Pro Publica Inc.

“Pro publica has its form 990 prepared by an outside accounting firm and has established the following review process to ensure that the information reported is complete and accurate. When the form 990 has been prepared, reviewed by the president and director of finance & human resources and is ready to be filed with the internal revenue service, it's submitted electronically to members of pro publica's governing body for any comments prior to its submission. The governing body is provided with at least one week to review the prepared form 990 and provide their comments. Any comments are then grouped, summarized and provided to the audit committee for their review. Each issue is documented and addressed until the return is finalized and approved for filing.”

“Pro publica has a conflict of interest policy, which applies to all board members, officers, and employees. Each of the board members and officers are required sign to a conflict of interest disclosure statement annually. An interested person must disclose as soon as practicable to the secretary the existence of a potential conflict of interest and all material facts related to the conflict. If a board member or officer is uncertain about whether a conflict exists, he/she should report the possible conflict in all cases in which a critical external observer might reasonable perceive a conflict to exist. The board committee will determine if a conflict of interest exists. In the event that a conflict of interest arises, the board member or officer with whom the conflict pertains to is excluded from voting on the issue. He/she will leave the room and the other board members vote on the issue pertaining to that specific transaction. With respect to any board committee's discussion, decision, or actions involving transactions in which a board member or officer has a conflict of interest, the minutes of the board committee meeting will reflect the board's deliberations and voting process. In case of an interest party who is not a board member or officer, the president monitors and enforces the organization's compliance with its conflict of interest policy. If an employee has a conflict of interest, he/she employee cannot participate in the decision making of the conflicted transaction.”

“Salaries for the ceos, officers and key employees are set by the board. The board uses the services of a law firm (caplin & drysdale, who specialize in not for profit issues) for guidance on all matters of compensation. In 2012 caplin & drysdale updated the compensation study for three key employees. Caplin & drysdale studied compensation of select national newspapers and relied on their understanding of pro publica's operations and status in the field of journalism. The board established compensation for the ceo, officers and key employees using comparable data and determined that the salary is reasonable. Comparable data includes variety of information from journalism outlets and other not for profit organizations. Approved salary changes are documented in human resources files and require the signature of both the employee and the executive chairman. The board's consideration of this matter are also documented in the minutes of the executive session. This process was last completed in 2016.”

“The organization makes its form 990 available for public inspection as required under section 6104 of the internal revenue code. The return is posted on guidestar.org and other similar types of websites. In addition, the financial statements, conflict of interest policy, articles of incorporation, form 990, form 1023, and by-laws are also available upon written request, and on the organization's website (www.propublica.org).”

“A key aspect of propublica's business model is our funding, which comes almost entirely from philanthropy. Increasingly, readers power our investigative journalism - not corporations, politicians or advocacy groups - and they donate because they believe our work can make a difference in our democracy and civic life. There is perhaps no greater indication of the strength of this relationship than the burst of contributions that followed the 2016 presidential election. Hours after the results were clear, small donors across the country began clicking our online "donate" button. In the next few days, envelopes with checks began trickling into propublica's office, from $5 gifts to amounts in the hundreds and thousands. Many shared with us why they felt moved now to support propublica by taking action on its behalf. - "i've been a fan for a few years," wrote dkw from georgia. "the stories are always deep - sometimes longer than i think i have time for - but every time i read one i'm so grateful you're doing the work you do in the way you do it. I should have given sooner, but the election has been a wakeup call that i need to help support organizations that research and report, and organizations that i trust." - "i donated a modest donation to your news organization because i believe that the news of the 21st century must be supported by average americans," wrote dylan from kentucky. "today's major news organizations are selling a product. With fewer and fewer individuals buying subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, the incentive to produce hard-hitting journalism becomes less intense." - "i believe in investigative journalism and the fourth estate," wrote cindy from wyoming. "but more importantly, i give today because i am horrified by the election and the threats trump has made against journalism, journalists, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. If my small donation can help be part of a larger sum that makes an important statement today, then please let it do so. The momentum of giving accelerated after hbo's john oliver mentioned propublica in his small list of organizations worthy of support in the coming years. By year-end, smaller gifts had come from about 26,000 donors, and amounted to more than $2.9 million dollars. We understand the responsibility that comes with this generosity - one propublica will meet by expanding our staff and extending our ability to call out abuses and hold those in power to account through painstaking and fearless accountability journalism. Protecting the vote in 2016, we served our readers with abounding examples of this kind of work, particularly relating to the election - before, during and after. In our most wide-ranging collaboration yet, propublica organized electionland, a national reporting initiative that revealed voters' experiences in real time. Working with google news lab, univision, wnyc, first draft, the usa today network and the city university of new york graduate school of journalism, we used cutting-edge technology, social media newsgathering and national data from a nonpartisan legal call center to find problems that would prevent citizens from exercising their right to vote. We did this with a team of more than a thousand people, including about 600 journalism school students who pored through social media reports and upward of 400 local journalists across 50 states who signed up to receive and report on tips we received. Electionland, which launched during the early voting period, gave us an unprecedented real-time understanding of voting in the united states. From problems with hours-long lines in california to misinformation about voter id requirements in texas, the project allowed us to publish more than 400 stories while polls were still open and issues could be addressed. For example, when we spotted complaints from west palm beach, fla., about several dozen people shouting at early voters with bull horns, we posted a story that prompted the local sheriff's”

