center


The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, for its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs.The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center; accessed August 13, 2024.

https://www.splcenter.org/ ; accessed August 13, 2024.

Transgender Law Center

 

Transgender Law Center

The Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest American transgender-led civil rights organization in the United States. They were originally California's first "fully staffed, state-wide transgender legal organization" and were initially a fiscally sponsored project of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The stated mission of TLC is to connect transgender people and their families to technically sound and culturally competent legal services, increase acceptance and enforcement of laws and policies that support California's transgender communities, and work to change laws and systems that fail to incorporate the needs and experiences of transgender people. TLC utilizes direct legal services, public policy advocacy, and educational opportunities to advance the rights and safety of diverse transgender communities.

 

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_Law_Center; accessed August 13, 2024.

https://transgenderlawcenter.org/; accessed August 13, 2024.

TransLifeline

           

 

Trans Lifeline

Trans Lifeline is a peer support and crisis hotline 501(c)(3) non-profit organization offering phone support to transgender people. It is the first transgender crisis hotline to exist in the United States as well as Canada. It is also the only suicide hotline whose operators are all transgender. As of 2019, the organization was host to approximately 95 volunteers in addition to a small paid staff. The US number is (877) 565-8860. The Canada number is (877) 330-6366. As of January 1, 2024, budgetary restrictions have forced a reduction in operating hours; the hotline is available Monday–Friday, 10 AM to 6 PM, Pacific time (1 PM to 9 PM Eastern time).

The organization previously offered a microgrant program, but suspended it in November 2023 for lack of available funds.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Lifeline; accessed August 13, 2024.

http://www.translifeline.org/;accessed August 13, 2024.

The Trevor Project

                                                                                            

 

The Trevor Project

The Trevor Project is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1998. Focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, they offer a toll-free telephone number where confidential assistance is provided by trained counselors. The stated goals of the project are to provide crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for youth (defined by the organization as people under 25), as well as to offer guidance and resources to parents and educators in order to foster safe, accepting, and inclusive environments for all youth, at home, schools and colleges.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trevor_Project; accessed August 13, 2024.

http://www.thetrevorproject.org/;accessed August 13, 2024.