MSI Integrity is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity organization. We are committed to transparency in our funding and financial arrangements, and prize the independence and integrity of our work. We take careful steps to ensure our funding sources do not create conflicts of interest in our work.
MSI Integrity is currently funded with general support from the Catalytic Capital Consortium Grantmaking, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Open Society Foundations. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided seed funding to support the launch and development of MSI Integrity from 2012-2014.
MSI Integrity is committed to equity between it’s highest and lowest paid staff. We believe it is good practice for organizations to make their Executive Director-to-full time staff pay ratios publicly available. MSI Integrity strives to ensure that we never exceed a pay ratio of 3:1. In the event we exceed a 3:1 ratio, the issue is placed before the Board for discussion, who will seek input from MSI Integrity’s workers. Our current ratio is 1.61 to 1. By comparison, median CEO pay ratio of S&P companies is 208 to 1, or roughly $14 million to $71,000.
Our most recent Form 990 is available for download here and a breakdown of our 2020 financials is available for download here. Please contact us if you would like to obtain copies of our financial information and IRS fillings from earlier years, as well as our conflict of interest policies or other governing documents.
Any specific funding received for individual projects is disclosed within the publications associated with those projects. For full transparency, below is a complete list of our previous project-related funding:
- MSI Integrity’s ongoing research project on affected community experiences of global multi-stakeholder initiatives is funded with a Learn from Innovation Grant from Voice Global, financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed in consortium by Oxfam Novib and Hivos.
- The MSI Evaluation Tool project received funding from Cordaid solely for its publication and release.
- The travel costs associated with research for Protecting the Cornerstone: Assessing the Governance of Multi-Stakeholder Groups in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative were directly reimbursed by the World Bank Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Once the report was completed, Publish What You Pay International arranged for design and printing of physical copies.
- The Open Society Foundations have provided project support for work related to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, including for outreach relating to Protecting the Cornerstone, completing and conducting outreach related to the MSI Pilot Evaluation Reports and our focus on the human rights implications of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
We welcome support from a range of sources. If you are interested in supporting our work, please donate via PayPal below!