“Housing and employment ads that exclude anyone with an "affinity" for african-american, asian-american and hispanic people from seeing them, it sparked a wave of criticism aimed at the social network. Four members of congress wrote facebook demanding that the company stop letting advertisers exclude viewers of housing ads by race. The federal agency that enforces the nation's fair housing laws began talks with facebook to address what experts said was a clear violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. Two weeks after our story ran, facebook announced that it would bar advertisers from excluding users by race in ads that involved housing, credit and employment. The company said it would build an automated system to spot ads that discriminate illegally. - our series of articles published with the new york daily news, which detailed "nuisance abatement actions" - new york police department lawsuits that give police the power to evict people purportedly using their homes or business for illegal purposes - led to important results. After the investigation was published in february, the nypd imposed new safeguards in the process of locking residents out of their homes before they've had a chance to tell their side of the story in court. The number of nuisance abatement actions filed by the nypd dropped significantly. Several city council members introduced a package of 13 bills that would reform the way the nypd carries out nuisance abatement actions. The department has expressed support for some of these, including measures to remove marijuana possession as a charge that could lead to immediate eviction, to require lab reports to support drug allegations, and to limit exclusions of most people from homes to one year. In addition, one family that was wrongfully kicked out of their apartment, citing our reporting, filed a lawsuit seeking to have the law declared unconstitutional. - a propublica investigation, published in july with the new york times magazine, spotlighted how police departments across the country use roadside drug tests to secure guilty pleas and send tens of thousands of people to jail every year - despite widespread evidence that they routinely produce false positives. Our reporting spurred the district attorney's office in portland, ore., to review its drug possession cases. The office discovered five cases where defendants had pled guilty - but subsequent lab tests came back negative for the presence of any controlled substances - and vacated those five wrongful convictions. Portland's district attorney's office also changed the way it secured guilty pleas in drug possession cases based on these tests. Now such pleas will not be allowed unless the preliminary police roadside test is confirmed by lab analysis. In texas, a state commission recommended that crime labs review all field test results and re-test substances collected in previous drug cases that had not been confirmed by lab testing. In las vegas, the nevada attorneys for criminal justice set up a committee looking for ways to challenge law enforcement's methods for getting drug convictions. - propublica and npr reporting spotlighted oklahoma's workers' compensation system, which allowed companies to "opt out" of state workers' comp and write their own plans for dealing with injured workers. In september, the oklahoma supreme court struck down the opt-out system as unconstitutional, echoing an earlier ruling from the oklahoma workers' compensation commission. The florida supreme court struck down laws that capped attorney fees and limited workers to two years of temporary disability pay regardless of whether they were able to return to work. In october, the u.s. Labor department released a report detailing how states are failing injured workers - an effort prompted by ten members of congress who urged the u.s. Labor secretary to devise an oversight plan for state workers' comp programs, citing propublica's reporting. The report lays the groundwork fo”

