Charitable groups that fight voter suppression?

November 6, 2012 9:27 PM

Help me give my Obama winnings to a good charity.

Last week I put a decent chunk of change into Intrade and bet on Obama. He won! So now I have a windfall - which by long-standing personal belief gets 10-20% to a related charity.

What I'm looking for:

A NON-partisan charitable organization that focuses on voter participation / anti-suppression work.

I know there's a hotline that one can call if the polling laws are not being followed, with election lawyers, etc. Are there others? Are they a charity that need cash? Halp!

[US organization, preferably federal, and preferably one that fights voter suppression rather than just gets the vote out, but I can be convinced of the need to support ground game stuff instead.]

posted by Lemurrhea to law & government (15 answers total)

League of Women Voters.
posted by terrierhead at 9:31 PM on November 6, 2012 [16 favorites]

League of Women Voters, is probably the best. ACORN used to do a lot of this, but they are not around anymore. Maybe something will come along to replace them.
posted by Golden Eternity at 9:33 PM on November 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

1. Thank you. You are a good person.
2. I would also say League of Women Voters.
posted by queensissy at 9:35 PM on November 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Nthing League of Women Voters.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:55 PM on November 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Planned Parenthood.
posted by Midnight Rambler at 10:20 PM on November 6, 2012

Sorry, I was way to quick and didn't read your criteria. Definitely League of Women Voters.
posted by Midnight Rambler at 10:23 PM on November 6, 2012

Kudos to you for donating!

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. It's a non-partisan, non-profit organization. They run the 866-our-vote hotline, so this may be the org. that you were referring to.
posted by piap at 10:53 PM on November 6, 2012

I donated to League of Women Voters today! I nth them. They run vote411.org, which "provides nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information on the following aspects of the election process [cut for literally every election thing you could think of including polling places, how to register, how to vote absentee, how to vote early, how to physically use a voting machine, and how to be an informed voter]."
posted by Snarl Furillo at 11:15 PM on November 6, 2012

League of Women Voters, they were my go to for years for voting info and now I'm a member and they do good work. Notably on helping people sort through local elections and ballot propositions!
posted by fshgrl at 1:02 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Whatever you decide, PLEASE check them out on Charity Navigator first! It really bothers me that so many charities spend so much of their donations on solicitation and paying their CEOs.
posted by sgo at 7:23 AM on November 7, 2012

Here's the Charity Navigator link to the LWV Education Fund. The main knocks against them are things like not providing a Form 990.
posted by Madamina at 7:26 AM on November 7, 2012

Man, I'm SO CURIOUS as to how much mefites made on Intrade. :)

Thank you for doing an honorable thing with part of the proceeds.
posted by Theta States at 8:15 AM on November 7, 2012

Thanks everyone!

Piap, it was indeed that org that you were talking about, and I do love helping lawyers do good. But everyone chimed in with League of Women Voters, and that reminded me of the discussions we as Metafilter had during the elections about their history (and my love of awesome moderators), so they will get my cash.

Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights will absolutely go on the "as soon as I'm not paying off law school debt" list however. So in like 10 years maybe? It's shorter thanks to the election!

And, uh, thanks MeFi for helping to convince me to trust that I/the polls were right. I owe y'all one.
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:16 PM on November 7, 2012

Proof!

went with the LWV education fund because it's tax-deductible, as opposed to the main group.
posted by Lemurrhea at 2:15 PM on November 22, 2012

Good man yerself there!
posted by DarlingBri at 5:28 PM on November 22, 2012