Impact Fund

On this day in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted.

In the last 10 years, the Voting Rights Act has been weakened by court decisions such as Shelby County v. Holder. There are those in high places who are afraid of free voting, are afraid of the power of Black people participating in our democracy.

This election cycle, while we still have open voting, make your voice heard.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1857 that Black people could not be citizens of the United States in the case Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Being born here meant citizenship since the country's founding. It was never applied to Black Americans.

How was this decision, called the "worst Supreme Court decision," overturned?

The people being excluded made the case against it.

Freedpeople petitioned Congress and testified. Nearly 180,000 Black men had served in the Union Army, and abolitionists had spent decades arguing the country already owed them citizenship. Under that pressure Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, then the 14th Amendment in 1868.

The law doesn't automatically create a just society. Sometimes, we have to fight the weight of tradition to shape society into what it should be.

Preventing Voter Intimidation by Federal Agents at the Polls Any deployment that intimidates voters or interferes with elections would be illegal. Should one occur, officials and civil society are prepared to challenge illegal acts so that voting can proceed uninterrupted.

Amazing work by our former grantees.

On this day in 1924, author and civil rights activist James Baldwin was born. Baldwin was one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, writing about masculinity, sexuality, race, and class in ways that shed light on the intertwining and overlapping oppression baked into American culture.

Baldwin was also an important figure in the Civil Rights movement.

"The American dream is at the expense of the American Negro" was the topic of a televised debate between Baldwin and conservative William Buckley - which Baldwin won by a landslide majority.

Today, we celebrate James Baldwin for both his brilliant writing and his contribution in pushing our society towards equality.

Our grantee, Fair Work Center just won a huge victory to protect care workers in Washington Supreme Court!

The Court recognized that live-in caregivers in adult family homes perform work that is constitutionally entitled to health and safety protections.

This is a significant step toward ensuring domestic workers receive the legal protections and dignity they have long been denied.

We granted Fair Work Center $40,000 to help fund this case.

This chart shows a disturbing reality.

The amount of income going to the top 10% is inversely mirrored by union membership. As unions have been attacked and weakened, income inequality in America has only gotten worse.

Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Quebec now recognizes trees as living beings with rights to life, natural growth, integrity, and regeneration.

It's the first municipality anywhere to sign on to the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree, a document that has been gathering signatures from scientists, lawyers, and ordinary people since 2018.

Karine Péloffy, a lawyer with Ecojustice, made a powerful observation about the Rights of the Tree: corporations already hold legal personhood, and corporations are distinctly NOT alive. But trees, which are... alive... don't have legal personhood!

Until, in this small Montreal town, now.

When money is tight, one overdraft fee or a surprise late charge can be the difference between covering groceries and coming up short. That's why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau exists, and it's why four in five voters just told pollsters they want to keep it.

The poll came out this week, as the administration and Congress push to shut the bureau down. What people actually want is the opposite.

We work for a justice system that should treat people without wealth or power the same as everyone else, and that includes how they're treated by banks and lenders.