Best Places to Donate for BLM Protestors: Support Anti-Racist Action

September 2024 · 5 minute read

The Best Places to Donate to Help Black Lives Matter Protestors

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Updated June 1 2020, 4:23 p.m. ET

Source: getty

Protests continue across the U.S. over the deaths of Black civilians killed by police or denied justice for too long. The police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Ga., which went unaddressed for over two months, are just the latest injustices in a long and tragic history of violence and injustice against Black civilians. 

If you are looking for the best places to donate your time and money in support of Black Lives Matter and other antiracist organizations fighting for police reform and social justice, we have put together a list of the ways to help.

Donate to BLM's national organization or your local chapter:

Source: getty

Aside from giving money and support to the national BLM fund, you can donate to a chapter in or near your own hometown or any other local chapter. 

We recommend focusing on cities where protests and police response to protestors are most fervent:

If you don't have money to donate, you can support BLM by signing their petition to defund the police and divert funds to support Black communities.

Contribute to bail funds for protestors who have been arrested.

We encourage folks to look up yr local bail fund (https://t.co/Ec0F5Kx4Yg) but also know that in these moments, movements sometimes create new bail funds specific to actions. We'll continue to update the funds that are specific to current actions in + to those that do both. 2/

— National Bail Fund Network (@bailfundnetwork) May 30, 2020

There are several threads on Twitter and social media indicating local bail funds coordinated to help free detained protestors from police custody. For a list of funds that is regularly updated, visit the National Bail Fund Network's directory of community bail funds. This Google Doc also contains a list of current bail funds you can support.

Support other organizations on the frontlines of antiracist action.

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Our Beloved Black community, We write this in a moment of profound grief, pain, and power. It has become increasingly clear that organized groups of white nationalists have infiltrated the protests and are attempting to take over the cities, distracting from our righteous rage and powerful movement for the end of the police state in our communities. We see them protected by and working with the police. We want to lovingly encourage folks to not go outside tonight unless your plan is to protect Black lives. Let’s be clear. Young people have always created and sustained movements. We support the Black youth standing on the front lines defending our lives and honoring the memories of the many Black folks who have been murdered by police. Black people are taking care of Black people, as we always have and always will. While our lives are being threatened, we have also centered the care and needs of our people risking their lives on the front lines. We have seen the capacity of our communities to ensure our own safety, reinforcing our demand to #DefundThePolice. From supply trains to sites throughout the Twin Cities, to supporters navigating food and mutual aid to those most in need, to community medics treating burns and injuries from police, to healers coming together to hold collective space to process grief, to artists reflecting the beauty of our existence. Once again, we are affirming, we have exactly what we need. Our government has failed to provide justice for centuries; it is failing us again right now. We are angry, but we are not surprised. The police will not keep us safe, they never have and were never meant to do so. Read the full letter at https://bit.ly/BlackMNLoveLetter #Justice4Floyd #BlackInMinnesota #2020Uprisings And if you haven’t signed our petition to #DefundThePolice yet, do it now! bit.ly/DEFUNDMPD

A post shared by BlackVisions (@blackvisionscollective) on Jun 1, 2020 at 8:18am PDT

Black Lives Matter is just the most prominent anti-racist organization in the fight against white supremacy and police brutality. 

Here are some smaller organizations who also need your support:

Educate yourself and loved ones.

Source: One World

Another free way to support BLM protestors is to learn more about the history of racism in the U.S. and specifically the role law enforcement has played in oppressing Black citizens and preserving white supremacy. If you are White, do not ask your Black friends and loved ones to provide you with these resources — Google is free, and so is the library. 

Source: Hachette, Seal Press, Beacon Press

Then share what you've learned with loved ones who may need some help understanding the historical context for what is happening now and the ways incidents like the deaths of Ahmaud, George, and Breonna are part of a pattern of devaluing Black lives.  

Bookshop's anti-racist reading list is a great place to start, and purchasing books there instead of places like Amazon will help support independent booksellers.

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