Election 2024: Where to Donate for Impact
Maximizing the Moment by Supporting On-the-Ground Organizations
We are in the last six weeks of Election 2024, and folks are donating, volunteering, and knocking on doors to get to the finish line. Lots of people have asked me about where (trusted places) to donate, and how to make the most impact. This edition of my newsletter shares the organizations to whom I (and others I trust) recommend making donations.
Social Impact Insights: Investing in Grassroots Organizing and Local Elections
Folks are rightly energized by the presidential election, and have donated directly to the Harris/Walz campaign to make sure their money is going straight to the source. And while that’s important, I always remind people that it’s just as important to give to organizations that engage in grassroots organizing.
Supporting organizing groups is absolutely vital. Over the long term, we need to build up local civic advocacy infrastructure because these organizations drive engagement on the issues and foster a habit of being politically active. In other words, they develop power for our communities over time. It’s important because these organizations continue to build up influence between election cycles, and that ongoing organizing creates a foundation for policy and cultural wins. This sets up more successful elections in the future.
And it’s also crucial to support state/local candidates whose races make all the difference in our daily lives, and make a big impact on our local political and cultural climate. I’m highlighting some of these groups because state/local races often receive a lot less attention and resources.
(And at a certain point, a well-funded campaign like the presidential one is burning money. As a commentator on one of the political podcasts I listen to essentially said, there are only 24 hours in a day, so there are only so many ads the campaign can run!)
To that end, here’s a list of organizations to have on your radar for donating, following, and volunteering. I’m letting y’all know that I have friends running or involved with these groups so you know that people I trust and have known for a long time are affiliated or in charge, as that kind of question around trustworthiness is one I often get:
Ohio Voice: Ohio moves in and out of swing state status, and yet it’s a crucial midwestern state that’s a harbinger for what else is going on in this huge swath our country. And this year there’s a super-important US Senate race in Ohio to re-elect Sherrod Brown. My friend Gavin Leonard runs Ohio Voice, which builds power across the state for the long term.
Movement Voter Project: This organizations, started by another friend, Billy Wimsatt, invests in local organizing across the country, and funds organizations run by people working directly in their communities. They also emphasize investing in groups run by Black/Brown/Asian/immigrant leaders, amplifying the work of diverse groups of stakeholders.
Greater Than: My friend Marion Parrish introduced me to this group that has women come together to support state and local candidates in largely purple areas, so they focus on locales that have the potential to keep turning into progressive spaces. I’ve also engaged with one of their co-founders, Margot Phillips, and found her to be inspiring and incredibly effective in this work.
Swing Left: Swing Left’s Immediate Impact Fund funnels money to target campaigns that need a financial boost, according to my friend Michelle Finocchi, who was part of their founding team and is actively involved in election organizing. It was also recommended in a recent podcast by Dan Savage, the LGBTQ+ advocate and sex-advice columnist whose takes on life and politics are always on point.
Moving the Needle: Speaking of Michelle and Marion above, they coordinate Moving the Needle, which Michelle co-founded. This is a group in which I’ve been involved. It’s a co-designed, peer-led community that connects and supports executive women leaders who are taking action on social and environmental issues. They share information, networks, and resources that will help move the needle in our companies and communities. They’re bringing together organizations, experts, and resources that will help women leaders plug into the 2024 election in the most impactful ways.
League of Women Voters: To be honest, I wasn’t always super enthusiastic about their work, as it seemed a bit more conservative than my personal speed. But my friend Archna Bhasin has been involved with them in Texas for quite a long time, and I find her reports on their work in a conservative state to be quite inspiring. The League of Women Voters engages in education on voting/voters guides, the basics of how to vote and get to your polling place, and election security/safety. And I remember my learning from them when I was in my early 20s, so they’re a terrific gateway organization to getting young people aware and involved on the basics of civic engagement.
Women Execs for Kamala: This group does send donations directly to the main campaign. And yet it’s a good group to have on your radar, as it’s a large collective of women leaders from all kinds of backgrounds who have come together to support this election cycle. They funnel conversations and links/resources towards organizing and to state/local campaigns. I’m a loosely engaged member and my friend Rashmi Rao has taken on a leading organizing role with them.
Hope these help! It’s good to have trusted sources during these times, so please do share with others who are asking you how to broaden their support beyond the main presidential campaign.
Surf Synthesis: End of Summer Salt Water Therapy
I’m a little sad to see the close of summer in the US, with the warmer water coming to an end. This is me after a lovely and long session where the waves weren’t too crowded, the water was the perfect temperature, and there was fun to be had for all, with lots of us smiling and laughing with each other in the water. Fall surfing is my favorite, but there’s a low-key vibe to summer waves that just can’t be replicated.
This is me feeling the post-surf glow in front of the van where I store my board. (If anyone can explain to me why my sunscreen sticks to my face but not my neck, I’d super appreciate it!)
This last session was especially fun because, between working out and surfing, I had managed to jack up one of my shoulders pretty badly, and I’ve been using my surfing both to surf and to act as a salt water soak. Between that and aggressive stretching, I’m back to almost normal, and I could feel that in this most recent surf session. A great way to ease into fall.
Tarot Inspiration: The Moon
In the US, we’ve just experienced the Fall Equinox, and also a lunar eclipse in the last week. There’s been a whole lot of moon energy going around. The Moon is one of tarot’s Major Arcana, meaning that it’s a representation of major moments in our emotional life cycle.
The moon is beautiful and can cast a peaceful light around us, illuminating the darkness. It acts as a necessary guide in the night, and as a marker of time, with 13 lunar cycles in a year. And yet the moon also causes all kinds of fluctuations. The pull of gravity from the moon is deeply integral to surfing, as it controls the tides of the ocean. Personally, I am constantly tuning into what’s going on with the sea levels as I figure out when I can go surfing.
That constant gravitational pull can cause a sense of unease and anxiety, which seem to be a theme these days with a combination of hope mixed in with dread at all the political news and election-related anticipation. This election is going to be so close, and no one really knows how it will turn out. The Moon card typically tells us to tune in more deeply to our intuition, but in our current times, it can feel like our intuition is being drowned out by too much incoming information.
I suggest we all shut our eyes, take a deep breath, channel the moon, and listen to what our intuition is telling us to focus on as we experience a change of season and some kind of shift in our political era. And then take action to make sure the political shift is one that strengthens us as a culture and community.
— Juhu Thukral | Founder + Principal, Apsara Projects
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Great newsletter Juhu, thank you for sharing information on where to donate during this election season (beyond the candidate campaigns), and for the insights on why it's important to seek out and support the more local, on-the-ground organizations.