Alan Kligerman, the left-leaning creator of Lactaid milk and Beano digestive aid, estimates that he has given $100,000 over the years to Americans for Peace Now, a liberal group advocating negotiations between Arabs and Israel. He has given more than $50,000 to the ACLU Foundation and $20,000 to Corporate Accountability International, an international business watchdog formerly named Infact, which launched a boycott of Nestlé 28 years ago over its marketing of infant formula to poor women in developing countries.
Kligerman, now 74, has been active in politics one way or another for most of his adult life. In the 1990s, when another socially conscious entrepreneur, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s, established a group called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Kligerman became one of its most visible members, traveling to Washington for press conferences that urged Congress to shift spending from defense to social programs. When the latest Iraq war began to loom, Kligerman emerged as an unofficial spokesman for business figures who opposed it. The first time he ever felt measurable backlash for his views was when he received what he describes as a few hate letters after the New York Times ran a profile of him in April 2003.
He was a bit surprised; his philanthropy is hardly controversial, he maintains. “I see them as causes that make sense: good government, peace where possible,” he says. “The things I want could not be squarer.” Kligerman thinks even executives at public companies should worry less than they do about stirring controversy. “There is the threat of a boycott and the perceived threat of it,” but he is nevertheless relieved that no one has tried to organize a boycott against AkPharma, his privately held company. If someone did, that person would find a moving target because Kligerman tends to sell his product lines off to other corporations as soon as they gain a measure of success.
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