FUTURE 500 EDITORIAL POLICY
We work to build trust between companies, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good. A great deal of that “trust building” occurs in confidential settings, beyond the limelight and behind the scenes.
But we deliver much of the second half of our mission – advancing business as a force for good – in the public realm. Through events, reports, videos, and our blog, we work to increase understanding of how, why, and where companies are driving social and environmental change and the role that advocates, activists, and watchdogs play in the dynamic.
To clarify and increase transparency around this work – and also unpack our “Ask an Advocate Anything” series – we offer the following:
What do your blogs cover?
Our blogs and other editorial materials aim to highlight:
Social and environment trends, risks, and opportunities that either impact companies today or are likely to do so tomorrow; and/or
Emerging best practices on stakeholder engagement, including specific examples of companies and initiatives that epitomize the state of the art.
We do not “call out” corporations; that’s not our role. Rather, we highlight companies and groups that are pursuing interesting and replicable approaches.
What is your “Ask An Advocate Anything” series?
Ask An Advocate Anything is an interview series that offers strategic insights from America’s most interesting and effective issue campaigners and advocates.
Why are you doing this?
We want to shed light on the inner workings of advocacy organizations. We think the insights that emerge from these conversations offer enormous value to companies, advocacy organizations, and their funders. By helping these actors understand what makes the “other side” tick, we help create opportunities for adversaries to find common ground.
What prompts an organization to target a given company with a campaign? How and why do activists do what they do? Where are donors focusing their support? These are the types of questions we seek to understand through our interviews.
How do you choose your subjects?
Through the course of our work, we come into contact with and learn about a huge range of groups and organizations—from national advocacy organizations with hundreds of thousands of members and big offices in Washington DC, to ultra-local grassroots activist groups running off a kitchen table. We approach those that we feel are doing interesting and innovative things.
How does it work?
We record telephone interviews with our subjects and then transcribe the conversation. We do not share interview questions with our interviewees in advance, but we will share a general sense of the topics we would like to cover. For example, we might let them know we’d like to talk about how they are using new technologies to do their work, or where their funding comes from.
Do you edit the interviews?
We edit interview transcripts for length and clarity and may shuffle the order of questions to improve readability and flow. We do not alter comments. Further, we do not offer interviewees an opportunity to review or revise their comments prior to publication. Just like with journalism, everything is on the record.
What if an advocate criticizes a company or brand?
During interviews, a campaigner may reference his or her experiences targeting a specific company. We want to be clear: We aren’t passing judgment on any given firm. We may, at our discretion, alert a mentioned company that an interviewee has cited their brand in his or her remarks prior to publication. We won't share the full text of an interview, but we may alert companies that they are mentioned, and the context in which they are mentioned. We don’t interview the company in advance of publication, nor offer editorial space for a “response” or “rebuttal.” Our objective is not to feed debate but shed light on the thinking that informs an organization’s strategy.
What if you have a conflict of interest?
If we have an active business relationship with a company mentioned in our interviews, we will disclose that in the interview write-up. The same rules regarding notification noted above will apply. We will not redact an interviewee’s comments, nor will we cancel an interview based on something that came up in the conversation.
Have you come across an NGO or campaigner doing interesting work? Do you have other comments or concerns about our editorial work? Please let us know via info@Future500.org.