Non-profit

MPower Change

Website:

mpowerchange.org

Formation:

2016

Type:

Advocacy Group

Project of:

NEO Philanthropy

Founders:

Linda Sarsour

Mark Crain

Dustin Craun

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MPower Change is a left-of-center advocacy project of NEO Philanthropy 1 focusing on American Muslims co-founded by controversial activist Linda Sarsour, who remains the group’s executive director as of December 2024. 2

MPower Action is the advocacy arm of MPower Change. 3

From 2019 through 2023, the group received $300,000 from the Ford Foundation. 4

Background

MPower Change started in January 2016 in New York. It was founded by Linda Sarsour, Mark Crain, and Dustin Craun. 2  

Advocacy

Trump Administration Immigration Policies

In February 2017, MPower Change joined with other groups to protest then-President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending the refugee program and imposing a travel ban from seven countries. The group called the executive orders a “Muslim ban” and called the actions illegal and unconstitutional. 5

In April 2021, MPower Change released a statement denouncing President Joe Biden for not increasing the refugee cap from the levels set by former President Donald Trump, which the group called “historically low.” The group called Biden’s decision a “moral disaster” and said it would keep organizing until the United States is a country that “explicitly welcomes immigrants and refugees.” 6

National Muslim Voter Registration Day

In August 2020, MPower Change launched the #MyMuslimVote campaign to promote a nationwide internet-based voter registration drive to encourage Muslims to register to vote. The group’s website also provided resources for local activists to organize their communities. MPower Change executive director Linda Sarsour called on Muslims to defeat then-President Donald Trump to prevent him from appointing more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) assisted in the effort. 7

In September 2023, MPower Change organizing director Ishraq Ali wrote an op-ed urging Muslims to register to vote and to vote. He lamented the drop in turnout in the 2022 midterm elections, claiming that Muslim voters may have seen their job as finished when President Donald Trump lost reelection in 2020. 8

United Against Hate

In August 2020, MPower Change joined a campaign led by anti-Israel group IfNotNow called United Against Hate which sought to defeat conservatives and Republicans in 2020. The campaign accused “far-right extremists in government, media, law enforcement, business, and militia group” of oppressing “Jews, Muslims, Black folks, [and] Latinx people. They have tried to ban us, deport us, cage us, blame us for the inequality and injustice they profit from, scapegoat.” 9

Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

In September 2021, MPower Change joined other left-of-center groups in holding a virtual and in-person rally at the White House to call for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp which held captured terrorists since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The group called the camp “institutionalized Islamophobic violence.” 10

Linda Sarsour GEICO Speech Cancellation

In April 2022, GEICO insurance company originally invited MPower Change executive director Linda Sarsour to speak at an event honoring Middle Eastern and Northern African Heritage Month. After Jewish groups criticized Sarsour for using antisemitic language and tropes while delegitimizing Israel, GEICO canceled her appearance. MPower Change attacked GEICO for “attacking a Muslim leader during Ramadan” and handing “a win to the forces of anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Arab racism.” 11

Anti-Capitalism

In September 2023, the Capital Research Center published a report on the Ford Foundation which reported on the foundation’s grants to MPower Change. The report featured an anti-capitalist meme featured on MPower Change’s homepage which showed a woman with a clenched fist held high holding a homemade sign which said, “Capitalism Kills Workers: Rise-Up.” 12

Palestinian Nationalism

Support For Tech Protests of Israel

In March 2020, MPower Change joined with other anti-Israel groups to call on Microsoft to divest from the Israeli company AnyVision, accusing the company of working with the Israeli government to use its facial recognition technology to surveil Palestinians. Microsoft eventually agreed to divest from the company. MPower Change put out a statement applauding the decision and criticized the U.S. and other governments for using technology such as facial recognition to “monitor, surveil, and further criminalize Black, brown, immigrant, Palestinian, and Muslim communities.” 13

In July 2023, MPower Change joined with other anti-Israel groups to support a protest by Amazon and Alphabet workers which urged the two companies cancel Project Nimbus, which offered cloud services to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The workers and activists claimed that the cloud services allowed the Israeli government to spy on Palestinians. The project also provided data support to the Israel Land Authority, which allegedly provides supports for Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. 14

Antisemitism

In November 2023, after the October 2023 attacks on Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas which killed around 1,400 Israelis and 31 Americans, MPower Change’s executive director Linda Sarsour spoke at an anti-Israel rally which called for the destruction of the Jewish state. The rally featured chants that critics argue support terrorism and antisemitism including “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “there is only one solution: intifada revolution.” 15

