Protecting democracy - these five organizations are worth every euro

In February 2024, millions of citizens in Germany took to the streets to stand up against radicalism and for an open society. Behind the windows of Berlin's government district, politicians and experts are simultaneously wrestling with sustainable energy supply, responsible supply chains, and a foreign policy oriented towards human rights. And in the courthouses, people affected by hate on the internet are winning their cases.

Behind these changes is a new generation of civil society organizations, most of which are only a few years old and often work very differently from traditional NGOs, associations, and clubs.

Most of them gain influence because they attract many active participants. However, they are also so independent and effective because they finance themselves smartly, and because they find many committed people asking how they can protect our democracy beyond demonstrations - including with their money.

In this article, we highlight five particularly effective organizations that you can fund now to have a concrete impact on a society that solves future challenges democratically, rather than with radical slogans.

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📚 Table of Contents

1. Politics and private money - why this connection is not a problem, but an opportunity

2. Five effective organizations committed to a democratic future

3. Independence through diverse funding sources

Politics and private money - why this connection is not a problem, but an opportunity

In Germany, the combination of politics and private money is usually perceived as a problem. In fact, private donations, for example to political parties, are regulated very transparently and play a far smaller role compared to state party funding than in the US or UK. Transparency is also built into the new generation of civil society organizations from the ground up: they have all established and published rules for themselves. And some are additionally funded by the public sector. However, they could not work independently without private donations. This is because state funding is often volatile, partly because it depends on (party) political constellations and preferences.

Philipp Husemann, founder and managing director of the Berlin-based organization JoinPolitics, is also familiar with this problem: "You can easily lose your funding from one day to the next and suddenly have to save dozens of jobs instead of focusing fully on your impact." HateAid, an association that works against hate speech on the internet, also had a painful experience with this volatility in 2023, after a 600,000€ grant that had been firmly planned for 2024 and 2025 was cut as part of budget reductions. The consequence: many of the valuable services and offers of the organization, which campaigns against hate online, simply cannot be continued. 

Private donations therefore offer organizations like HateAid and JoinPolitics a major opportunity to continue their important work independently of public funding.

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Five effective organizations committed to a democratic future

Correctiv

Correctiv is a non-profit investigative news organization in Germany dedicated to independent reporting and exposing grievances in various societal areas. Through their high-quality investigative work, they create transparency, independent of commercial interests.

We believe the work of Correctiv is essential for a democratic future. They contribute to an informed public that is capable of making decisions and holding the government and other power structures accountable.

GermanZero

GermanZero campaigns for a rapid and decisive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to achieve Germany's goal of climate neutrality by 2035, thereby creating a sustainable foundation for life. To do this, they work closely with well-founded scientists and actively lobby for political change.

We support GermanZero's holistic approach to effectively tackling the challenges of climate change. As a pioneer, they have also been a long-standing member of bcause.

The Center for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP)

Center for Feminist Foreign Policy advocates for a gender-equitable and feminist formulation of international foreign policy by integrating gender perspectives and analyses into global policy decisions. It is one of the few organizations to focus exclusively on feminist perspectives in foreign policy.

In our view, raising awareness of gender-specific political challenges is not only an essential step towards a democratic future, but can also have long-term positive effects on the promotion of human rights worldwide.

HateAid

HateAid is a non-profit independent organization that offers help and support to victims of online hate and cyberbullying by providing legal, psychological, and technical advice, as well as crisis intervention. They carry out important educational work, raise awareness of grievances, and demand crucial protective measures at the political level.

We find the work of HateAid important and worthy of support because in a tolerant and respectful society, the digital world should also be a space where everyone can express their opinion freely, without fearing hate and bullying.

Brand New Bundestag (BNB)

Brand New Bundestag is an independent political initiative advocating for progressive ideas, transparency, and reforms in the German parliament to revitalize it and better address the needs of citizens. They promote the participation of young people in politics and contribute to a vibrant and inclusive democracy.

In our opinion, the Brand New Bundestag initiative makes an important democratic contribution by strengthening the representation of societal interests at the political level.

Achieving more together

💡 Did you know: You can support these and other organizations quite easily on bcause. Discover donation opportunities now.

❓ Don't want to choose? Here you can find our Recommendation List "Democracy 2.0." Just like a fund, your donation is automatically and equally distributed to the individual organizations.

Independence through diverse funding sources

Even though private donations represent a central pillar of support for non-profit organizations, it is usually precisely the mixture of major donations, small donations, and public grants and contracts that ensures they are not dependent on a single funding source and therefore open to influence. For this reason, some organizations are also working on private financing beyond donations. Litigation funds to pre-finance court cases would be a way for organizations like HateAid to shoulder the costs of many more proceedings and then, from the successful cases, not only reward investors in the fund but also strengthen their organization. Contracts for private companies could become an important pillar of funding for expert organizations like GermanZero. In this way, donation-dependent organizations would turn into resilient and scalable social enterprises - which nevertheless, or precisely because of this, behave in a particularly transparent manner and face public discussion.

About the Author: Helena is Sales & Cooperations Manager at bcause and, in her daily work, deals mainly with organizations and social enterprises as well as curated recommendations. From close coordination and the perspective of a multitude of impactful initiatives, she derives best practices on impact, organizational work, and financing options. She completed her studies in Communication Sciences and Entrepreneurship and, as a blog author, interface with the content marketing team at bcause.