“Corporations are the infants of our society—they know very little except how to grow (though they're very good at that), and they howl when you set limits. Socializing them is the work of politics. It's about time we took it up again.”
- Bill McKibben
Corporate Accountability
The Corporate Accountability Program seeks to strengthen organizations that counter the growing power of corporations to shape our lives as consumers, workers, and citizens of an endangered planet. We believe democracy is endangered when too much power resides in the hands of a few. We also emphasize efforts to train a new generation of activists in the skills required to analyze and change corporate behavior.
Representative Corporate Accountability Grants
Americans for Financial Reform: To strengthen coordination among consumer advocates, academics, community organization, unions and other constituencies, to shape a financial system that serves the public interest.
The American Prospect: To produce a special report within the monthly magazine titled "Decent Work, Living Wages," focused on government's power to improve the conditions of work.
Center for Investigative Reporting: To support research and development of a series of articles and a book on corporate accountability and climate change.
Demos: To support policy and advocacy work on financial reform and alternative banking structures.
Democracy Now!: To support the coverage of financial, labor and corporate accountability issues.
Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy: To support LAANE's leadership role in the Coalition on Clean and Safe Ports, an effort to improve air quality and working conditions for truckers in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach.
National Employment Law Project (NELP): To support campaigns to lift low-wage workers out of poverty; improve enforcement of workplace standards; and promote national and local policies that create and maintain good jobs.
National People's Action: To support a campaign to set new standards for financial institutions to act as responsible corporate citizens in the communities they serve.
Partnership for Working Families: To support an expanding network of "action/think tanks" in metro areas, and replicable campaigns that challenge corporate power by building strong alliances among unions, community, environmental and faith-based organizations.
Responsible Endowments Coalition: To form committees on investor responsibility at campuses nation-wide, to promote shareholder engagement and the responsible investment of approximately $300 billion in college and university endowments.