Lyft riders donate $2 million to ACLU from rounding up fares

Image: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been taking on the Trump administration since election day, but when Trump first signed his travel ban on Muslim immigrants coming to the U.S. last January, donations to the legal nonprofit took off. 

Turns out, riders hailing a Lyft helped give the ACLU a financial bump starting around that time, too. 

As part of an effort from within the ride-hailing app, Lyft has brought in $2 million to the ACLU in the past year and a half. Lyft’s “Round Up & Donate” program is an opt-in donation tool that takes the remaining, say, 12 cents from your $4.88 shared ride and gives it to a charity group of your choice. Other than the ACLU, participating charities include the World Wildlife Fund, Black Girls Code, the Human Rights Campaign, the United Service Organizations (USO), and more.

Those pennies add up, and $2 million from rides went to supporting immigration and voting rights.

As Mike Masserman, head of social impact at Lyft, said during a phone call with Mashable, “We felt the ACLU was an important partner. Our passengers certainly agreed.”

Back in 2017, Lyft also pledged a $1 million donation over the next four years to the ACLU. Uber also jumped in on the cause with a $3 million legal defense fund for drivers and their families affected by the ban, which has been through several iterations, the third of which was upheld by the Supreme Court in June. Uber’s $3 million pledge came during the disastrous #DeleteUber movement, which had started when its drivers had picked up passengers during a travel ban strike at JFK International Airport. 

ACLU director of strategic partnerships Danielle Silber said in a phone call that the money is being put to work. The ACLU has 330 lawyers taking on thousands of lawyers in the Trump administration. The ACLU has seen a huge bump in members, growing from 400,000 to 1.84 million in the span of 15 months after the presidential election.

The Lyft donation program has been a sustainable and growing effort to support immigration rights, criminal justice reform, voting rights, and more.

“It’s a testament to how people across the country are still really interested in finding any way they can to give change to make change,” Silber said. 

Immediately following the Muslim ban, celebrities spurred a massive donation campaign to the civil liberties group, but that doesn’t mean the donations and rallies have since dried up. A report out this week from corporate giving platform Benevity found that the ACLU was in 86th place in 2015 as a cause corporate workers and companies donate to. This year it’s second after Planned Parenthood.

“What gives me a tremendous amount of hope is that people are definitely using their financial resources to take a stand,” Silber said. “But people are also taking action.”

To round up your fare to your chosen cause you can opt in through the Lyft app. A “donate” tab in the main menu opens a list of available charities near you. 

Round up.