FairVote Minnesota Community Action Hub

How You Can Help

As official support systems have become overwhelmed or ground to a halt, community organizations and organizations have been left to pick up the slack. People have done this by giving and redistributing money and goods—helping those who can’t leave their homes with rent, laundry, food, and more.

Currently, this page is limited to a handful of options for making donations, participating in on-the-ground protests, and becoming trained to participate in the observation and documentation of the federal occupation. More resources will be added with time.

Other Limitations of This Page

The resources on this page are legitimate and effective to help people across Minnesota, but they aren’t comprehensive. For people who live in-state, some of the most direct and local ways to contribute are taking place offline at the neighborhood level. We recommend checking around with trusted neighbors to see if your area already has a local network. And if not, we encourage you to connect with others in your community to create your own local support system.

I Want to Donate

There are many, many donation links to choose from, and it isn’t always easy to decide where to give. See below for some tips on how and where to donate to Minnesota communities.

Tips:

1. Donate as closely as you can to the funds’ final destination: Granting and re-granting money takes time—time that those in need might not have if they want to afford food, rent, or other necessities. If you can, see if you can find ways to give directly to a family in need, or to a local neighborhood fund.

2. Balance vetting and efficiency: A downside of tip #1 is that the more specific and local a fundraiser gets, the harder it can be to vet as legitimate as an outside donor. Look for information from someone who is in or near the community that the fundraisers are meant to benefit. Often, these people can vouch for those doing the fundraising or are in a better position to determine if a fundraiser is legitimate or not.

3. If you can, spread your funds around: Sometimes when a fundraiser gets promoted by a celebrity or other public figure, it can be flooded by an excess of donations while other similar causes continue to struggle to scrape together resources. Try not to put all your eggs in one basket or give your entire aid budget to a cause that has surpassed its goals. Instead, dig a little deeper to find those funds that are in more dire need.

Selected Funds & Organizations in Highly-Impacted Areas

This list is in no way comprehensive, but represent some of the highest-need parts of the state. 

I Want to March and Protest

Marches, rallies, and other protests are frequent, especially in the Metro area. However, the organizations who stage these events often operate and plan independently of each other or as part of a loose network—meaning it can be difficult to keep track of all that is happening and get advanced notice of protests. The aim of the calendar below is to bring at least some of that information together in one place. For each event, you will find date, time, and location information, as well as an event description and the names of sponsoring organizations.

I Want to Be a Legal Observer (ICE Watch)

Legal Observers, also called “Upstanders”, “Constitutional Observers”, “Responders”, or “ICE Watchers” by some organizations, are people who exercise their rights to observe, record, and otherwise document the actions of immigration enforcement officers and other police. There are several organizations that train observers. In Minnesota, the most prominent of these are the Immigrant Defense Network and Monarca.