What Is JUST Capital?

The mission of JUST Capital, an independent nonprofit, is to build an economy that works for all Americans by helping companies improve how they serve all their stakeholders – workers, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders. We believe that business and markets can and must be a greater force for good, and that by shifting the resources of the $19 trillion private sector, we can address systemic issues at scale, including income inequality and lack of opportunity. Guided by the priorities of the public, our research, rankings, indexes, and data-driven tools help measure and improve corporate performance in the stakeholder economy. Our rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies, including the JUST 100, is published annually in CNBC.

How Was JUST Capital Established and Who Was Involved?

JUST Capital was co-founded by a group of concerned people from the world of business, finance, and civil society – including Paul Tudor Jones, Deepak Chopra, Rinaldo Brutoco, Arianna Huffington, Paul Scialla, and others. These leaders created JUST Capital with the long-term goal of helping to bring about a more just and balanced economy that serves the broader best interests of society. All remain very active in the organization.

Why Is JUST Capital A Nonprofit 501(c)(3)?

We believe that nonprofit status provides the best way to earn the trust of the public and companies alike, to focus on achieving our public mission, and become the preeminent provider of credible and unbiased information on just corporate behavior.

How Is JUST Capital Funded?

JUST Capital is an independent charitable organization that is unaligned from any entity, corporation, or corporate interest. We are funded via a mix of donations, grants and earned income from various products and partnerships. On the donation and grant side, we are funded by board members, private individuals, and foundations who share our vision and want to support our mission. Current funders include: Paul Tudor Jones II, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, VoLo Foundation, Virgin Unite, and MCJ Amelior, among others. 

On the earned income front, we receive income related to our charitable purposes via mission-driven products like the JUST ETF, and revenue from collaborations with our media partners (for example, event sponsorships with Forbes) and other consultant partners that leverage our rankings and our data to drive corporate change and advance the mission of the organization. We are thoroughly committed to maintaining the integrity and independence of our data, rankings, and research and aligning this with the funding strategy for the organization. We do not accept any money from companies in order to be ranked, or to fund our independent research. We are vigilant to ensure that no source of funding exerts any influence on the rankings, research, or analysis of companies in any way, and that the Board of Directors and Executive Committee have oversight over all funding we receive in order to maintain our independence. We rank all companies in the Russell 1000 with academic-level rigor and are not a “pay-to-play” or “opt-in” organization.

Why Does JUST Capital Survey the American Public?

We believe the American people know what is best for themselves, their families, and their communities. We believe in listening to them.

How Does JUST Capital Survey the American Public?

JUST Capital conducts extensive, nationally representative survey research on Americans’ attitudes and values relating to business behavior to assess which performance metrics are important to the public. The first step is to capture the American viewpoint of what constitutes just corporate behavior. Visit polling for more details.

• Our research process includes focus groups, telephone interviews, online discussions, surveys, and other ways of talking to Americans in-depth about how they think corporations should behave. From this research, we determine the key Issues driving just corporate behavior that serve as the foundation for our ranking model.
• In order to determine how each of these Issues should affect the corporate rankings in our model, we use sophisticated survey research techniques, such as “MaxDiff” and other types of scaling, to measure how much Americans think each category or action should matter to a corporation’s justness. These surveys are conducted of high-quality probability-based samples that represent all Americans.
• We talk to 10,000 Americans each year in our focus groups and surveys, across all geographies, income levels, political persuasions, ethnicities, and education levels. As of 2019, we’ve engaged more than 96,000 Americans in our research.

How Does JUST Capital Measure Company Performance and Rank Companies?

JUST Capital’s Rankings are the culmination of over five years of market research on what the American people prioritize regarding corporate behavior today. In 2019, JUST Capital conducted its survey of the American public, which included 4,000 respondents, in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago to identify and weight 29 key business Issues. JUST Capital then tracked and evaluated the performance of companies against these priorities and created the ranking model that drives America’s Most JUST Companies, including the JUST 100 and Industry Leader lists. The selection of companies draws from the Russell 1000 Index, which represents over 90 percent of the U.S. stock market value.

We work with a robust Research Advisory Council of academics, economists, and subject matter experts to ensure that there is consensus and rigor around how we measure corporate behavior and which indicators are the best measurements of justness. We provide full transparency around our methodology to ensure what and how we’re measuring is accessible to anyone. Visit Methodology to learn more, or view the full Ranking Methodology. The JUST 100 is published annually with our media partner, Forbes.