Emergency Fund for Community Action
Support Community Groups Making A Difference
Support groups working to eradicate racism, reduce gun violence, heal communities, and achieve fair, effective public safety programs and criminal justice systems.
The Public Interest Network launched this fund with a donation. That grant and all contributions to the fund will go to the organizations listed.
MEASURE Austin (Austin, Tex.)
Newark Opportunity Youth Network (A YouthBuild Newark Initiative) (Newark, N.J.)
Solar Youth (New Haven, Conn.)
Urban League of Portland (Portland, Ore.)
Urban Peace Institute (Hosted by Community Partners) (Los Angeles, Cal.)
Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (Boston, Mass.)
EMIR (Every Murder is Real) Healing Center (Philadelphia, Penn.)
Guitars Over Guns (Miami, Fla., and Chicago, Ill.)
I Grow Chicago (Chicago, Ill.)
Martha's Table (Washington, D.C.)
Black Lives Matter.
America is a great country. But we have more problems than we should, and more solutions than we use.
The American people are fundamentally virtuous and good-hearted, working year in and year out at their jobs and in their personal and civic lives to make the world a better place — and with every passing decade it does get better. But not for everybody, and not in every way.
The earth and its ecosystems are not getting healthier. Our democracy is not getting stronger. The advances of science and technology are not lifting all boats. We have no silver bullet to eradicate disease or prevent pandemics. And, as the events of the past two weeks have underscored, our nation’s original sin — racism — is still with us.
The flagship organizations of The Public Interest Network, U.S. PIRG and Environment America, neither specialize nor claim expertise in how to eradicate racism, reduce gun violence, heal communities, or run fair, effective public safety programs and criminal justice systems. But the moment calls upon us to help the people and groups whose expertise IS how to make a difference on these issues.
With that in mind, and with the advice of Everytown for Gun Safety and others, we’ve identified a set of community organizations to support.
The Public Interest Network is donating to each of the groups listed above. If you would like to add a personal contribution, you can do so here.
“... we have resisted the urge to speak out, because this is not the time for us to lecture. It is time for us to listen. It is time for America to examine our tragic failures – and as we do, we will also see some of our redeeming strengths.
It remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young African American men, are harassed and threatened in their own country. It is a strength when protesters, protected by responsible law enforcement, march for a better future.”
“It’s natural to wish for life ‘to just get back to normal’ as a pandemic and economic crisis upend everything around us. But we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal’ — whether it’s while dealing with the health care system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or just watching birds in a park.
This shouldn’t be ‘normal’ in 2020 America. It can’t be ‘normal.’ If we want our children to grow up in a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we can and must be better.”
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves....”