About the Institute

Visit our company website:  www.ga-institute.com 

Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. (G&A) is a for-profit organization that provides leaders in the private, social and public sectors with actionable information and knowledge, strategies, counsel & advice, and a portfolio of services to help their organizations in their sustainability and responsibility journeys.

The Institute’s mission is to help leaders better understand the growing importance of the sustainable and responsibility business organization to stakeholders and shareholders, and to help capital market players understand implement S&R investment in their work.

Through this publicly-available web platform G&A Institute provides timely news, actionable research and information, perspectives and opinion, reliable research and data, to leaders of corporations, business enterprises, not-for-profit organizations, institutions, and individuals seeking information and knowledge on doing the right thing for the right reasons.  

The Institute’s in-depth focus and areas of research, and career experience and professional expertise include these topics, which form the content of the web platform:

 
• Corporate, Institutional and Public Sector(s) Governance (CG) 
 
• Corporate and Institutional Social Responsibility (CSR) 
 
• Socially Responsible Investing – Social Investing – Values Investing -- Sustainable Investing (SRI) 
 
• ESG – environmental, social issue and governance performance factors of importance to investors and stakeholders
 
• Ethics – Institutional and Individual – Mandated and Voluntary Codes and Practices 
 
• Stakeholder and Stockholder Advocacy – Domestic and Global Activism (and Campaigns) 
 
• Transparency and Disclosure Practices – Voluntary and Mandated Reporting
 
• Social and Economic Justice Trends and Initiatives – “Fairness” issues 
 
• Trendwatching – with a focus on emerging issues affecting private, social and public sectors 
 
• Community Development / Re-Development – Access to Finance and Credit 
 
• Regulatory Frameworks and Effects on Operating Environments 
 
• Voluntary Programs for Accountability, Governance, Ethics, Social Responsibility
 

We provide this portal as a public service to serve the needs of executives and senior managers and boards of institutional investors, financial services organizations, public corporations, social sector institutions, and public sector agencies. 

G&A service offerings include:

 
• Customized research and information services, including customized reports and periodic “Issue Briefs” on critical topics.
 
• Monitoring of the dynamic issues environment for senior management and boards of corporate, social and public sector/organizations. 
 
• Issues Monitoring Systems and Technologies. 
 
• Crisis Management – Response Research. 
 
• Public and private Internet resources (design and management, content management) 
 
• Publishing services – print and online resources; subscription-based and private 
 
• Training, education and coaching protocols.
 
• Comparisons-benchmarking-profiling-audit for calibrating the sustainability journey.

The G&A Institute team monitors corporate sustainability and responsibility disclosure and reporting.  We are the Data Partners of the GRI in the United States, United Kingdom, and Republic of Ireland.

G&A Institute is an Organizational Stakeholder of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

For specifics please see:  www.ga-institute.com

Please contact us for specific information.

More About the Institute

We believe that most individuals who guide institutions in all sectors want to do the right thing…for the right reasons.  This drive is innate, instinctive and intuitive for most individuals – and translates into the policies, practices and programs in the organizations which they manage and direct. 

The culture of the organization is usually shaped by the ethics and sense of responsibility of its key players.

The organizational culture will reflect the desire to do the right thing for all of the stakeholders involved…or not.  (We include stakeholders of all kinds here: employees, shareowners, business partners, neighbors, customers and clients, and society-at-large.)

In a word, people want their leaders (and their organizations) in all sectors to be accountable; they want the organizations they do business with to be accountable; we expect the institutions in which we place our trust – in the private (corporate), public (government) and social (not-for-profit) sectors -- to be accountable…to us, and for their actions.

And when leaders and their organizations are perceived to be doing harm to stakeholders (including stockholders), today we will very frequently hear the demand that they must be held accountable!

This rising societal demand for accountability translates into:

• Stockholder advocacy – increased demands today for “corporate democracy” and greater accountability on the part of Boards and Executives.
• Coalitions forming among institutional investors to press for change – especially including public employee and labor pension funds.
• No more “Wall Street Walking” (away) from investments – shareholders revolt and demand change…including the “CEO Walk” if leaders won’t respond.
• Investors actively engaging with corporate management and boards to discuss the issues that they (asset owners and managers) are concerned with.
• Consumer campaigns targeting corporations or their products – at the top of the corporate food chain we have seen this happening with such well know marketers as Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, Chevron, McDonald’s, and other firms.
• Consumers demanding more responsible actions by trusted brand marketers – the focus on origins of coffee is growing among consumer advocates and their constituencies as one example; the recent recall of China-produced toys showed the sense of responsibility of the marketers.
• Public demand for campaign finance reform – happening today in the Congress.
• And, public demand for greater accountability of elected officials at all levels.
• Greater scrutiny of not-for-profit organizations, including their finances; Donors' expectations of accountability are rising.
• Withholding of charitable and philanthropic contributions to not-for-profits not performing to donor expectations.
• Increased scrutiny by media of all institutions, along with greater journalist skepticism.
• Rising public skepticism, mistrust and anger.
• Mistrust of capital market players.
• Increased vigilance of prosecutors – especially state among attorneys general and the US governments white collar crime task force.
• New laws, regulations passed to protect the public (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley-2002).
• Strengthening of, or creation of, voluntary codes of conduct.
• Strengthening of Self-Regulating Organizations (SROs) codes and enforcement.

This Web portal is designed to be your “central resource” for news, information, perspective, opinion, research, and sharing of critical information on these and many other developments that express and reflect society’s demand for accountability – “accountability-central” is therefore the name we chose in launching this platform back in 2006-2007.

We often hear in various sectors of our society that we are experiencing a “crisis of confidence” in our leaders, and in large organizations that affect our lives – whether we are employees, stockholders, customers, voters, business partners or beneficiaries.

The editors believe that we are in a period of dramatic transformation – back to “morality” in business, back to “accountability” on the part of all organizations, a time of serious questioning authority, of challenging those who violate our trust. This is especially important as the world pulls back from the brink of crisis caused by unaccountable leaders in the financial sector.

Historical Foundations:

As a people, our nation has been here before:  At the beginning of the 20^th Century, President Theodore Roosevelt inspired a broad national reform movement – the Progressives – and said the aim of government and social activism was not to tear down, but to build up…including society and its government building stronger economic partnerships with business.  A half-century earlier President Abraham Lincoln observed that …if we can’t do the best…we should do the best possible…” 

The mission of Governance & Accountability Institute includes providing resources and counsel to leaders to build trust…do the right thing…for the right reasons…in the best possible ways.  To help people do their best in specific areas that are of concern today to employees, investors, regulators, journalists, social and civic advocates, business partners, and other stakeholders.

We will strive to practice the ethics and societal contributions – combining the best elements of journalism, commentary, the social sciences -- of such thought leaders as Peter Drucker, Vance Packard, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Gail Sheehy, Barbara Ehrenreich, Auren Uris, Michael Porter of HBR, and former Fortune magazine writers (and authors) as William Whyte, Carolyn Bird and Charles Silberman.  Individually and collectively, they inform us, inspire us, and equip us to do the best possible…to do the right things.

We invite you to contact us with your questions and comments.