We Are America's Partner in Conservation

American's care deeply about saving land. Year after year, people across the country vote to protect the places where they live, work and play. And year after year, they ask us to save these places. From Northeast to Southwest, we work with our partners, to conserve land, train leaders and invest in conservation at home. From our headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and our field offices across the country, we've saved land in all 50 states—more than 6.5 million acres of wild havens, working lands, vibrant communities and more.

The Conservation Fund started in 1985 as a smart solution to an old problem: how to balance environmental and economic goals. For decades, environmentalists and business or development leaders had been at odds, with each group favoring its own use of the landscape. Conservationist Pat Noonan, former head of The Nature Conservancy, decided to found a small, savvy nonprofit organization that would bring economics and the environment together—providing a win for all of America.

That idea became the Fund—a business of conservation, staffed by a skilled team with real estate, finance, legal, investment and science expertise. Rather than pursue our own conservation agenda and membership, we partner with community, government and corporate organizations—fulfilling their conservation priorities. Everything we do has environmental and economic value, from protecting "working" forests and recreation destinations that provide local revenue to helping communities grow thoughtfully.

Since its founding in 1951, AWI has sought to alleviate the suffering inflicted on animals by people. In the organization's early years, our particular emphasis was on the desperate needs of animals used for experimentation. In the decades that followed, we expanded the scope of our work to address many other areas of animal suffering.

Today, one of our greatest areas of emphasis is cruel animal factories, which raise and slaughter pigs, cows, chickens and other animals. The biggest are in our country, and they are expanding worldwide.
Another major AWI effort is our quest to end the torture inflicted on furbearing animals by steel jaw leghold traps and wire snares. AWI continues its work to protect animals in laboratories including promotion of development of non-animal testing methods and prevention of painful experiments on animals by high school students. Representatives of AWI regularly attend meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora to fight for protection of threatened and endangered species. Similarly, we attend meetings of the International Whaling Commission to preserve the ban on commercial whaling, and we work to protect all marine life against the proliferation of human-generated ocean noise including active sonar and seismic air guns.

AWI works to minimize the impacts of all human actions detrimental to endangered species, including the destruction of natural forests containing ancient trees, and pollution of the oceans destroying every kind of marine life.

Changing perspectives. Changing lives.
For more than 100 years, Big Brothers Big Sisters has operated under the belief that inherent in every child is the ability to succeed and thrive in life. As the nation’s largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, Big Brothers Big Sisters makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers (“Bigs”) and children (“Littles”), ages 6 through 18, in communities across the country. We develop positive relationships that have a direct and lasting effect on the lives of young people.

The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

These rights include:

* Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.

* Your right to equal protection under the law - protection against unlawful discrimination.

* Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.

* Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.

The ACLU also works to extend rights to segments of our population that have traditionally been denied their rights, including people of color; women; lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people; prisoners; and people with disabilities.

If the rights of society's most vulnerable members are denied, everybody's rights are imperiled. Support the ACLU today.