To start with: it's not my intention to guilt or pressure anybody. I've just come off a decade of being either unemployed or underemployed; I know what it's like to be worried how long your savings can last. If you can't afford to contribute, whether that's money or time, you don't need to feel bad about that; take care of yourself. You're no good to any cause if you don't. If you can contribute, great; if you can't, that's okay too.
Second: feedback is fair game. No organization is perfect. I've long disagreed with the ACLU about money as speech, and TA recently made a valid criticism of the CBLDF's ill-conceived criticisms of a consumer boycott. If anybody names an organization and you have a criticism, that's okay; try not to be a jerk about it, but informing people about a group's downsides is a totally valid thing.
Third: this list doesn't need to be specifically anti-Trump. I can definitely see emphasizing civil liberties groups, but if you want to talk about a cancer charity, please do. I don't want this to turn into a relative privation thing; I certainly believe there's some urgency to pushing back against the current government's rapid encroachment against immigrants and minorities, but if you'd rather talk about the Hero Initiative or Make a Wish, then please do.
ANYWAY.
To start right off, I'll go with the most obvious pick: the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that lobbies for civil rights and provides legal aid to people whose civil rights are threatened. It's in the news a lot lately, including, these past few days, for defending immigrants; it's already launched a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for its Muslim ban.
If there's one argument to make against donating to the ACLU right now, it's that everybody else is already doing it.
Grath wrote:Over the last weekend, the ACLU received $24 million in donations. In a normal, sane year they usually receive $3 million to $4 million.
This is amazing. And if you want to donate some money to the ACLU, then do it, by all means.
But there are a lot of other organizations that do good work, too. The ACLU's doing fantastically right now, so if you'd rather contribute to an org that's a little less flush, that's where I'm leaning right now.
So, for my next pick, I give you the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy group best known for its tracking and cataloging of hate groups. It's spent decades suing the KKK and other, similar groups, and has done serious damage to them through multimillion-dollar verdicts.
A donation to the SPLC is like an anti-donation to the Klan.