Michael Kieschnick is the president and CEO of CREDO Mobile, a cellular service company than channels one percent of its revenues into left-of-center causes. Kieschnick has been involved with numerous left-wing groups, including the Real Justice PAC, the League of Women Voters, and NextGen Climate.

Kieschnick has been reported to be a member of the Democracy Alliance, a major donor clearinghouse for Democratic and left-wing organizations. ¹

Early Life and Education

Michael Kieschnick was born in Dallas, Texas in 1953. He grew up in a “liberal middle-class family in a right-wing town” where racial segregation was enforced until his sixth grade. Kieschnick’s parents started an anti-war, pro-integration church. ²

Kieschnick first became involved in environmental activism in second grade when he tried to sabotage construction efforts on a road that was slated to run through a local wilderness. ³

After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in biology in 1976, Kieschnick earned a doctorate in public policy analysis from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 1982. ⁴

Early Career

In 1978, Michael Kieschnick became a research economist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Two years later, he became director of the California Office of Economic Policy under Governor Jerry Brown (D). ⁵

In 1983, Kieschnick co-founded Dimensional Corporate Finance, a financial tech startup that evaluated corporate loans. Kieschnick worked as the company’s vice president of marketing. He left the company in 1988. ⁶

In 1987, Kieschnick co-founded the Sandy County Venture Fund, an “impact investing fun,” and served as the company’s president. ⁷

CREDO Mobile

In 1985, Michael Kieschnick, Peter Barnes, and Laura Scher co-founded CREDO Mobile, a “mobile virtual network operator” that provides wireless services through Verizon Wireless’s network. Kieschnick became president and CEO in 2010. ⁸

CREDO Mobile was founded with an explicit mandate to produce “progressive social change.” The company channels 1 percent of its revenue to its advocacy, ⁹ and as of 2022, has donated more than $93 million to left-wing PACs, super PACs, and advocacy groups, and has rallied its customers to “become activists, through letters, calls, petitions and protests.” ¹⁰ Nonprofit recipients have included 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Rainforest Action Network, Vote Solar, the Sierra Club Foundation, ¹¹ the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ¹² Greenpeace, and Planned Parenthood. ¹³

CREDO Mobile has numerous subsidiary non-profit groups for its activism. In 1985, Kieschnick and Scher co-founded CREDO Action (also known as CREDO Victory Fund), a nonprofit financed by CREDO Mobile that donates to left-wing grassroots activist groups throughout the United States. ¹⁴

In 2012, Kieschnick co-founded CREDO SuperPAC, which spent $3.4 million in the 2012 election cycle and $2.1 million in 2014 exclusively on opposing Republican candidates. ^{15 16}

Other Work

In 2005, Michael Kieschnick founded the Beatitudes Society, a group that identifies and supports left-progressive faith leaders. He left the group in 2015. ¹⁷

In 2015, Kieschnick became a national campaign manager of NextGen Climate and led a $60 million campaign targeting college campuses. ¹⁸

In 2017, Kieschnick co-founded Real Justice PAC, a PAC supporting lenient criminal justice policies. ¹⁹

Also in 2018, Kieschnick co-founded the Green Advocacy Project, a super PAC which supports local and state efforts to encourage weather-dependent energy. Kieschnick continues to run the group to this day. ²⁰

In January 2022, Kieschnick founded the Carbon Advocacy Project, a nonprofit that supports President Joe Biden’s (D) executive orders relating to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. ²¹

Kieschnick is a board member of the League of Women Voters, ²² the Arkay Foundation, the Tides Foundation. He was formerly a board member of the Secretary of State Project. ²³

Political Views

Michael Kieschnick has espoused left-wing environmentalist views. He supports significantly raising fuel admissions standards for automobiles, reducing carbon emissions, and a far more active role for the government in combatting climate change. ²⁴

Kieschnick was a staunch opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline. In 2011, Kieschnick encouraged CREDO Mobile to spend $5 million on advocacy efforts. He was arrested in front of the White House during a protest against the project. ^{25 26 27}

Kieschnick supported the Occupy Wall Street movement. ²⁸

Kieschnick has been critical of the U.S. government’s spying programs on American citizens. In 2013, he said, “As the CEO of a mobile phone company, I’m deeply disturbed by the Obama administration’s growing record of executive power grabs at the expense of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties.” ²⁹

Kieschnick’s favorite historian is Howard Zinn, the far-left author of “A People’s History of the United States.” ³⁰

In a 2007 interview, Kieschnick said the worst moment in his professional life was when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) to “steal” the 2000 presidential election. Kieschnick said the cost of the Bush presidency was “unbearably catastrophic.” ³¹

Political Donations

Michael Kieschnick has personally donated $1.2 million to Democratic politicians and PACs since 1980. ³² In 2012, Silicon Valley Business Journal identified him as Silicon Valley’s tenth largest Democratic donor, having given $210,250. ³³

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