{"id":493330,"date":"2010-03-31T06:12:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T10:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opiniojuris.org\/?p=11756"},"modified":"2010-03-31T06:12:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T10:12:05","slug":"who-funds-ngo-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/493330","title":{"rendered":"Who Funds NGO Monitor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Kevin Jon Heller <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

NGO Monitor loves to criticize progressive NGOs for a lack of transparency concerning their funding.\u00a0 A recent report<\/a>, for example, predictably attacks Human Rights Watch for not identifying all of its donors, particularly those at last year’s fundraising event in Saudi Arabia:<\/p>\n

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HRW publishes the names and amounts provided by some of its donors,<\/strong> but others remain hidden<\/strong>. Although HRW claims to refuse funding from government organizations, Oxfam NOVIB, funded largely by the Dutch government, provided approximately $1 million in 2008. Since some HRW donors and their contributions are not listed, it is possible that other direct or indirect government funders are among them<\/strong>. A highly controversial HRW dinner held in May 2009 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that included members of the government Shura Council, has been described as a fundraising event.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Should HRW identify all of its donors and the amounts they have donated?\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 But HRW is a model of transparency compared to NGO Monitor itself.\u00a0 Here, in its entirety, is the information NGO Monitor’s website provides about its<\/em> funding:<\/p>\n

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NGO Monitor was founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation.\u00a0 Major donors include<\/span> Ben & Esther Rosenbloom Foundation, Baltimore; MZ Foundation, Oakland; Klarman Family Foundation, Boston; Middle East Forum Education Project, Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s it.\u00a0 Notice that NGO Monitor provides no information about the amounts donated by the foundations.\u00a0 And notice that NGO Monitor only identifies “major” donors — others remain hidden<\/em>.\u00a0 And since others remain hidden, it is possible that direct or indirect government funders are among them<\/em>.<\/p>\n

NGO Monitor’s annual report for 2008<\/a> — it has yet to publish one for 2009 — is no more illuminating.\u00a0 The report simply states that NGO Monitor received $433,500 in donations during 2008; it does not identify where those donations came from or the amounts donated.<\/p>\n

I’m not the only one who has noted NGO Monitor’s complete lack of financial transparency.\u00a0 Recent editorials in the Jerusalem Post<\/em> (written by a professor at Ben Gurion University) and Haaretz<\/em><\/a> have made the same point.\u00a0 (Interestingly, the Jerusalem Post<\/em> seems to have removed the editorial.\u00a0 Fortunately, you can find a cached version here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

NGO Monitor is absolutely right: financial transparency is<\/em> critically important.\u00a0 So who funds NGO Monitor?\u00a0 If Mr. Steinberg or Ms. Herzberg will be kind enough to send me a complete list of names and amounts, I will happily publish the information here.<\/p>\n

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by Kevin Jon Heller NGO Monitor loves to criticize progressive NGOs for a lack of transparency concerning their funding.\u00a0 A recent report, for example, predictably attacks Human Rights Watch for not identifying all of its donors, particularly those at last year’s fundraising event in Saudi Arabia: HRW publishes the names and amounts provided by some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}