The Center for Political Accountability is America’s recognized leader advocating corporate political disclosure and accountability.

Under CPA’s leadership, more than 30 shareholder advocates have filed the Center’s model political disclosure resolution in order to engage companies in dialogues. Due to the efforts of the CPA and its partners, a growing number of leading public companies, including many in the trend-setting S&P 100, have adopted political disclosure and board oversight. As of March 2012, 100 large companies had embraced this corporate governance standard.

In a major milestone, the average shareholder vote for CPA’s model political disclosure resolution topped 33 percent in 2011. That was almost quadruple the average vote in 2004, the first proxy season when the resolution was filed.

The Center has produced reports and conducted surveys on issues related to corporate political activity.  In October 2011 the Center unveiled the CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Accountability and Disclosure, ranking the political spending policies and practices of companies in the S&P 100.  The Conference Board, the nation’s foremost business research organization, asked CPA to write its first handbook on corporate political activity, which was published in November 2010.

CPA organized the first conference examining the risk posed to companies by political spending in conjunction with The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Baruch College in February 2008. It organized a conference on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and its impact on the political role of the corporation in conjunction with the UCLA School of Law and The Wharton School in October 2010.  

In May 2010, the Center received the prestigious Bavaria Innovation Award for its leadership in pioneering corporate political accountability. The award was bestowed by Ceres, a national coalition of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies to address sustainability challenges.

The Center is a 501(c)(3) organization, and contributions to it are tax-exempt.