Who Funds You? ratings are based on the information provided on organisations’ own websites (or via annual accounts where a link is provided).
Organisations must meet all criteria listed for each relevant rating.
To be eligible for an A, B or C rating, organisations should also publish their annual income.
A-rating
- Names all funders who gave £5,000 or more in the last reported year.*
- Declares exact amount given by each funder.
B-rating
- Names at least 85% of funders (by value) who gave £5,000 or more in the last
reported year. - Groups funders into precise funding bands.**
(Organisations that use broad funding bands may be eligible for a B-rating as long as they name all funders.)
C-Rating
- Names at least 50% of funders (by value) who gave £5,000 or more in the last reported year.
- Groups funders into precise or broad funding bands.
(Organisations that omit funding bands may be eligible for a C-rating as long as they name all funders.)
D-rating
- Names some funders (but only a minority, or not in a systematic way).
E-rating
- No or negligible relevant information provided.
The detail:
*The earliest reported year we will accept is two years before the audit.
**Precise funding bands should be no broader than £10,000 for amounts up to £50,000, no broader than £20,000 for amounts between £50,000 and £200,000, and no broader than £50,000 for amounts above that.
Note: Although Who Funds You? does not rate the transparency of funding sources themselves, we recognise that some funding bodies can act as vehicles for anonymous individuals to make large donations.
Examples include Donor Advised Funds in the US, and the Network for Social Change or the Politics and Economics Research Trust. Therefore to be eligible for an A-rating, such sources may not make up more than one-third of an organisation’s funding; for a B-rating the threshold is two-thirds.