Propllr Gives Back 2023

As we close out 2023, the Propllr team is glad to say it’s time once again for Propllr Gives Back. 

Each year, I’m proud Propllr doubles the impact of Propllrhead contributions to a variety of organizations. 

The nonprofits our team writes about below all deliver amazing, vital work throughout the US and beyond. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to learn about the groups we supported this year. And if you’re able, perhaps you’ll join us in this season of giving and make a donation, too.

Happy holidays!

Josh and the Propllr Team

Connor Bradshaw

The death of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer shook me. He was one of many Palestinian voices that I regularly followed on social media for on-the-ground updates in Palestine. And he’s just one of the more than 17,000 Palestinians who have lost their lives in this ongoing conflict. Doctors Without Borders deploys medical personnel to those in dire need of it. It offers a potential lifeline to the overburdened health systems – like Gaza’s – that provide care amid widespread death and destruction.

Myles Hudson

Over a year after Dobbs, the Southeast is still an abortion desert, and Georgia (my home state) has a six-week abortion ban that disproportionately impacts Black people. ARC Southeast is a Black-led, Atlanta-based abortion fund that gives folks the logistical and financial support they need to receive reproductive care.

Josh Inglis

Anti-semitism is moving out of the shadows at an alarming rate, so this year as part of Propllr Gives Back I am supporting the Anti-Defamation League’s mission “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” A couple interesting angles as it relates to our being in Chicago and doing PR? The ADL was founded here in the 1910s by attorney Sigmund Livingston, and among the results of his early work was getting the Associated Press, a major media outlet, to promise it would not "bring racial or religious prejudice into (its) reports."

Clay Kuntz

I'm happy to donate to Chicago House again this year. They help homeless queer youth – who have some of the highest homeless rates – find housing, employment, and healthcare. The money is especially needed right now when many states are passing homophobic and transphobic laws. Chicago House helps LGBTQ+ individuals get back on their feet.

Brenna Lemieux

I’m supporting the Palestinian Children Relief Fund, a humanitarian organization that provides food, clean water, healthcare, and other resources to Palestinian children and the Friendship Food Center, a food bank that feeds my neighbors.

Jack McHugh

I’m supporting the Alzheimer’s Association. Alzheimer's has impacted my family and so many other people close to me. It's an especially tough way to go – I once heard someone say about the disease's degenerative effects, "It's like dying before you're actually dead." I hope there's a future where people suffering from it, and their caregivers, can more easily find support and peace.

Katie O’Shea

I'm donating this year to UNICEF and ProPublica. I wanted to support UNICEF because of the several conflicts around the world that are negatively affecting children. I also wanted to support ProPublica for a second year in a row because great investigative journalism is always needed – and always needs support.

Dave Welch

This year I donated to Black Warrior Review in addition to a recurring donation to my local NPR affiliate. I edited Black Warrior Review during graduate school – they publish wonderful (and wonderfully wild) work and give a platform to many talented, underseen writers. As more and more literary journals lose institutional funding – and many close altogether, reducing opportunities for authors to publish in print – I wanted to help BWR have a bit more of a cushion. As to NPR: in our home, we have a radio turned on and tuned to WBEZ nearly nonstop. Only seems right to support the organization.

As a company, Propllr is also proud to support the following organizations doing important work in our community and around the world:

• 904ward
• ACLU
• American Theater Northwest
• DuPage PADS
• Good Counsel
• Greater Chicago Food Depository
• Hephzibah Children’s Association
• Housing Forward
• Instituto del Progreso Latino
• Loaves and Fishes
• Media Matters
• Metropolitan Family Services
• Planned Parenthood of Illinois
• ProPublica
• Team Brightside
• TechRise
• WBEZ
• Wikipedia