Defending Equity Initiative: Launch and Call for Support
In the spirit of the protests today, we think it is a great day to launch Defending Equity Initiative, a new freestanding nonprofit organization that will be a pro bono legal services provider for 501(c)(3) organizations unfairly targeted for their DEI programs, support of immigrants, or other progressive work. You can read more on its website about the kind of work it will take on and the organizations it will support. You can also see a couple of examples of the kind of resources we want to host there.
We’ll let that website and organization speak for itself, but here are some things you can do if you support the mission:
If you know an organization that is facing a live threat (an IRS audit, a lawsuit or other legal challenge), encourage them to apply for support. We can’t guarantee availability and can only offer pro bono legal services at this time to organizations facing active threats, but we want to hear what people are facing and will do what we can to provide or connect them to appropriate support.
If you have expertise that could be useful to an organization conducting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or other race-conscious programming, that supports immigrants, or is otherwise progress and subject to targeting, please fill in our volunteer form. You’re not committed to anything by submitting, but we want to know who is out there and who we might be able to reach out if there are organizations in need of your expertise.
If you want to donate resources or handouts that make sense or have other ideas of you might be able to support DEI’s work, please email the organization.
Maybe after our 501(c)(3) application is submitted and received (more on that to come on this blog soon as part of this series) we can think about how we might use our 501(c)(3) state to raise money for hiring experts in addition to relying on volunteers. For now, all we are asking for is time and expertise.
If you, like us, are appalled by the state of affairs and the chilling effect radiating through the progressive nonprofit sector, we hope that you reach out.
