Please take a minute to read through this update.

We are just days from a make-or-break deadline.

How things go over the next few days will directly impact how aggressive Public
Citizen can be over the next twelve months.

That includes all our work to confront authoritarianism, protect voting rights,
ensure election integrity, and defend democracy as our country faces what may
well be the most consequential election in its history.

Why?

Because Public Citizen’s fiscal year ends at midnight this Saturday, September
30. We know the phrase “fiscal year ends at midnight” is no “Ask not what your
country can do for you ...” This is an absolutely pivotal moment nonetheless.

Like many nonprofits, Public Citizen operates on what accountants call a fiscal year , which is different from the calendar year for reasons related to bookkeeping,
taxes, etc. What it means, in a nutshell, is that we are about to close the
books on one year and begin the next.

Historically, then, the last few days of September have been rivaled only by the
last few days of December when it comes to the online donations that are
essential to powering the work you and Public Citizen do together.

And remember, we neither seek nor accept “help” from Big Business and Uncle Sam
— our independence and integrity just aren’t for sale. So, everything this
shared project called Public Citizen gets done is possible thanks to folks like
you chipping in what they can at junctures like this.

But we are facing some hard realities this time around:

* Understandably, many people have concentrated their giving on critical races
for national, state, and local office.

* Everyday Americans are under intense financial pressure and uncertainty
caused by the insatiable greed, myopic mismanagement, rank profiteering, and
political interference of Big Business.

* And you’re no doubt getting emails from other organizations noting September
30 as a deadline for one reason or another. (Perhaps with gimmicks like
ALL-CAPS subject lines, garish formatting, gratuitous graphics, misleading
“membership status” alerts, and more.)

So if this is not a good time for a donation to Public Citizen, we get it.

If you are able to make a contribution, please donate today. Anything you can
chip in — $5 or $25, $50 or $100, $500 or even more — will make a difference.
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Or join our popular Monthly Giving program to help make sure we have the
baseline financial strength it takes to confront corporate power and government
inaction day after day after day.
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Thank you for reading this.

Thank you for anything you can chip in [[link removed]] .

And thank you for everything you do as part of Public Citizen.

It really does matter.

- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen


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