Abundance is meant to be shared.
Every year we donate a portion of all our proceeds to good works around the world.
With your help, we’ve raised over $100,000 for charity.
Made possible by your tuition, we are so deeply excited to support the following organizations in 2022
Eastern Band of Cherokees Community Foundation
The Eastern Band of Cherokees Community Foundation is a growing family of philanthropic funds, source of grants for local causes and partner for donors. EBCCF was founded in 1991 and is led by a local volunteer advisory board that helps build community assets through the creation of permanent endowments, makes grants and leverages leadership – all for the benefit of the Eastern Band of Cherokees. The EBCCF board advises the Eastern Band of Cherokees Community Fund, the unrestricted community grantmaking fund, to support local needs. This competitive grants program is held annually. Because advisory board members live and work on the Qualla Boundary, they can leverage resources to help meet local needs and access opportunities.
OutRight Action International
Since 1990, OutRight Action International has worked alongside LGBTIQ activists and organizations, diplomats and policymakers, and other key partners to advance community-focused solutions to create lasting legal and social transformation. Through advocacy, movement resourcing, and research, they combat the systemic violence, persecution and discrimination that LGBTIQ people face around the world.
World Central Kitchen
World Central Kitchen is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises. They know that food is the fastest way to build a sense of community after a disaster, and work to build resilient food systems with locally led solutions. So far, WCK has served over one million meals to families across Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Moldova, and Hungary.
The Labor Network for Sustainability
The mission of the Labor Network for Sustainability is to be a force for urgent, science-based climate action by bringing the labor and climate movements together to secure an ecologically sustainable and economically just future, where everyone can make a living on a living planet. LNS addresses issues like climate protection, food security, economic justice, corporate accountability, water availability and renewable energy.
Organizations we've supported in past years
RAICES
RAICES promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees. With legal services, social programs, bond assistance, and an advocacy team focused on changing the narrative around immigration in this country, RAICES is operating on the national frontlines of the fight for immigration rights.
Acres of Ancestry
The Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund is a multidisciplinary, cooperative nonprofit ecosystem rooted in Black ecocultural traditions and textile arts to regenerate custodial land ownership, ecological stewardship, and food and fiber economies in the South.
The Young Center
The Young Center is a champion for the rights and best interests of unaccompanied immigrant children, making sure that wherever they land, whether here in the U.S. or in their home country, they are safe.
Amazon Frontlines
Amazon Frontline’s mission to support indigenous peoples in defending their rights to land, life, and cultural survival in the amazon rainforest. They work on concrete initiatives around clean water, solar energy, territorial defense and cultural revival with over 60 communities from the Siona, Secoya, Kofan and Waorani indigenous Nations in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.
Campaign Zero is a nonprofit dedicated to ending police violence in America through the work of analyzing policing practices across the country, researching effective solutions to end police violence, providing technical assistance to organizers leading police accountability campaigns, and developing model legislation.
Indigenous Environmental Network
IEN is an alliance of Indigenous Peoples whose Shared Mission is to Protect the Sacredness of Earth Mother from contamination & exploitation by Respecting and Adhering to Indigenous Knowledge and Natural Law. Established in 1990 within the United States, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect their sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both Indigenous people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
Seeding Sovereignty’s Rapid Response Fund
Seeding Sovereignty’s new Indigenous Impact Rapid Response Initiative works in partnership with Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo communities in New Mexico where need is critical to immediately provide protective masks to communities, distribute healthy food to elders and families, redistribute money to fund essential stipends to those in need, and send Indigenous authored books to quarantined students.
International Indigenous Youth Council
The International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC) was started and led by womxn and two-spirit peoples during the Standing Rock Indigenous Uprising of 2016 while peacefully protecting the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In 2017 they extended the reach of the organization through a chapter model and now have IIYC chapters and members across Turtle Island. They are rooted in the protection of the elements and have been brought together and continue to be guided by the prayer for the water. They aspire to inspire young individuals to build bridges of solidarity and become leaders of their communities.
NDN Collective’s Covid-19 Response Project
The NDN Collective’s mission is to build the collective power of Indigenous Peoples, communities, and Nations to exercise our inherent right to self-determination, while fostering a world that is built on a foundation of justice and equity for all people and the planet. The NDN Collective’s COVID-19 Response Project is designed to provide immediate relief to some of the most underserved communities in the country. NDN’s intent is to quickly distribute resources to frontline organizations, Tribes and individuals to provide gap services during this health crisis, and to artists and entrepreneurs who have suffered the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BeLoved Asheville
BeLoved Asheville’s Disaster Response is a local organization that is dedicated to providing organized mutual aid for our mountain neighbors – especially those most at risk: elders, people on the streets and living in poverty and the African American and Latinx communities. Their three-prong focus is resourcing people who are most vulnerable for virus prevention and survival, informing and educating the community, and advocating for public policies that mitigate risk and aid communities most impacted by COVID-19.
Feeding America
The Feeding America network is the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. Together with individuals, charities, businesses and government Feeding America works to end Hunger. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Feeding America is committed to serving communities and individuals facing hunger across America, wherever they are. Every dollar raised from the COVID-19 response fund will be used to get food and funds to local food banks across the U.S.
