Ben Cokelet

2010

Ben Cokelet

Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research (PODER)

Community Improvement & Economic Development

The Bold Idea:

Bold Idea: Develop civil society stakeholders in Latin America as corporate accountability guarantors by effectively utilizing business intelligence, transparency technology, and grassroots organizing.

In Latin America elite control over decision-making severely undermines the optimal functioning of democracy and capitalism. This predicament is particularly worrisome in the private sector where crony capitalism, opaque business transactions, and impunity are ubiquitous. Instead of corporate malfeasance being addressed by the state or markets, it’s foisted on society as a whole, mostly to the detriment of vulnerable populations. Moreover, civil society stakeholders of corporations lack effective tools to expose these practices and insist on better ways of doing business. They relinquish agency to unaccountable authorities and voluntary corporate action instead of strengthening civil society to wield decision-making power.

 PODER accompanies civil society groups in Latin America to build power and, ultimately, a citizen-led corporate accountability movement based on three pillars: information about corporate practices, technology to ensure symmetric information for all stakeholders, and collective organizing strength. The fulcrum of its work is proprietary business intelligence focused on non-outsourceable industries and global cities. PODER channels its information, know-how, and economic resources to local stakeholders at these strategic nodes where its work has the greatest long-term multiplier effect. Together, PODER and its partners engage corporations and other stakeholders to ensure on-going corporate accountability. 

Biography:

After 12 years of organizing in the U.S. and Latin America, Ben Cokelet founded PODER to empower civil society groups to organize for corporate accountability. Tired of corruption and illegality thwarting human and worker rights, Ben leveraged his experiences as a global union organizer, researcher, trainer, scholar, and social entrepreneur to revolutionize corporate accountability as a citizen-led movement capable of achieving broad economic, environmental, and social impact. In 2009, PODER won the Stern Business School Social Venture Competition at NYU, where Ben is also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
My moment of obligation was more like trial by fire. 11,000 Mexican garment workers had just been laid off for unionizing. I had worked intensively for a year to coordinate international solidarity. Now I furiously fielded calls from stakeholders asking what comes next. The answer seemed obvious: pull out all the stops. We obliged and, appearing defeated, the company announced tens of millions in lost earnings and the withdrawal of major clients. We had done everything right, but nothing happened. More workers were laid-off and migrated to the U.S. The campaign ground to a halt. And only years later did I learn why: a major shareholder was implicated in a child prostitution ring. Slowly the entirety of the company’s legitimate and illicit activities became clear; millions in lost earnings were mere pocket change. Eventually the shareholder was exonerated. And I learned two life-changing lessons: never risk the livelihoods of the economically disadvantaged without knowing what you’re up against, and never wage empty international campaigns without first developing local organizing capacity. Like a phoenix from the flames, the idea for PODER was born.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
Between 2006-07, having already dedicated ten years to the human rights and labor movements as an organizer in the U.S. and Latin America, I reflected long and hard on the effectiveness of conventional approaches to corporate accountability. When a fellow organizer was deported from Mexico for his union activity, I criticized governmental corruption and spoke out against impunity. But when a friend was illegally jailed for his activism, I stopped reacting and instead took a step back. If my experience and research in Mexico were any indication, organizers, activists, and our constituencies would continue to be victims of systematic repression by elite public and private sector actors unless we strengthened our toolboxes and organized for accountability. Unfortunately, to date our efforts had been characterized more by hubris and inertia than creativity and strategy. Our tools were bludgeons not scalpels. And we lost more ground than we gained. My reflection led me to reevaluate not just our movement for social and economic justice, but also my role specifically. Following a deliberate process, I transformed my theory of change starting with two core competencies, imagination and drive. The imagination to strengthen civil society as a long-term corporate accountability guarantor stems from my vision of democracy and capitalism where decision-making is truly shared between the public, private, and citizen sectors. And the drive to devote myself to this urgent task springs from a lifelong passion for collective organizing and bottom-up, community-based solutions.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
The fulcrum of our work is strategic corporate research paired with local organizing and collective action. We generate revenue by providing large civil society clients with intelligence on corporate practices and with compliance services to engage companies to comply with corporate accountability standards. Using sales and philanthropic revenue, we provide pro bono accompaniment and training to local civil society groups in Latin America to develop their capacities to research corporations and, most importantly, to organize collectively and hold them accountable over the long term. We target a nascent business intelligence market and specialize in uncovering illicit as well as legitimate corporate practices. And we are developing a proprietary web-based technology to ensure symmetric information for all stakeholders by elevating corporate accountability from dry research reports, court filings, and financial documents into the public eye.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?
Creativity, drive, self-confidence, teamwork, and vision.

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
If I need to get some work done, I may turn to Gil Scott-Heron, Fela Kuti, or even Tracy Chapman. And if I need to get going or pumped up, the list is long but I often turn to Dilated Peoples, The Coup, or Seattle hip-hop artists like Common Market. But if I want to feel inspired, the list narrows quite a bit to include Neil Young, Nina Simone, or Public Enemy. My favorite album of all time is PE's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back."

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
- Razor's Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham -- This is introspection, the quest for meaning, taken to the spiritual and beyond.    - La Reina Del Sur, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte -- Beautiful, tragic look into the legitimate, the illicit, and the gray area in between.    - Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky -- Organizing 101.    - Civil Society, by Michael Edwards -- The best book on the rest of us...voluntary organizations.    - Weapons of the Weak, by James C. Scott -- Proof that every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?
www.milenio.com/blog/osorno  www.huffingtonpost.com  seattle.mariners.mlb.com  blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix  www.lexisnexis.com

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."  - Martin Luther King, Jr.