Public Accountability Initiative Inc.

“The form 990 is reviewed by the treasurer and distributed to all board members for review prior to filing.”

“The coi policy is reviewed by all board members at each annual meeting, and any conflicts or potential conflicts disclosed.”

“Governing documents and copies of the 990 are made available to the public upon request.”

“Pai conducts research and educational activities that bring transparency to influential public sector and private sector institutions and their key relationships. Pai also develops a free, open source tool for documenting these relationships, littlesis.org.”

“Littlesis: pai maintains littlesis.org, an open, public database and research platform that brings transparency to influential networks in the public and private sector. The database aggregates public information on over 396,000 influential individuals and institutions, ranging from public officials to large corporations, and over 1,600,000 relationships among them, ranging from employment relationships to campaign contributions. Volunteer editors contribute well-sourced data to littlesis and build maps of power networks. In 2020-2021, littlesis data expanded significantly, with over 89,793 new entities added to the database. The site was used and cited regularly by activists, researchers and journalists at academic, media, and public interest organizations, in the us and internationally, garnering significant media coverage and supporting groundbreaking investigations and high-impact grassroots campaigns.”

“Research: pai's research program investigates issues of corporate and government accountability and brings transparency to the role of powerful public sector and private sector institutions in shaping public policy. Pai releases research in the form of reports, articles, infographics, and data sets. Pai's research has garnered significant media coverage and prompted major transparency and accountability measures at public and private institutions. The influence of the finance and oil and gas industries is a major focus of pais research, as well as corporate power on the regional and state level. In 2020-2021, our investigations of issues such as wall street speculation, hedge funds profiting from puerto rican debt, fossil fuel industry influence, the power structure behind investor- owned utilities, the revolving door between business and government, corporate subsidies and tax dodging, and money in politics received major media coverage and drove significant public accountability efforts.”

“Training: pai trains journalists, activists, and researchers in how to conduct power research using littlesis.org and other tools and methodologies. The goal of this work is to cultivate more journalistic, civic, and movement capacity to research and challenge influential networks in the public and private sector. We conduct trainings in person and online via webinar, and offer them independently and in partnership with progressive organizations. In 2020-2021, as part of our map the power training initiative, we conducted numerous trainings on topics such as how to research municipal budgets, how to research publicly-held corporations, how to research foundations and nonprofits, how to research real estate companies and landlords, and to how to research political contributions on the local, state, and federal level. We also continued to organize and train research groups focused on researching power at the local and regional level.”