“Handelsblatt and bayerischer rundfunk, propublica examined dividend-arbitrage transactions, a trade strategy that helps foreign investors avoid an estimated $1 billion a year in taxes on dividends paid by german companies. Following our report, prosecutors in frankfurt, germany's financial capital, launched an investigation into the trades, and the german parliament voted to end the tax-avoidance deals in the country. Germany's top finance official also released a statement criticizing div-arb, and a danish member of the european parliament called on the eu's european commission to examine the transactions, which are draining denmark and many of its neighbors of tens of millions of dollars in forgone tax revenues. - after a series of propublica articles identified dozens of cases of nursing home workers posting mocking photos of elderly residents on social media sites, the centers for medicare and medicaid services in august announced a plan to increase its oversight to prevent and punish such abuse. In a memo to state health departments, the federal agency said all nursing homes must have written policies on this issue that include an explicit ban on taking demeaning photographs of residents, procedures for investigating such complaints and reporting those involved to state licensing agencies for possible discipline. Sen. Charles grassley, chairman of the senate judiciary committee, asked the u.s. Justice department for specific information on how aggressively it pursues this form of elder abuse in nursing homes, days after sen. Tom carper similarly asked government regulators at the office for civil rights of the u.s. Department of health and human services what they're doing to stop nursing home workers from the dehumanizing practice. - propublica and the virginian-pilot have been investigating whether vietnam veterans' exposure to agent orange has also led to health problems in their children and grandchildren. At a propublica-sponsored washington, d.c., event in june, veterans affairs officials announced new efforts to address this issue, including the agency's first nationwide survey of vietnam veterans in more than three decades and requesting an outside panel of experts to continue its work studying multigenerational impacts of agent orange. - propublica's investigation on risk assessments, algorithms used across the criminal justice system that generate a score predicting a defendant's risk of committing a future crime, uncovered racial differences in the outcomes. Our analysis of the algorithm used in florida, wisconsin and other jurisdictions showed that it wrongly labeled black defendants as likely future criminals at twice the rate of mistaken predictions about white defendants. Citing our reporting, in july the wisconsin supreme court ruled that, while judges may consider risk assessment scores during sentencing, warnings must be attached to the scores to flag the tool's limitations. The white house quoted propublica's findings in a report on the impacts of artificial intelligence across various sectors of society. - after a 2014 propublica and npr story on missouri's heartland regional medical center showed that the nonprofit hospital had for years sued low-income patients over their unpaid bills, sen. Charles grassley launched a senate investigation which concluded in june. As a result of the scrutiny, the hospital overhauled its financial assistance policy and forgave the debts of thousands of former patients. - following our report on abuse and neglect at the carlton palms educational center in orlando, florida, a residential facility for children and adults with developmental disabilities, officials stationed an investigator at the center and formed a special team to closely monitor staff and residents. The state also said it would move current residents to new homes. - in 2015, propublica and al.com investigated a harsh alabama law that charges women who used drugs during pregnancy with "chemical endangerme”

“Propublica's collaboration with the marshall project, "an unbelievable story of rape," about the hunt for a serial rapist, won the 2016 pulitzer prize for explanatory reporting. The award is the third pulitzer prize for propublica. Written by propublica senior reporter t. Christian miller and the marshall project's ken armstrong, "an unbelievable story of rape" also received the george polk award for justice reporting, the american society of news editors' deborah howell award for non-deadline writing, columbia journalism school's meyer "mike" berger award for human interest reporting, the pen center usa literary award for journalism, the deadline club award for feature reporting, the john bartlow martin award for public interest magazine journalism and the al nakkula award for police reporting. The piece was nominated for a national magazine award for feature writing, in addition to being a finalist for the dart award for excellence in coverage of trauma, and the nieman foundation's taylor family award for fairness in journalism. For his work on this article and previous reporting on rape, miller won the end violence against women international media excellence award. - propublica senior reporter abrahm lustgarten was a finalist for the pulitzer prize for national reporting for "killing the colorado," his groundbreaking investigation on the water crisis in the american west. The piece won the national academies of sciences, engineering and medicine communications award in the online category, received special recognition from the knight-risser prize for western environmental journalism, and is a finalist for the online journalism award for explanatory reporting. - for a series of articles that explored the changing nature of american democracy, reporter alec macgillis received the toner prize for excellence in political reporting at a dinner in washington, d.c., at which president barack obama gave the keynote speech. Our reporting with npr news, "insult to injury," that showed how states sharply reduced workers' compensation benefits at the behest of insurers and big businesses won the ire medal, the highest honor bestowed by investigative reporters and editors; an ire award in the print/online category; the edward r. Murrow award for online/audio news series; the gerald loeb award for distinguished business and financial journalism for explanatory reporting; the deadline club awards for public service; two best in business awards from the society of american business editors and writers for digital innovation and digital investigative; the deadline award for public service; and a society for news design award of excellence for infographics. "color of debt," our analysis of racial disparities in debt collection lawsuits and wage garnishment by paul kiel, annie waldman and al shaw, won the national press club award for consumer journalism-periodicals, an online news association al neuharth innovation in investigative journalism award, the society of american business editors and writers' best in business award for digital explanatory, and a deadline club award for minority focus. The project was also a finalist for the national association of black journalists salute to excellence awards in the online news project category, the gerald loeb award for beat reporting, the data journalism award's news data app of the year, and the deadline club awards for beat reporting. A collaboration with pbs frontline which revealed a political death squad that murdered several vietnamese-american journalists with total impunity, "terror in little saigon," was nominated for an emmy award for outstanding investigative journalism-long form. The project was also a finalist for the dart award for excellence in coverage of trauma. Our coverage, with npr news, of how the red cross has failed disaster victims in haiti and made dubious claims of success, won the investigative reporters and editors award for radio/audio and was a finalist for the onli”

“Pro publica has an audit committee that assumes responsibility for the oversight of the audit of its financial statements and for the selection of an independent accountant. The process has not changed from the prior year.”