I don’t have any insight into why this grantee wanted to remain anonymous.
I do know of some situations in the animal advocacy space, and advocacy space in general, where it is strategic to not have on the public record (or as little as possible) where one is receiving funding from. Reasons for this might include:
Exposing how groups and initiatives might be connected can damage how their targets interact with them. Ie bad and good cop initiatives having the same funding source can often damage the ability of the good cop to carry out their role.
A local organisation, with large amounts of funding from abroad, can easily be criticised for not representing local interests.
Sometimes it is simply just really useful for adversaries and people, organisations you want to influence to know as little about you as possible.
Probably more reasons I’m not thinking of right now
I hear the concern you raise and also see there are cases where the tradeoff with transparency on distributed funds and setting the grantees up for success may be in conflict. Might some insight into why the grant is anonymous help bridge that gap?
For example:
One of our grantees, who received $291,000, requested that we do not include public reports for their grants as doing so is likely to negatively impact their ability to carry out their work by exposing publicly how they are connected to other organisations.
I don’t have any insight into why this grantee wanted to remain anonymous.
I do know of some situations in the animal advocacy space, and advocacy space in general, where it is strategic to not have on the public record (or as little as possible) where one is receiving funding from. Reasons for this might include:
Increased government scrutiny and harassment as a ‘foreign agent’ by receiving money from abroad.
Exposing how groups and initiatives might be connected can damage how their targets interact with them. Ie bad and good cop initiatives having the same funding source can often damage the ability of the good cop to carry out their role.
A local organisation, with large amounts of funding from abroad, can easily be criticised for not representing local interests.
Sometimes it is simply just really useful for adversaries and people, organisations you want to influence to know as little about you as possible.
Probably more reasons I’m not thinking of right now
I hear the concern you raise and also see there are cases where the tradeoff with transparency on distributed funds and setting the grantees up for success may be in conflict. Might some insight into why the grant is anonymous help bridge that gap?
For example:
One of our grantees, who received $291,000, requested that we do not include public reports for their grants as doing so is likely to negatively impact their ability to carry out their work by exposing publicly how they are connected to other organisations.