10 February 2012
Today the Hebrew edition of Haaretz reports in a story about NGO Monitor that the organization hides details of its efforts to raise funds from US organizations. I have already collected some information about the sources of NGO Monitor’s income that I am sharing so bloggers and journalists can begin to do their own research into the network of funders behind this right-wing anti-Palestinian and pro-censorship organization.
In the United States, NGO Monitor raises money through a tax-exempt organization named REPORT. Prior to 2011, this organization was named American Friends of NGO Monitor.
Form 990
Tax-exempt organizations in the United States are required to submit a Form 990 to the Internal Revenue Service and to make this form publicly available. This form discloses basic financial information about the organization and how it spent its money.
Importantly, form 990 does not reveal where an organization’s money comes from. However, if the group raised money from other tax-exempt organizations or foundations, those foundations would have to declare in their form 990 all significant grants, because those organizations must also declare how they spend their money.
REPORT’s Form 990 for 2010
REPORT’s donors
On REPORT’s web site, they list several foundations as donors. Below is a list of those foundations, links to their web sites, Guidestar profiles and their 2010 or most recent 990.
- Helen Diller Family Foundation, San Francisco
Form 990 (2010) - The Immerman Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland
Form 990 (2010) - Klarman Family Foundation, Boston
Form 990 (2010) - Koret Foundation, San Francisco (on GuideStar)
Form 990 (2010) - Linden Trust for Conservation (NY) (on GuideStar)
Form 990 (2010) - Middle East Forum Education Project, Philadelphia (on GuideStar)
Form 990 (2010) - MZ Foundation, Oakland (on GuideStar)
Form 990 (2010) - Ben & Esther Rosenbloom Foundation, Baltimore
Form 990 (2010) - The Paul E. Singer Foundation
Form 990 (2010) - Wechsler Family Foundation (MA)
Form 990 (2010)
How to read these documents
When you read the Form 990s for these foundations, look for the section that lists “Grants and other assistance to organizations, governments and individuals in the United States.” This is usually near the end.
You can also search for American Friends of NGO Monitor or REPORT but this will only work if the PDF has passed through OCR (optical character recognition) first, and not all of them have. In this section, you will see how much the foundation granted to NGO Monitor in 2010. In the same section of the document, you will see other organizations that the foundation also funded.
For example, the Helen Diller Family Foundation supported American Friends of NGO Monitor and the Center for Security Policy’s Latma TV Project – which routinely depicts people of African ancestry as monkeys and engages in racist black face depictions and disseminated the libel that Muslims were responsible for a rape epidemic in Norway.
These documents scratch the surface of the network of financing for right-wing, Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian organizations that includes NGO Monitor’s US fundraising arm REPORT, but they are a good place to start.
Comments
Anti-Palestinian?
Permalink Dan Goldenblatt replied on
Dear Benjamin,
With all due respect, I think you missed one important point and that is that the NGO Monitor is monitoring Israeli(!) NGOs. It is monitoring and trying to harm Israeli(!) organizations that care for the Palestinian cause. They are Israeli(!) progressive organizations, made up of, predominantly, Jews. Organizations that first and foremost object to the Israeli occupation and want to put an end to it. They care for the ongoing discrimination, opression and violence against the Palestinian people. That also care for Israel and its democracy that is under and intensifying attack these days. NGO Monitor is indeed a pro-cencorship organization but pro cencorship of, once again, Israeli voices that are pro-democracy, universal humanist, progressive, egalitarian, organizations, NGOs etc.
NGO Monitor is a despicable, McCarthyest organization that all those who are in favor of a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who support democracy (direct if possible), solidarity, humanism, freedoms etc., should be against.
Not all the organizations that NGO monitor is going against may follow the full 10 commandements of the BDS movement of the anti-normalization movement and yet, I have a feeling that the way you put it in your article you are ignoring the very target of NGO Monitor and in such a way only weakening its target instead of the opposite.
Dan