Searching for “asian american advocacy fund”, with the intent of looking for The Asian American Advocacy Fund, which is an organization in Georgia that activates AAPI voters, brought up references to The Asian American Foundation, aka TAAF, a recent astroturf project to represent the interests of centrist, rich Asian Americans. The Bing AI wrote a summary that is completely wrong, and would, by simply overwhelming the search results, guide the user to TAAF, the wrong organization.
TAAF was started during the Stop Asian Hate wave, when Asian Americans, particularly in spaces like Chinatowns, were facing increased violence, due to Trump and the government blame-shifting COVID 19 to China.
TAAF is pretty slick, well funded, and is paying for research, and publishing reports. It’s all good, but feels pretty “middle class nonprofit”, which is what they are. Also, as explained by Sad Francisco, TAAF was partly guided by people like Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL:
I was looking for some election info, and got diverted to TAAF, so I did a google search to find mentions of Kamala Harris and 2024. The results were under 2 pages, and no strong mentions about the upcoming election.
The real Advocay Fund
The Asian American Advocacy Fund, which is a completely different thing, does community organizing and electoral political education.
Notably, they stand in solidarity with Palestine, and have taken a pro-Harris position.
I haven’t done enough reading to determine if they are worth supporting, but I was looking for organizations that could help flip the state of Georgia over to the Harris side. Georgia has a growing Asian American population. If they lean heavily Democratic or pro-Harris, and are numerous enough, they could be activated to secure a victory for Harris.
The AAAF has an independent expenditure PAC, so if you are already motivated to donate, maybe they’re a good target for your dollars.
Here’s the AAAF PAC info at OpenSecrets. It looks like most of the money was spent on IE for Ralph Warnock, and nothing is being spent on the 2024 Presidential. I don’t know if they are funding a voter registration or voter turnout effort for 2024. If they aren’t… they aren’t going to fulfill my goal.
What are the legit organizations in Georgia, with a political platform, with voter research, and voter turnout operations?
