BishopAccountability.org

What BishopAccountability.org does

BishopAccountability.org is a Massachusetts-incorporated nonprofit established in June 2003 that operates as the largest public digital and brick-and-mortar archive documenting the Catholic clergy sexual abuse and financial crisis. The organization maintains interconnected databases of accused clergy covering the United States, Argentina, Chile, Ireland, the Philippines, and Haiti, with a Mexico database in development for 2025. Core products include the U.S. Database of Accused (over 7,000 sourced records), the Abuse Tracker (a daily news-monitoring blog with more than 100,000 articles since 2006), the Priest Files archive (tens of thousands of pages of diocesan, religious-order, and Vatican documents), Survivor Accounts, a Whistleblowers Database, Church Lists of Accused (covering 158 dioceses and 24 religious orders), civil and criminal legal documents, a Timeline of the Crisis, and specialized collections on accused bishops globally, Native American abuse, religious sisters, treatment centers, and diocese bankruptcies and settlements. Underlying technology is a website platform with searchable databases and a content management system, alongside a physical archive comprising over 243,770 pages of publicly released church files, more than a million additional pages of church files, and specialized collections including the Demarest Archive (25,880+ sources) and the Podles Archive (157 linear feet).

The organization serves survivors and their families, journalists, academic researchers (including a formalized partnership with the Cushwa Center at the University of Notre Dame, expanded in 2023), law enforcement officials, and legal professionals (including former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, former Philadelphia Deputy DA Charles Gallagher, and Cardozo Law Professor Marci Hamilton). BishopAccountability.org explicitly states it is not an advocacy organization and takes no position on remedies, positioning itself as a neutral public library open to anyone studying the crisis.

Revenue is generated almost entirely through tax-deductible donations accepted from individuals, foundations, and corporations (processed via Network for Good), with a secondary licensing/reprint stream. The organization operates with a 1–10 person staff under a five-member volunteer board of directors (Sylvia Demarest, Anne Barrett Doyle, Terence McKiernan, Lee Podles, and Ann Hagan Webb), with McKiernan serving as President and Doyle as co-director. Distribution is exclusively direct digital access via the public website at bishop-accountability.org; there is no paywall, no commercial product line, and no paid services.

Name

BishopAccountability.org

Legal name

BishopAccountability.org, Inc.

Website

https://bishop-accountability.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

BishopAccountability.org is a Massachusetts nonprofit founded in 2003 that operates the largest public digital and physical archive on the Catholic clergy abuse crisis, serving survivors, journalists, academics, legal professionals, and law enforcement through free searchable databases, sourced documentation, and a daily news-monitoring blog.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Waltham

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Donations: Tax-deductible donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations. 100% of donations go toward building the document collection and making it more accessible.
2. Licensing and Reprint Requests: Contact page indicates licensing requests for BishopAccountability.org material can be directed to staff.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

BishopAccountability.org operates a free public digital and physical archive documenting the Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis. The organization maintains searchable databases of accused clergy in the United States, Argentina, Chile, and Ireland (with Mexico in development), preserves tens of thousands of pages of church documents, and tracks daily media coverage of clergy abuse worldwide. Content is provided at no cost to users, with operations funded through tax-deductible donations.

Product overview

BishopAccountability.org is a digital and brick-and-mortar archive and research organization established in June 2003 that documents the Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis. The organization operates as a unified platform combining multiple interconnected databases and resources: the Database of Accused (with over 7,300 profiles of accused clergy as of September 2021), Priest Files (tens of thousands of pages of church documents), Abuse Tracker (daily news monitoring), Survivor Accounts, Whistleblowers Database, Church Lists of Accused (covering 158 dioceses and 24 religious orders), Legal Documents Archive, Timeline of the Crisis, International Databases (Argentina, Chile, Ireland, Philippines), and specialized resources on Native Abuse, Accused Bishops globally, and Treatment Centers. The organization also maintains extensive physical archives with hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and serves as the largest public library of information on the Catholic clergy abuse crisis.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Database of Accused Comprehensive profiles of every U.S. bishop, priest, nun, brother, and seminarian accused of child sexual abuse, with more than 7,000 detailed records including sources, updated daily.
• Priest Files Documents from the secret archives of dioceses, religious orders, and the Vatican, totaling tens of thousands of pages, with informative introductions to each archive.
• Abuse Tracker Daily guide to media coverage of clergy abuse worldwide and especially in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, with more than 100,000 articles blogged since 2006.
• Survivor Accounts Library of survivor witness and media accounts of survivor experience, including a preview and invitation to an Oral History of the Crisis.
• Whistleblowers Database First database of church whistleblowers including priests, religious, and lay employees who reported colleagues to authorities and fought concealment of abuse.
• Church Lists of Accused Definitive guide to lists of accused persons published by 158 U.S. dioceses and 24 religious orders, with over 2,000 links to past and present lists.
• Legal Documents Archive Archive of lawsuits that have identified accused priests and revealed documents, spanning from Gauthe to the Santa Fe archdiocese bankruptcy to the NY SOL window.
• Timeline of the Crisis Key events of the abuse crisis in the U.S. and worldwide, including investigations, survivor activism, litigation, and church responses.
• Religious Sisters Accused of Abuse Database Profiles of 176 publicly accused religious sisters in the United States, representing 2% of the 8,362 persons in the Database of Accused.
• International Databases Country-specific databases of accused clergy including Argentina, Chile, Ireland, and Philippines, with plans for a Mexico database in 2025.
• Accused Bishops Database Globally comprehensive list of Cardinals and bishops publicly accused of child abuse and sexual misconduct with adults, with links to over 1,000 sources.
• Native Abuse Resources Resources for understanding the impact of clergy abuse on Native American communities in the U.S. and Canada.
• Financial Tracking (Bankruptcies & Settlements) Documentation of diocese and religious order bankruptcies and settlements related to clergy abuse cases.
• Grand Jury Reports Archive Collection of grand jury investigation reports on clergy abuse from various jurisdictions.
• Physical Archives Physical archive containing 243,770 pages of publicly released church files, over a million pages of other church files, the Demarest Archive of accused persons with more than 25,880 sources, and the Podles Archive of 157 linear feet.