A reporter for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal wrote that during the rally, Sarsour “warn[ed] through a megaphone that a cabal of wily Jews has conspired to post ‘their little posters’ (of kidnapped Israeli civilians) across the city, seeking to entice people to rip them down.” The reporter also claimed that Sarsour made remarks to the effect that “while many onlookers might look like ‘ordinary people,’ she says, the Jews have ‘their little people all around the city,’ surveilling others.” 16

March For Gaza

In January 2024, MPower Change endorsed the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine- and International ANSWER-organized March on Washington for Gaza. Before the march, the groups endorsing the march sent a letter to President Joe Biden calling for “a complete and verifiable ceasefire, the release of all hostages in Gaza and political prisoners in Israel, the termination of unconditional U.S. financial and diplomatic support for the Israeli government, holding Israeli officials accountable for the Gaza genocide, and the initiation of credible negotiations for a just and enduring peace by ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” 17

Opposition To Proposed Meta Hate Speech Changes

In February 2024, MPower Change joined with anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace and 7amleh to oppose a proposed change by social media company Meta (owner of Facebook) that would expand the circumstances in which the word “Zionist,” referring to the political ideology that the Jewish people should make a homeland for themselves in the Biblical Promised Land, would be considered “hate speech” and banned on their platforms. Meta wanted to ban the use of the word “Zionist” when used explicitly as a proxy for Jews and Israelis in general and not just used in a political context. MPower Change and its allies were concerned that the new policy would be used to censor Palestinian nationalist voices. 18

Support For Pro-Terrorism Conference

In May 2024, the Anti-Defamation League reported that MPower Change endorsed the “People’s Conference for Palestine” at which numerous speakers expressed their support for terrorism and terrorist groups, called for the destruction of the State of Israel, and employed numerous antisemitic rhetorical tropes. 19

Palestinian Refugee Status

In July 2024, MPower Change endorsed a campaign led by 70 Democratic members of Congress which called on the Biden administration to admit Palestinians as refugees to the United States in the wake of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The group joined with the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in endorsing the letter. The letter called on the U.S. government to provide a Priority-2 designation, which would enable Palestinian Americans to help get their family members to the U.S. or provide relief for them. 20

Funding

MPower Change is a project of NEO Philanthropy, a center-left funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit, and not an IRS-recognized nonprofit. As such, donations to MPower Change go to NEO Philanthropy, its fiscal sponsor. 1

MPower Change has a history of accepting funds from left-of-center organizations. The organization uses the liberal fundraising service ActBlue Charities to accept donations. 21

Proteus Fund, a left-of-center funder, has fundraised for MPower Change through its RISE Together Fund. The Fund gave $25,000 in 2017 for MPower Change’s operations. 22 In the same year, Proteus contributed $15,000 through the Emergent Fund program. 23

Also in 2017, D.C.-area restaurant chain Busboys and Poets donated a part of its revenue to MPower Change. 24 The grantmaking organization Pillars Fund lists MPower Change as part of their donor network. 25

From 2019 through 2023, the group received $300,000 from the Ford Foundation. 4 Other major left-wing philanthropies contributing to MPower Change include Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, 26 the MacArthur Foundation, 1 and George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society. 27

Leadership

Linda Sarsour is a co-founder and executive director of MPower Change. 2 A controversial Palestinian-American activist with a history of antisemitic comments, Sarsour is perhaps best known as a former co-chair of the Women’s March organization that protested the first administration of then-President Donald Trump. 28

