CREDO (company)
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| Industry | Wireless telecommunications |
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| Founded | November 1985 |
| Founder | Laura Scher, Peter Barnes and Michael Kieschnick |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, United States |
| Parent | Working Assets |
| Website | www |
CREDO Mobile (formerly Working Assets Wireless) is an American mobile virtual network operator headquartered in San Francisco, California. CREDO Mobile's mobile network operator is Verizon Wireless.
CREDO Mobile is a division of Working Assets.
Working Assets was founded by Peter Barnes, Michael Kieschnick and Laura Scher in 1985 in San Francisco, as a business that would use its revenues to fund progressive social change work. Its idea was to give customers an easy way to make a difference in the world just by doing things they do every day. Each time their customers use its services—mobile, long distance or credit card—WA would automatically send a donation to progressive nonprofit groups. To date it has raised more than $81 million for groups like Planned Parenthood, Rainforest Action Network and Oxfam America.
Working Assets's initial product was a credit card that generated donations to progressive nonprofit groups every time the card was used. Soon, the company introduced a ballot process for its customers to vote on how to distribute the money raised among nonprofit groups. The ballot is still used today.
In 1991, the company launched long-distance phone service, promoting the fact that it would donate 1% of its customer charges to nonprofit groups. It also featured political actions in the customers’ monthly bills, urging them to make free calls to elected officials. And it let customers pay for “CitizenLetters” to be sent in their name to the officials. By 1993, these actions included calling for a single-payer healthcare system and for allowing gays in the military.
The company started its mobile phone service as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) using the Sprint Nextel network in 2000. It also launched an activist website called Act for Change (now CREDO Action) in that same year. In 2016, the mobile phone service became a MVNO using the Verizon Wireless network, switching from the Sprint Nextel network .
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