By Brandon Church
The author is an intern with FreedomInfo.org.
Watchdog group Transparify says it is making its voice heard in the world of think tank transparency and will soon be issuing new ratings of 169 think tanks.
Transparify first released ratings for these think tanks in a report published May 2014 using a five-star system to indicate whether they sufficiently disclosed their sources of income.
The top transparency performers, 21 of them, earned a perfect score of five stars, 14 earned four stars, 13 earned three stars, 70 earned two stars, 30 earned one star, and the remaining 21 earned no stars (for no relevant or up-to-date information).
The group claims considerable progress in think tank transparency has already been made. Between January and April 2014, 15 think tanks updated the amount of financial information disclosed on their websites.
“In the first engagement when we first got in touch with think tanks…people seemed a little startled by the approach. But over time when people saw how our ratings lined up with the level of disclosure, they started to come around,” said executive director Hans Gutbrod.
Stars are awarded according to a rubric in which think tanks get five stars if all donors are listed, clearly identifying fundings amounts for, and sources of, particular projects.
To earn four stars all donors providing more than $5,000 must be listed, in four funding brackets. The number of anonymous donors can’t be more that 15 percent. Membership organizations need to list the number of members. For three stars, all or most donors must be listed, in two or three brackets.
The low star categories are where most think tanks ranked. For two stars. all or most of the donors are listed, but without much financial information. One star rankings go to those with some donors listed, but where the other information is “not exhaustive or systematic.”
More Ratings to Be Published
The new report will expand beyond the scope of the May survey, which, according to the group’s website, “published full and detailed rating results [for US think tanks only].”
Gutbrod explained “[t]he last time we had such a full list of US think tanks published in the report[…]We did NOT publish the list of other (non-US) think tanks rated between 0-3 — our rationale was that the transparency discussion was new in some countries.”
The May report listed all 35 ranked US think tanks, as well as every international four and five-star-rated think tank. It did not list any 0-3-starred think tanks from outside the United States.
The report rated 35 think tanks in the United States. Those receiving have stars withe the Center for Global Development, World Resource sInstitute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Freedom House, Heritage Foundation, RAND Corporation, Urban Institute, and Woodrow Wilson Center.
Freedominfo.org attempted to contact several of the worst-rated think tanks, including Open Society Foundations, Hoover Institution, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Center for American Progress, but received no comments.
Pew Research Center Communication Director Vidya Krishnamurthy responded to Freedominfo.org’s request for comments by saying “… the Pew Research Center is not a think tank…. We are in the process of updating our website, in part to make that clear.”
Think Tanks Urged to Update Websites
In anticipation of the second round of ratings, Transparify recommended on its website that all think tanks “complete any planned changes in the financial information they provide on their websites by Sunday, 30 November 2014.”
The rating system focuses on how completely think tanks disclose the sources of their income. It doesn’t require them to disclosure their expenditures. The survey does not rate the transparency of funding donors themselves.
The ratings are done by two or more independent raters, who award stars according to a standard protocol and after receiving a training session.
In the event that raters’ scores differ, an “experienced external adjudicator” audits the reviews and ultimately decides upon a final score.
Ten of these groups “had added so much information that they now have a four-star or five-star rating. Five think tanks made more moderate improvements, but reported plans for further information releases in the near future.”
Gutbrod explained that “what we wanted with the star system is a way to make transparency transparent… a way to say this think tank is less transparent than this other think tank about its donors.”
Transparify is a project managed by Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), a group operating out of Tbilisi, Georgia. The project is funded entirely by the Think Tank Fund of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which is funded by billionaire George Soros.
Notably, OSF received a one-star rating from the Transparify survey. No spokesperson for OSF or Think Tank Fund was available for comment at the time this article was written.
Gutbrod feels the OSF rating is an indication of the project’s legitimacy and integrity: “OSF’s rating shows we are independent and non-preconceived…[OSF]’s website infers founding from a single individual, but that type of inference is the type of thing Transparify is meant to draw attention to.”
In a footnote to the May survey summary, Transparify noted that “the OSF website highlights George Soros as their founder, but does not specify the funding source on its expenditure page. OSF emphasized to us that they do not consider themselves to be a think tank and that they are funded exclusively by George Soros.”
Gutbrod says the purpose of rating systems like Transparify is simple: “if you don’t feel comfortable about putting [donation details] on your website, why would you take it, ultimately?”
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