References

  1. “John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Return of a Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2022, Part XV Line 3 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237093598/202313179349104401/IRS990PF
  2. “Our Team.” MPower Change. Accessed December 11, 2024. https://www.mpowerchange.org/team.
  3. “MPower Action.” MPower Action. Accessed December 11, 2024. https://www.mpoweraction.org/.
  4. “Grants Database.” Ford Foundation. Accessed December 2, 2024. https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/?search=mpower.
  5.  “Tonight: Vigil at JFK Airport to Protest Trump’s Executive Orders Targeting Muslims and Refugees.” NYCLU, February 1, 2017. https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/tonight-vigil-jfk-airport-protest-trumps-executive-orders-targeting-muslims-and.
  6. “MPower Change Executive Director and Co-Founder Linda Sarsour Releases Statement on Biden Breaking His Promise to End Trump’s Openly Xenophobic Refugee Cap.” Common Dreams, April 16, 2021. https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2021/04/16/mpower-change-executive-director-and-co-founder-linda-sarsour-releases-statement
  7. Elassar, Alaa. “American Muslim Groups Rally Thousands to Get Political on National Muslim Voter Registration Day.” CNN, August 28, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/politics/national-muslim-voter-registration-day-cair-mpower-change-trnd/index.html.
  8. Ali, Ishraq. “Why Us Muslims Must Register to Vote.” The New Arab, September 13, 2023. https://www.newarab.com/opinion/why-us-muslims-must-register-vote?amp
  9. Oster, Marcy. “5 Progressive Jewish Groups Join New Initiative to Defeat Trump, Extremism.” The Jerusalem Post , August 25, 2020. https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/5-progressive-jewish-groups-join-new-initiative-to-defeat-trump-extremism-639829.
  10. Stancil, Kenny. “20 Years after Start of ‘War on Terror’, Groups Demand Closure of Gitmo ‘Once and for All.’” Common Dreams, September 20, 2021. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/20/20-years-after-start-war-terror-groups-demand-closure-gitmo-once-and-all.
  11. Wilson, Jim. “Geico Cancels Event Where Linda Sarsour Was Supposed to Speak.” HRD America, April 11, 2022. https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/diversity-inclusion/geico-cancels-event-where-linda-sarsour-was-supposed-to-speak/402198.
  12. Braun, Ken. “The Ford Foundation’s Ugly, Warped View of America: <br>megaphones and Militancy.” Capital Research Center, September 7, 2023. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-ford-foundations-ugly-warped-view-of-america-part-1/.
  13. “Microsoft Drops AnyVision – #dropanyvision Campaign Celebrates.” JVP, March 28, 2020. https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2020/03/28/dropanyvision-win/.
  14. Wilkins, Brett. “Amazon, Alphabet Workers Protest Companies’ Complicity in Israeli Apartheid.” Common Dreams, July 26, 2023. https://www.commondreams.org/news/no-tech-for-apartheid.
  15.  “Stop and Think: Anti-Israel Chants and What They Mean.” ADL, November 2, 2023. https://www.adl.org/resources/article/stop-and-think-anti-israel-chants-and-what-they-mean.
  16. Lyons, N.S. “The Foundation of American Folly.” City Journal, Spring 2024. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-foundation-of-american-folly.
  17. Allison, Ismail. “March on Washington for Gaza Supporters Send Letter with Demands to President Biden.” CAIR, January 12, 2024. https://www.cair.com/press_releases/march-on-washington-for-gaza-supporters-send-letter-with-demands-to-president-biden/.
  18.  Paul, Kari, and Johana Bhuiyan. “Meta’s Review of Hate Speech Policy Sparks Concern of Further Censorship of pro-Palestinian Content.” The Guardian, February 9, 2024. https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/09/meta-hate-speech-policy-zionist-censorship-pro-palestine-content.
  19.  “‘fight until Victory’: Speakers & Guests Declare Full Support for Terrorism at ‘People’s Conference for Palestine.’” ADL, May 31, 2024. https://www.adl.org/resources/article/fight-until-victory-speakers-guests-declare-full-support-terrorism-peoples.
  20. Arria, Michael. “Inside the Congressional Effort to Provide Palestinians with Refugee Status.” Mondoweiss, July 4, 2024. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/inside-the-congressional-effort-to-provide-palestinians-with-refugee-status/.
  21. “I Just Supported MPower Change.” ActBlue. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/mpower.
  22. #NoMuslimBanEver.” Proteus Fund. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.proteusfund.org/rtf/nomuslimbanever/.
  23. “NEO Philanthropy.” Proteus Fund. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.proteusfund.org/grant/neophilanthropy-5/.
  24. “MPower Love to MPower Change.” Busboys and Poets. February 9, 2017. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.busboysandpoets.com/mpower-love-to-mpower-change/.
  25. “MPower Change.” PIllars Fund. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://pillarsfund.org/grants/our-portfolio/mpower-change/.
  26. Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2020, Schedule I https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/821517696/202102749349300410/IRS990ScheduleI
  27. “Awarded Grants – NEO Philanthropy, Inc.” Open Society Foundations. Accessed December 11, 2024. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/past?filter_keyword=mpower+change&grant_id=OR2022-86758
  28. Sales, Ben. “Why Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour is controversial.” The Times of Israel. May 3, 2017. Accessed February 15, 2018. https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-palestinian-american-activist-linda-sarsour-is-controversial/
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