Federal and Corporate Workers Donate More to Groups Critical of Trump
By Timothy Sandoval
Contributor
September 15, 2017 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Nonprofits that oppose President Trump’s agenda in a variety of areas are seeing big bumps in donations from employee-giving drives, reflecting a larger shift in giving that’s coincided with Mr. Trump’s political rise, according to two new analyses of federal and corporate giving campaigns.
Among the biggest beneficiaries: the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Planned Parenthood.
“Federal donors clearly reacted to the election of Trump in 2016, providing several charities with a sizable anti-Trump bounce in their pledge results,” said Marshall Strauss, chief executive of the Workplace Giving Alliance, in an email to The Chronicle. The alliance is a coalition of groups that participate in the Combined Federal Campaign, a charitable fundraising drive among federal employees that starts each September. Employees can make pledges to thousands of eligible nonprofits, which are paid out through payroll deductions the following year.
The ACLU saw the largest increase in pledges of any group in 2016, bringing in more than $1 million, up almost 400 percent from the $218,700 that was pledged in 2015.
Other nonprofits that have been highly critical of Mr. Trump also saw big increases in CFC gifts:
| Organization | 2016 pledges | 2015 pledges | Percentage change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Poverty Law Center | $702,900 | $157,800 | 345% |
| Natural Resources Defense Council | $399,600 | $142,400 | 181% |
| NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund | $269,600 | $162,800 | 66% |
| Planned Parenthood Federation of America | $1,651,300 | $1,011,100 | 63% |
| Sierra Club Foundation | $301,300 | $192,400 | 57% |
Corporate Giving
Corporate employees are also increasing their contributions to groups that oppose Mr. Trump, according to new data from Benevity, which provides software for managing employee giving and matching-gift drives for hundreds of companies like Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Apple, Microsoft, and Nike.
According to Benevity:
- The ACLU has seen a meteoric rise in dollars raised over the past two years through Benevity. In 2015, the ACLU ranked 87th of all charities supported through the fundraising company. It jumped to No. 6 at the end of 2016, and through August this year, it ranked No. 1. (The company declined to share specific fundraising totals.)
- The Southern Poverty Law Center has seen a similar upswing: It sat at No. 9 through August, having jumped more than 200 spots since the end of 2015, when it ranked No. 230.
- Planned Parenthood ranked ninth in 2015 but ranks third so far this year.
- Islamic Relief Worldwide ranked tenth through August, the same ranking it held at the end of 2016 but up seven places from 2015.
Benevity also reported that certain charities saw big spikes in contributions from corporate employees after big news events. For instance, after President Trump announced in June that he was removing the United States from the Paris climate accords, the Natural Resources Defense Council got 26 times more money for the month than in June 2016.
And during August, when the violent white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Va., took place, corporate employees raised 35 times as much for the Southern Poverty Law Center as they did in August the previous year.
