fa What is CAPI? Corruption costs taxpayers trillions of dollars a year worldwide that could be better spent on social, health, education, and other programs to improve the lives of citizens worldwide. Despite the pervasiveness of corruption, finding, stopping and preventing it is daunting. There are anti-corruption offices in place across the country and globe, but the system overall is relatively young and largely decentralized. Individual corruption-fighting offices are often disparate and adrift, unconnected to peers and experts in other jurisdictions. These offices face common challenges and can benefit greatly from active collaboration and shared best practices. In 2013, the New York City Department of Investigation partnered with Columbia Law School to create the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (CAPI). Over the past nearly five years, CAPI has grown into a platform through which public integrity professionals can connect with each other and provides the resources to help them succeed. Executive Director Jennifer Rodgers CAPI is a nonprofit resource center dedicated to bolstering anti-corruption research, promoting key tools and best practices, and cultivating a professional network to share new developments and lessons learned, both online and through live events. Unique in its municipal focus, CAPI’s work emphasizes practical lessons and practitioner needs. Through this network, in which anti-corruption practitioners and agencies can share their insights, methods, and successes, CAPI seeks to support the fight against corruption in all its forms. We strive to create an environment where members of our community learn from one another to better promote public integrity and good governance. Our Mission: CAPI aims to improve the capacity of public offices and practitioners to deter, identify, and combat corruption. We work to: • Build and support a vibrant community of leaders in the public integrity field. • Develop tools and resources to help governments and practitioners fight corruption. • Promote research and scholarship on important public integrity issues. To join our community and receive information about our activities and upcoming events, visit our website at www.law.columbia.edu/CAPI. Follow @ColumbiaCAPI: Cover Photo: Death to Stock Photo, http://deathtostock.staging.wpengine.com/ Table of Contents Message from the Director 1 Highlights from 2017 2 Strengthening the Public Integrity Community 3 • Conferences and Trainings 3 • Sharing Perspectives on Public Integrity 4 • Outreach to Practitioners, Scholars, and the Public 5 Building an Online Knowledge Hub 6 On the Horizon 8 Financial Statement 9 Our Team 10 Our Supporters 11 Message from the Director 2017 was yet another exciting and productive year for CAPI! Building on the tremendous support we have received from our founding partners, the New York City Department of Investigation and Columbia Law School, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, our dedicated advisory board, and individuals, we have accomplished all of our goals for this year and more. Among other things, we are especially delighted that we: • Continued to grow our community of public integrity professionals including scholars and practitioners to more than 7,200 over the course of the year through our social media presence and extremely popular Weekly Corruption Digest. • Launched our Members Forum which has over 3,500 registered members. • Attracted over 2,000 attendees to our nine unique events which included trainings, conferences, and academic lectures featuring prominent speakers in the public integrity field, including our signature Global Cities conference. Executive Director Jennifer Rodgers on MSNBC. • Published our data analytics framework, Taking a Byte Our of Corruption to help municipalities use data to assist in their assessment of corruption risks through the generous support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. • Expanded our Knowledge Hub of issue briefs, community contributions, and practitioner toolkits partly in accordance with our grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. • Began research on district attorney campaign finance practices at the request of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. • Launched our year-end fundraising campaign, #DeterIdentifyCombat, which raised over $55,000. • Continued to expand our reach by speaking about CAPI and our work at numerous conferences and other events and appearing in media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC’s Eleventh Hour with Brian Williams, All in with Chris Hayes, and PBS Thirteen’s Metrofocus. I am so proud of what we have done to date, and I am looking forward to 2018 when even more of our work will be ready for release. Keep an eye out for our full calendar of events, the publication of our district attorney campaign finance reform report, and much more. In our current political climate, public integrity practitioners and government ethics oversight bodies are increasingly important. With the continued support of our advisory board, DOI, Columbia Law School, and our CAPI community, we plan to further grow as a vital resource in the critical fight for integrity in our cities. Thanks for your support and involvement in CAPI! 1 Highlights from 2017 A growing community In 2017, our membership continued to grow from 5,500 to over 7,200. More than 1,000 participants from around the world attended our events. Our popular weekly digest—packed with corruption-related news stories, links to cutting-edge scholarship, and information about CAPI projects and events—reaches more than 2,600 readers. Our new online members forum, which was launched in June, sparks new connections and conversations to sustain a vibrant community of professionals and scholars. A full calendar of events CAPI held 9 events this year, including trainings, general interest conferences, academic lectures, and our signature conference, Global Cities II. Altogether these events served hundreds of public integrity professionals, students and scholars, the news media, and interested citizens from around the world. We featured speakers from prominent organizations including the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the United States Office of Government Ethics, the World Bank Group, the Minority Business Development Institute, the New York City Department of Investigation, Mayor’s Office of the City of Paris, the City of Bogotá, and others. Our two-day Global Cities conference featured professional workshops, for practitioners on the front lines of protecting public integrity to learn best practices from their colleagues worldwide. An online library of practice-oriented resources In part with the generous support of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, CAPI continued to expand our Knowledge Hub of practical resources for public integrity professionals and scholars. Authored by experts in the field, our eleven issue briefs, five community contributions, and four practitioner toolkits published last year cover issues ranging from a guide to commonly used federal statures in public corruption cases to best practices in municipal oversight. Finally, we also published seven Profiles in Public Integrity, and four What Comes Next? briefs on breaking corruption stories. Taking a Byte Out of Corruption: A Data Analytic Framework for Cities to Fight Fraud, Cut Costs, and Promote Integrity Thanks to a generous commitment from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, CAPI convened an expert working group of leading anti- corruption practitioners from government, the private sector, and civil society to examine ways to bring integrity oversight into the 21st century. This project produced a report with actionable recommendations and ideas that cities nationwide can implement to enhance their corruption control procedures. 2 Strengthening the Public Integrity Community CAPI organizes conferences and other gatherings to bring together members of the public integrity community to share knowledge and form connections and collaborations. Our events at CAPI help bridge the gap between practitioners, scholars, policymakers, and engaged citizens. Conferences and Trainings CAPI had a full calendar of programming aimed to provide practitioners from around the world with high-quality training in the latest advances in anti-corruption efforts and to engage scholars, students, and the public on emerging issues in public integrity in 2017. CAPI was able to offer free Continuing Legal Education credit to the many qualified members of the New York Bar who attended our events. Improving Organizational Culture: How Public Institutions Can Promote Integrity and Prevent Corruption March 10 In this two-panel conference, CAPI hosted leaders from both the public and private sectors to discuss practical lessons for promoting integrity in organizational culture. Topics included red flags of a corrupt culture, how government agencies promote transparent and accountable workplaces, and best practices to instill ethical behavior in employees. M/W/DBE Workshop: Identifying Problems and Moving Forward with Solutions April 19 CAPI hosted a panel discussion focused on the Minority, Women, and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (M/W/DBE) programs in place in New York City and New York State. Relevant stakeholders from organizations such as the Minority Business Development Institute, CohnReznick, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office addressed deficiencies in the programs as they currently exist and proposed possible improvements.