The wireless carrier CREDO is making major donations to three progressive nonprofits this month to boost their respective efforts against what the company called the attacks of "right-wing" legislatures.
The company announced Thursday that it will give a combined $206,690 in donations to Planned Parenthood, the international environmental organization 350.org and the Mother Jones Investigative Fund, according to a release obtained by HuffPost. Every month, CREDO members vote to distribute donations, generated by customers, among three progressive nonprofits. The larger share of votes a nonprofit earns, the greater proportion of CREDO's monthly fund it receives.
Planned Parenthood got the largest share of votes in January and will receive 39 percent of CREDO's donations -- $80,609 -- to aid its battles against numerous defunding efforts put forth by congressional Republicans.
“Recent efforts to restrict access to safe and legal abortion, as well as preventive care like birth control and cancer screenings, have a very real and devastating impact on women who already have the least access to health care," Eric Ferrero, Planned Parenthood’s vice president for communications, said in Thursday’s press release. "CREDO's support makes it possible for Planned Parenthood to fight back against these attacks on every front to protect women's health and rights.”
Last year, Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Diane Black (R-Tenn.) were so desperate to strip the nonprofit’s access to Title X family-planning grants that they introduced identical bills on the House floor within the first two days of the 2013 legislative session. Then in April, Ohio Republicans attempted to slash $2 million dollars of Planned Parenthood funding for the third time in one year. Consequently, Planned Parenthood has been forced to dedicate significant resources to fighting these measures in court.
CREDO also awarded 350.org $66,140 for its active opposition to the implementation of the Keystone XL pipeline. And the Mother Jones Investigative Fund received $59,609 for its “critical force in exposing corporate and political corruption," according to the press release.
CREDO has raised more than $76 million for progressive nonprofit groups over the past 29 years, including the Rainforest Action Network, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the American Civil Liberties Union and Jobs with Justice.
In January, CREDO became the first phone company to release a transparency report shedding light on the federal government’s controversial requests for data on its subscribers' phone records and text messages.
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