Corporate Accountability

After the Nestlé boycott, Corporate Accountability targeted General Electric for its involvement in producing arms for the U.S. military; McDonald’s; and the tobacco, traditional energy, and bottled water industries. The organization turned its attention to politics in 2016 after Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential Election.³

In an attempt to organize against the first Trump Administration it created its own “Action League,” a recruitment program calling for volunteers to oppose Trump administration policies.⁴

Background

Corporate Accountability, formerly known as INFACT, is a 501(c)(3) organization created in 1977 by four political activists: Leah Margulies, Doug Johnson, Mark Ritchie, and Doug Clement.⁵

The four activists used their organization to organize an international boycott of food company Nestlé after its marketing campaign for infant formula allegedly contributed to the deaths of children.¹

According to Mark Ritchie, who later served as Minnesota Secretary of State as a Democrat, the campaign was created to “link the capitalist system—and the way it organizes our lives—to people’s very personal experiences.”⁶

Activities

In 2001, Corporate Accountability organized an international boycott of General Electric, a major defense contractor involved in the American nuclear program, in 1986 despite the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.⁷

Corporate Accountability International began a campaign against bottled water in 2004, when it claimed production of the product by companies including Nestlé and Veolia are “are exploiting and deepening the global water crisis.”⁸

The organization campaigned against PepsiCo’s marketing practices in 2007.⁸ The campaign resulted in PepsiCo changing the labels on its Aquafina water bottles to indicate the water comes from a “public water source.”⁹

Corporate Accountability previously supported local and state government and university policies prohibiting the purchase or sale of bottled water.¹⁰ Corporate Accountability also campaigns against McDonald’s for the company’s involvement in food production and advocating for the public’s right to consume the foods and beverages of their choice.¹¹ CAI also claims the company targets advertising in a hostile manner.¹¹

Corporate Accountability also campaigned against Exxon Mobil and other traditional energy companies.¹² According to a statement on its website, “the twin histories of systemic racism and U.S. imperialism means that Global South countries and communities of color in the U.S. are on the frontlines of climate change,” and those people “have contributed the least to the problem.”¹²

Political Activities

Corporate Accountability began participating in election-based advocacy in 2016, claiming “Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president brings into focus just how broken our economic and political systems are.”⁴

The organization has petitioned for causes like calling on Congress to block President Trump’s infrastructure plan.¹³ The group provides activists opposed to the administration with “toolkits” on its resources page.¹⁴

In an attempt to create organized opposition to the first Trump Administration, they created the Corporate Accountability Action League. To join the “Action League,” users agree to “pledge to resist Trump’s expansion of corporate power at the expense of people and the planet. I will be part of the people-powered movement to challenge the Trump administration’s climate-change-denying, pro-corporate, racist, sexist, and xenophobic agenda.”⁴

In June 2022, the organization called for reparations for members of the African American community by Wells Fargo and claimed the company had engaged in harmful lending and banking practices as well as discrimination against Black and Hispanic communities. ¹⁵

In June 2025, Corporate Accountability participated in organizing or supporting protests branded under the “#NoKings” banner, a national day of demonstrations positioned as a defense of democratic norms against Donald Trump. These events were part of a larger mobilization involving over 70 Democratic Party affiliates and allied organizations across at least 19 U.S. states and multiple international locations, according to publicly available event listings on Mobilize.us, a Democratic Party-aligned organizing platform. ^{16 17}

Funding

Corporate Accountability receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in support annually from the Deborah Rose Foundation. Additionally, the group has received substantial funding from the Patriot Foundation, the Colombe Foundation, the Park Foundation, and the Educational Foundation of America.¹⁸

Corporate Accountability has received multiple grants from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. In 2006 it received $50,000 from Rockefeller Brothers Fund for one year. According to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund website, Corporate Accountability received this money “For its project, C-Change: Regaining People’s Power Over Corporations,” which coincided with the fund’s mission to “Strengthen the Vitality of Democracy in Global Governance: Access and Participation.”¹⁹

It also received $75,000 for one year in 2009 as part of the same program goal, but this time “For its work building civil society capacity to use global governance tools to improve corporate practices.”¹⁹

Financials

According to its 2023 990 form, Corporate Accountability reported a revenue of $7,188,421, expenses of $8,915,015, and total assets of $5,665,953. ²⁰

Controversies

In 2020, Christy Sampson-Kelly, director of Travis Hill School, was accused of making sexually explicit phone calls to an 18-year-old inmate of the New Orleans Juvenile Detention Center. Sampson-Kelly, who was 51 at the time, was accused of exchanging over 750 phone calls with the inmate. Following these allegations, Sampson-Kelly was removed as director and later plead guilty to misdemeanor charges in 2022. ²¹

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Corporate Accountability was one of more than 600 co-signing organizations on a January 2019 open letter to Congress titled “Legislation to Address the Urgent Threat of Climate Change.” The signatories declared their support for new laws to bring about “100 percent decarbonization” of the transportation sector but denounced nuclear power as an example of “dirty energy” that should not be included in any legislation promoting the use of so-called “renewable energy.” ²

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ²² An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ²³

Leadership

Ari Belathar is the executive director of Corporate Accountability. Prior to this, Belathar worked as the executive director of the Boston Cyclists Union and had a leadership position with Resource Generation. They previously worked as a social justice organizer and activist in Mexico. ²⁴

Paige Kirstein is the chair of the board of directors for the organization. Working for Corporate Accountability since interning in 2010, Kirstein joined the board in 2019. In addition, Kirstein works as the Vice President of Product and Operations for True Link Financial. ²⁵

Partner Organizations

Daily Kos, Amazon Watch, Roots Action, Toxics Action Center, Climate Action Network, Greenpeace, and Progressive Democrats of America are partners with “Kick Big Polluters Out of Climate Policy,” an initiative led by Corporate Accountability.²⁶