United Plant Savers
United Plant Savers’ mission is to protect native medicinal plants of the United States and Canada and their native habitat while ensuring an abundant renewable supply of medicinal plants for generations to come. Where once herbal enterprises were few and far between, it is now a competitive marketplace which has increased the demand on wild medicinal plant resources. Furthermore, other countries with an uninterrupted tradition of herbalism are experiencing a severe shortage of medicinal plants and look to the North American continent for supplying these herbs. This increased usage along with habitat destruction is causing an ever-increasing shortage of wild plant resources, including some of our most treasured medicinal species. The work of United Plant Savers involves research, education and conservation of native medicinal plants and their habitats.
Lead 2 Life
Lead to Life is transforming weapons into shovels for tree planting ceremonies at sites that have been impacted by violence or carry spiritual significance across Atlanta (occupied lands of the Cherokee and Creek people) and Oakland (occupied lands of the Ohlone people). The initiative collects used weapons and, in partnership with local artists and metalsmiths, transforms them into shovels which are then used in ceremonial plantings of culturally significant sacred tree species to offer a physical regenerative space for communities to memorialize loved ones, and lands, lost to violence.
Flora y Tierra
Flora y Tierra is an autonomous community space honoring earth and ancestors. Prioritizing QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous folks and People of Color) Flora Y Tierra, based in Long Beach, CA (occupied Tongva land), is a space to gather, heal, organize and empower one another. Flora y Tierra honors our ancestors’ trauma and resilience as we move forward to deconstruct the many systems of oppression. Run by Blanca Diaz (Mama Maiz), Flora y Tierra operates also as a venue for community skills classes on topics including self-defense and medicinal herbs and mushrooms. Flora y Tierra honors earth and sky. They protect, restore and respect all that gives us life.
Miriam Rose Foundation
The Miriam Rose Foundation is a not-for-profit organization working to empower Indigenous youth through education, art, culture and opportunity. Dr. Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr (AO) is an Aboriginal elder from Nauiyu (Daly River), who is a renowned artist, activist, writer, teacher and public speaker. In 1988, Miriam presented a paper entitled Dadirri – Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Still Awareness at conference. This beautifully concise explanation of the spiritual dimension of Aboriginal culture has since been utilized by people working in diverse settings and in private meditations all over the globe. In 2013, Miriam established the Miriam Rose Foundation to continue her work advocating for experiences that allow Indigenous youth to learn to ‘walk in two worlds’ – Aboriginal culture and mainstream Western culture. The Foundation produces resources to help spread the message of dadirri and create opportunities for people to learn about it from Miriam and her mob in their Country (Nauiyu, Daly River, Northen Territory, Australia).
Cherokee Preservation Foundation
The Cherokee Preservation Foundation’s mission is to preserve their native culture, protect and enhance their natural environment, and create appropriate and diverse economic opportunities in order to improve the quality of life for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and their neighbors in western North Carolina.
Examples of work where they are involved in include Cherokee language revitalization, perpetuation of Cherokee artistic traditions, leadership development programs for EBCI tribal members, support of entrepreneurship to diversify the regional economy, connecting rural schools with broadband and helping teachers learn and embrace technology-based learning tools, and renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.
Museum of the Cherokee Indian
A community staple and bastion of education in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Cherokee county, The Museum of the Cherokee Indian’s mission is to preserve and perpetuate the history, culture, and stories of the Cherokee people. The museum funds a variety of ongoing Cherokee cultural, artistic and educational endeavors, including the Cherokee Voices Festival and The Cherokee Heritage trails, where certified members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians provide tours of their ancestral Cherokee homeland helping to reclaim a landscape full of original stories, meaning and legends.
With the help of our students, we are honored to be supporting this hub of learning and education by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the First Peoples of these beautiful mountains we call home.
Together Rising
Whether it’s pulling children out of the sea outside the refugee camps in Greece, helping abandoned kids on the streets in Indianapolis, establishing the first opioid recovery home for pregnant teens in New Hampshire, building a maternal health wing in Port-au-Prince, providing a single mother access to breast cancer treatment, or keeping a foster family’s heat on in Texas — Together Rising identifies what is breaking the hearts of our givers as they look around their world and their community, and then they connect our givers’ generosity with the people and organizations who are effectively addressing that critical need. Most of Together Rising’s funds are raised through LOVE FLASH MOBS, time-limited fundraisers that have revolutionized crowd-sourced online giving, with thousands of strangers giving a maximum of $25 to meet a particular need in a matter of hours. Through these Love Flash Mobs, they are proving that small gifts can change the world in revolutionary ways.
Rites of Passage Journeys
Rites of Passage Journeys fosters self-discovery, community belonging and connection with the natural world in youth, adults and elders. Through contemporary rite of passage experiences and education, they initiate soulful leaders for the next generation, including epic journeys into nature, self and community for LGBTQ2IA+, Gender Diverse, Queer & Trans Youth. Rites of Passage also provide training, mentorship and support for schools, organizations, houses of worship and individual leaders.
Southerners on New Ground
SONG is a home for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South. We build, sustain, and connect a southern regional base of LBGTQ people in order to transform the region through strategic projects and campaigns developed in response to the current conditions in our communities. SONG builds this movement through leadership development, intersectional analysis, and organizing.