Susan’s Note: I’m incredibly choosy about the charities I support. I’ve spent a long time finding charities that I can stand behind and that provide advocacy and action on issues that matter to me. These are the charities that I’ve chosen to support. I donate 10% of all Business in Blue Jeans profits to them and encourage you to donate and support these charities as well.
Somaly Mam Foundation
The Somaly Mam Foundation is a nonprofit charity committed to ending modern day slavery in North America and around the world.
Human trafficking, a multi-billion dollar industry, is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. With over two million women and children sold into sexual slavery each year, it is a global crisis that must be stopped. More resources are critically needed to support the rescue and rehabilitation of these young victims.
Kiva.org
Kiva is a non-profit that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur across the globe.
You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay their loan, you get your money back. It’s a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty.
Breast Cancer Action
Founded in 1990, Breast Cancer Action (BCA) was started by women in a San Francisco breast cancer support group who were frustrated by the lack of knowledge about their disease. Led by the late Elenore Pred, they created an organization that would help transform breast cancer from a private medical crisis to a public health emergency. BCA continues this work, and is now a national education and activist organization that challenges assumptions and inspires change to end the breast cancer epidemic. BCA advocates for policy changes in three priority areas: shifting the balance of power at the FDA from the pharmaceutical industry towards the public interest; decreasing involuntary environmental exposures; and creating awareness that it is not just genes, but social injustices that lead to disparities in breast cancer outcomes.
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. Since our founding in 1951 we have protected more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide – and we operate more than 100 marine conservation projects globally. We have more than one million members. We work in all 50 states and more than 30 countries – protecting habitats from grasslands to coral reefs, from Australia to Alaska to Zambia. We address threats to conservation involving climate change, fire, fresh water, forests, invasive species, and marine ecosystems. We use a science-based approach, aided by our more than 700 staff scientists, and we pursue non-confrontational, pragmatic solutions to conservation challenges.
Other charities I believe in and support personally:
The National MS Society
American Diabetes Association
Dizzy Feet Foundation
VH1′s Save the Music Foundation
*In addition to supporting these charities, Business in Blue Jeans offers a 25% discount on all products and services to all veterans and surviving spouses of veterans. If you’d like to take advantage of your veteran discount, e-mail (info-at-businessinbluejeans.com) or fax (800-714-4699) your proof of military service (your DD214 and your Veterans Organization Card) along with your e-mail address to us and we’ll send you the coupon code for your discount as my sincere and humble thank you for your service.