Working with Whistleblowers: A Guide for Public Interest Organizations

Coalitions

Government Accountability Project leads coalitions to build public awareness of the value of whistleblowing across government and the private sector, as well as stand up for whistleblowers and better whistleblower law when it’s needed most. Notable coalitions include the Make It Safe Coalition, the New Rules on Global Finance Coalition, and the Safe Food Coalition.

  • Government Accountability Project spearheads the Make It Safe Coalition – a nonpartisan, trans-ideological network of 50 good government, taxpayer, scientific, labor, civil liberties, and law enforcement organizations dedicated to strengthening protections for public and private sector whistleblowers. Over 400 groups have endorsed our efforts to strengthen whistleblower legislation, on behalf of millions of members across the country.
  • Government Accountability Project is also a founding member of the Safe Food Coalition (SFC), which works closely with Congress and food safety agencies to ensure the integrity of our food supply. Our Public Health team is also involved with the Patient Consumer Coalition and the Integrity of Science Working Group. Collectively, they work to ensure that scientists are able to warn the public about dangerous drugs and medical devices, as well as uphold scientific integrity, even when politically unpopular.
  • We are active participants in a coalition of groups convened by the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy to address threats to scientific integrity. We co-authored Make a Note to the Record: How Federal Scientists Can Protect Science for Public Good and are contributing to a forthcoming publication aimed at Congress on how to protect scientific integrity.
  • We are partners with the March for Science, the global movement that seeks to have science embraced as essential to public life and policy. Government Accountability Project offered Teach-Ins at the 2017 & 2018 March for Science events in Washington, DC about the role of whistleblowers in “Speaking Up for Science.”
  • We actively partner with Open The Government, a non-partisan coalition of groups committed to the idea of an open government being essential to ensuring the integrity and accountability of our governing institutions and supporting democratic principles. Through our partnerships, we offer trainings for public interest organizations on working with whistleblowers and using FOIA as a tool for increasing transparency.
  • Our International Whistleblower Rights team works with global alliances to further anti-corruption efforts through the New Rules on Global Finance Coalition and the Publish What You Pay Coalition.