Quantifiable outcome

• More than 100,000 articles blogged in Abuse Tracker since 2006
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Cushwa at University of Notre DamecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2023Partnership with scholars at Cushwa to study document archives on clergy abuse. The partnership was expanded in 2023 to offer extensive document collections and timelines to explore sources and methods for teaching the crisis.
• Catholic WhistleblowersminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2013In 2012, BishopAccountability.org brought together ten whistleblowers who launched Catholic Whistleblowers, the first group of priests and nuns dedicated to helping Catholic church insiders who have witnessed wrongdoing. The organization documents these whistleblowers in their database.
• Network for GoodminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorNetwork for Good provides donation processing services for BishopAccountability.org, allowing the organization to accept tax-deductible donations online.
• ProPublica Nonprofit ExplorerminorOthersOrganization's Form 990s and financial information are available through ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer platform, providing transparency for donors.

Scale indicators12 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• ProPublica: Major nonprofit investigative newsroom producing original accountability journalism, including religion and institution coverage. Comparable as a nonprofit news organization producing deep investigative work, particularly on Catholic abuse, with overlapping journalist and researcher audiences.
• Praesidium Inc. Leading provider of abuse risk-management services to religious and youth-serving organizations. Comparable as an established commercial incumbent operating in the institutional abuse-prevention space that BishopAccountability.org monitors and critiques.

Others

• U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB): Official policy body of the U.S. Catholic Church that publishes annual data on accused priests and issues directives on abuse response. Comparable as a Catholic institutional data publisher on the very subject BishopAccountability.org documents and critiques.
• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Vatican dicastery historically responsible for handling clergy abuse cases internally. Comparable as the Catholic institutional counterparty whose historical handling of abuse cases forms a primary subject of BishopAccountability.org's research and reporting.

Direct peers

• Voice of the Faithful: Catholic laity organization formed in 2002 in response to the abuse crisis, focused on structural reform and survivor support. Comparable as a faith-rooted nonprofit addressing Catholic Church accountability, with overlapping survivor-advocacy and research missions.
• Catholic Whistleblowers: Network of priests, nuns, and lay insiders who report church wrongdoing, founded in 2012 with BishopAccountability.org's involvement. Directly comparable as a nonprofit aggregating first-party insider testimony on Catholic institutional abuse.
• Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP): U.S.-based survivor advocacy organization for clergy abuse victims. Directly comparable as a mission-aligned nonprofit focused on Catholic clergy abuse accountability, often cited alongside BishopAccountability.org in press coverage and survivor referrals.
• FaithTrust Institute: Interfaith nonprofit addressing sexual and domestic violence, with particular depth on faith-community clergy abuse. Comparable as an advocacy/educational organization producing research and resources on clergy abuse across faith traditions.
• G.R.A.C.E. (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment): Faith-based nonprofit assisting abuse survivors and institutions with prevention and response. Comparable as a religiously rooted organization focused on clergy abuse documentation, survivor resources, and institutional accountability.

Emerging players

• The Pillar: Independent Catholic investigative journalism outlet launched in 2021 covering Church governance, clergy abuse, and finance. Comparable as a newer, narrower investigative journalism player producing primary accountability reporting on the Catholic Church.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ClergyTrackerBA
• Facebookfacebook.com/profile.php
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/bishopaccountability-org

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about BishopAccountability.org