We are committed to transparency in every aspect of funding our organization, including financial support from our donors. Accepting donor support does not mean we endorse them or their products, services, or opinions. We accept gifts, grants, and sponsorships from individuals, organizations, and foundations to help with our general operations, coverage of specific topics, and special projects. We make our news judgments independently—not based on or influenced by donors. We don’t give supporters the rights to assign, review, or edit content.
Even when applying these criteria, cases may arise in which accepting a gift, grant, or some other form of support might compromise our mission or goals, or might create the appearance of such a compromise. Accordingly, Civil Eats reserves the right to decline or to return any gift, grant, or other form of support if we determine that it would not be in our best interest to accept or to continue to receive such support.
Gifts of tangible real property, personal property, securities, cryptocurrency, bequests, in-kind donations, or other such types of donations of $200,000 or more may only be accepted upon approval of the board of directors. We make public all donors who give $5,000 or more per year.
We prefer not to accept donations from anonymous sources, but will, for general support, only if we’re sure that we are spending the donation according to our own intent and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards. We do not accept donations from sources who, deemed by our board of directors, present a conflict of interest with our work or compromise our independence.