EXCLUSIVE: DoorDash to Stop Blacklisting Conservative Nonprofits in Employee Giving Program

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The delivery marketplace company DoorDash has begun the process of allowing employees to donate to conservative nonprofits, even if they appear on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map.”

The conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, working with the Catholic financial advisory firm IWP Capital, urged DoorDash to reconsider its reliance on the SPLC, which critics accuse of putting mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan.

DoorDash uses the impact platform Deed to facilitate employees’ charitable giving and volunteering. DoorDash has formally requested that Deed allow DoorDash employees to connect with nonprofits, even if they appear on the SPLC’s map.

“ADF, IWP Capital, we believe this is a great win for shareholders and employees, and we’re very happy with the result,” Noah Nash, legal counsel for ADF’s Corporate Engagement Team, told the Daily Signal in an interview Thursday. “It sets an excellent example for other companies to follow.”

A DoorDash spokesman confirmed that the company had asked Deed to make use of the SPLC filter optional, rather than the default.

Outsourcing Charity Vetting to SPLC

Deed describes itself as a “global workplace giving, volunteering and employee wellbeing platform,” and states that its “Fortune 500 partners support 2 million global nonprofits with ease.”

On its frequently asked questions page, Deed notes that it “offers flexible and customizable screening options” for vetting nonprofits. The page explains that “many of our partners utilize common industry standards, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center hate list and a similar anti-hate list in Canada, for screening purposes.”

Benevity, a similar platform that claims to connect “nearly 1,000 enterprise companies” to a network of 513,000 nonprofits after vetting 2.2 million of them, also uses the SPLC “hate map” to vet nonprofits. Benevity has claimed that the “hate map” filter is an “option” rather than a “default setting.”

“Benevity’s denial that it defaults to the SPLC filter is hard to square with its own history,” Greg Scott, executive vice president at 1792 Exchange, previously told the Daily Signal.

Benevity’s former CEO, Kelly Schmitt, delivered a PowerPoint presentation in 2021 explicitly stating that the company had “vetted” almost “2 million nonprofits,” adding that it used the “Southern Poverty Law Center Hate List.”

Nash, the ADF attorney, told the Daily Signal that ADF’s efforts led to Verizon opting out of using the SPLC “hate map” filter on Benevity. Salesforce has also directed Benevity to stop using the SPLC filter for its employee giving, after pressure from the Heritage Foundation.

“It’s absolutely astounding… how many companies have adopted the use, either directly or through a vendor, to screen out nonprofits that are on the SPLC list,” Nash, the ADF attorney, told the Daily Signal.

“Our goal is to go one by one, knock on doors, and help people understand what the SPLC has done and help root it out,” he said. “It’s like a cancer—we don’t just want you to take out a little bit of it.”

What’s Wrong With the SPLC?

The SPLC has gained renewed scrutiny after a federal grand jury handed down an 11-count indictment, charging the center with wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to conceal money laundering. The indictment claims that the SPLC spent some of its donors’ money to prop up the very hate groups it claims it exists to oppose, including by paying for KKK hoods and reimbursing racists for cross-burning materials.

The SPLC, for its part, claims it was merely funding “informants” who would tip the center off to any potential violence before it happened. Yet the indictment claims that at least some of the money functionally supported the hate groups, enabling the SPLC to fundraise off claims that hate was increasing.

Critics also say the SPLC exaggerates hate by placing mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” with Klan chapters. The map inspired a terrorist attack in 2012.

The SPLC “hate map” includes ADF, alongside other conservative Christian nonprofits, such as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

“Our belief at ADF is, of course, that the SPLC is a religiously discriminatory list,” Nash, the ADF attorney, told the Daily Signal. He warned that employers face “potential legal risk” for using the map, because it may involve treating “religious employees differently.”

The SPLC claims it puts groups on the “hate map” for their statements vilifying others, such as LGBTQ people, not for their religious beliefs, but the criticism often amounts to the same thing. Conservative Christians hold traditional positions on LGBTQ issues that directly conflict with the SPLC’s stances.

“If you take a position on the issues that they disagree with, and you’re outspoken about it, you’ll be on the list,” he noted. “The institutions that are willing to call evil evil and good good, you know, then you land on the SPLC hate list.”