AllSides is a Public Benefit Corporation: Here’s What That Means

AllSides often gets asked about its business model and structure. Is AllSides a for-profit? Nonprofit? Something else?

AllSides is driven by a social good mission of freeing people from filter bubbles so they can better understand the world — and each other. We often decry the negative incentives that shape for-profit media business models. The chasing of ad revenue, for instance, rewards negative behaviors like sensationalism, clickbait, and partisan slant that caters to a specific audience’s biases and prejudices.

So what does that mean for AllSides — are we a for-profit or nonprofit? What is our corporate structure?

AllSides is a public benefit corporation, meaning we don’t just aim to maximize shareholder value — we also aim to make a positive impact on society. In all our decisions, we consider not just shareholder value (for most corporations, this is the driving factor in decision making) but also societal factors. 

A regular corporation balances the interests of its stockholders and key stakeholders. But because AllSides is a public benefit corporation, our executive leadership does not make purely profit-motivated decisions. We can always do the right thing to support our mission — even if it’s not the most profitable choice. In other words, if some investor or business wants to give us a huge check to do something that goes against our principles, we can just say no. No fuss, no legal consequences.

Corporations typically have a duty to maximize profit, but by legally incorporating as a public benefit corporation, AllSides can balance decision making against social good factors.

In fact, AllSides’ certificate of incorporation, issued by the state of Delaware, specifically states that for AllSides, “the nature of the business …  is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which corporations may be organized under the General Corporation Law, which shall include producing a public benefit and operating in a responsible and sustainable manner. The specific public benefit to be promoted by [AllSides] shall be to revitalize the country’s democratic society, including by providing balanced information to the public, cultivating respectful dialogue, combatting misinformation, identifying bias and supporting media literacy and civics.”

We’ve designed AllSides to ensure balance is always maintained and to avoid the traps other media companies fall into. We’re aren’t set up to make money from bad practices like clickbait and bias. Credibility and social good is the core benefit we provide — and it’s baked into our bylaws.

In addition, our multipartisan co-founding team, leadership, staff, and remarkably balanced audience – that’s you! – ensures that we stay true to our mission.