Capital & Main

Overview

Capital & Main is a California-based nonprofit investigative news publication that reports on economic inequality, climate change, and other social and political issues (UC Berkeley). Founded in 2012 to investigate inequality through solutions-based journalism, it covers California and national stories and co-publishes investigations with larger outlets — including Fast Company, which carried its September 2022 reporting on Accountable.US’s American Democracy Scorecard (Capital & Main; Fast Company).

The outlet’s identity is anchored in partnership rather than scale: instead of building a mass audience on its own site, it says it frequently partners with major media outlets on distribution and editorial content (Capital & Main). LA2050’s directory describes it as “an award-winning online publication that reports from California on the most pressing economic, environmental and social issues of our time” (LA2050).

The “United States of Inequality” project

In November 2019, Capital & Main announced its most ambitious undertaking: “United States of Inequality: 2020 and the Great Divide,” a yearlong series planned to publish at least one story every week for 52 weeks through the November 2020 election, launched exactly a year before Election Day (Capital & Main). The series was designed to examine how tens of millions of Americans struggled to make ends meet and how that reality would shape one of the most consequential elections in the country’s history (Capital & Main). Its coverage was organized into five themes: the state of inequality in America, the presidential primary through the lens of economic inequality, inequality in battleground states, inequality under the Trump administration, and the economic proposals the candidates were not talking about (Capital & Main). Senior reporter Jessica Goodheart led the project, and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich — a member of the outlet’s advisory board — was set to help launch it with a short narrated video (Capital & Main). Former New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse praised the series as a vital examination of the inequality that had “badly divided our nation and warped our nation’s politics and policymaking” (Capital & Main).

A partnership-driven distribution model

Capital & Main’s signature tactic is editorial and distribution partnership with larger outlets — a model that lets a small nonprofit newsroom’s investigations reach national readerships. The documented partnerships are summarized below:

Partner outlet	Role	Sourced example
Guardian US	Editorial and distribution partner	“United States of Inequality” series (2019–2020)
Fast Company	Editorial and distribution partner; carries Capital & Main investigations	“United States of Inequality” series; American Democracy Scorecard reporting (September 2022)
The American Prospect	Editorial and distribution partner	“United States of Inequality” series (2019–2020)
Daylight San Diego	Co-publishes Capital & Main reporting “with permission”	Immigration reporting by Kate Morrissey; Marine-family reporting by Marcus Baram

The 2019 release named Guardian US, Fast Company, and The American Prospect as editorial and distribution partners for the inequality series, “ensuring a large national readership” (Capital & Main). Separately, Daylight San Diego co-publishes the outlet’s articles with permission, including recent investigations of immigration courtroom practices and cuts to civilian support staff for the families of deployed Marines (Daylight San Diego).

Reporting on the American Democracy Scorecard

Capital & Main’s most prominent national placement was its September 2022 reporting on the American Democracy Scorecard, published by Fast Company and explicitly credited to the outlet — the article header reads “This article is from Capital & Main” and the footer “Copyright 2022 Capital & Main” (Fast Company). The piece covered Accountable.US’s scorecard grading the top 100 corporations on their support for democracy: two-thirds of the companies received failing marks (Fast Company). AT&T was the lowest scorer, followed by Verizon, with Charter Communications and Comcast also among the ten lowest — making telecommunications the lowest-ranked industry (Fast Company). The reporting detailed the scorecard’s underlying data: 33 of the 50 companies that had paused political giving to election objectors after January 6 eventually resumed it, and corporate totals included $6.2 million to state legislators backing restrictive voting laws, $19.2 million to federal lawmakers who opposed forming the January 6 commission, and $5.7 million to members of Congress who voted to overturn the election (Fast Company). It also reported that Home Depot was the top corporate donor to federal lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 election, contributing more than $350,000 to that group, and that Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig had written directly to CEOs — including AT&T’s John Stankey — urging them to align their actions with their stated values (Fast Company). The episode illustrates Capital & Main’s working model: an advocacy organization’s research becomes a nonprofit newsroom’s investigation, which a national magazine then distributes.

Frequently asked questions

What is Capital & Main? Capital & Main is an independent, California-based nonprofit investigative news publication that reports on economic inequality, climate change, and other social and political issues, according to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (UC Berkeley). It covers California and national stories and distributes its investigations through partnerships with larger outlets.

When was Capital & Main founded, and what is its mission? The outlet says it was founded in 2012 to investigate inequality and produce solutions-based journalism on “one of the defining issues of our time” (Capital & Main). Its identity has always been issue-driven rather than geographic, with inequality as the founding beat.

Which major outlets has Capital & Main partnered with? For its 2019–2020 “United States of Inequality” series, its editorial and distribution partners were Guardian US, Fast Company, and The American Prospect (Capital & Main). Fast Company also published its September 2022 investigation of the American Democracy Scorecard, and Daylight San Diego co-publishes its reporting with permission (Fast Company; Daylight San Diego).

What did Capital & Main report about the American Democracy Scorecard? Its September 2022 Fast Company article reported that Accountable.US’s scorecard gave failing marks to two-thirds of the top 100 corporations, ranked AT&T lowest, and documented millions in corporate donations to lawmakers who backed voting restrictions or voted to overturn the 2020 election (Fast Company).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not name Capital & Main’s founder, because no fully-read source verified who founded the outlet. It does not assert the outlet’s legal form, 501(c)(3) status, or EIN, which were not checked against IRS records — it is described as nonprofit by UC Berkeley and nonprofit directories. It repeats the outlet’s own awards claims (more than 30 awards in five years, a Best in the West prize, Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing honors) as first-party statements, not as independently verified facts. It does not claim the 2019 partnership roster is current, and it does not assert anything about the outlet’s donors or funding sources, which no fully-read source disclosed. Because the outlet’s own website could not be fetched during research, no claim in this profile rests on its about page.