Institutional support
Sponsorship, and the wall behind it.
Institutions can fund investigative capacity here — regional coverage, records access, translation, legal review. None of it reaches the choice of subjects or the findings. The separation is built into how we work, and published so anyone can check it.
- Policy ref
- SPO-01
- Named-donor threshold
- [NAMED-DONOR THRESHOLD]
- Vetting
- Before acceptance, written
- Register
- Public, updated quarterly
01What sponsorship is
It funds a field. Never a finding.
Sponsorship pays for the ability to investigate an area of fraud. It never pays for a particular investigation, and there is no route by which a sponsor can get someone covered — or spared.
Sponsorship funds
- Capacity in a broad field — investment fraud, recruitment and visa scams, cross-border money flows
- Credit by name in the annual report and on funded work
- A published statement of why the sponsor supports the work
- Archive access for the sponsor's own staff
- A yearly briefing on the field, held after publication
Sponsorship never buys
- The choice of any person, company or scheme to investigate
- An early look at drafts, findings, publication dates or embargoes
- Any right to answer, comment on or object to editorial conclusions
- Hiding, delaying, softening or burying any record
- Confidential access to unpublished material or anything about sources
02The firewall
Four separations, each of which someone would have to break on purpose.
For a sponsor to sway coverage, a named person would have to deliberately break one of these. That is the design: influence should require misconduct, not just pressure.
Separate jobs
Funding relationships sit with operations. Editors are not told who is talking to a prospective sponsor and take no part in those talks.
No funding by subject
There is no way to pay for coverage of a named person, company or rival. Offers framed that way are refused — and logged as refused.
Conflict register
Each sponsor is checked against subjects they could plausibly be linked to. A match moves the reporting before it starts and is disclosed on the published record.
We can survive a walkout
No single sponsor may pass the concentration cap. If one pulls out over coverage, the work continues and the withdrawal is reported.
03Who we refuse
Money we will not take, whatever the amount.
Vetting happens before acceptance and is written down. A prospective sponsor that fails any of these is turned away.
Anyone in the archive, and their owners, managers, lawyers, PR agencies and reputation contractors. Anyone under sanctions in a jurisdiction we publish from. Anyone whose real ownership we cannot establish to the standard we would apply to a subject.
Funders who want a say in which subjects we choose, how they are framed, when they run or how they end. Funders whose main interest seems to be coverage of a business rival. Funders who insist on anonymity — secret sponsorship is a conflict by definition.
If a sponsor becomes a subject during the term, the conflict is registered publicly, the coverage moves to editors with no link to the relationship, and the sponsorship ends. That sequence is published alongside the resulting record.
04Process
How a sponsorship is agreed
Five written stages. The agreement is summarised publicly, including any condition attached to the money.
- 1
Step 1
Approach
The prospective sponsor sets out in writing the field they want to support and their own interest in it.
- 2
Step 2
Vetting
Ownership, sanctions status, litigation and presence in the archive are checked to the standard we apply to a subject.
- 3
Step 3
Conflict mapping
The sponsor is checked against current and foreseeable subjects. Any match is registered before anything is signed.
- 4
Step 4
Agreement
Scope, term, amount and the absence of any editorial rights are put in writing, with the firewall terms built in.
- 5
Step 5
Publication
The sponsorship goes on the public register and into the annual report with amount, term and conditions.
05Disclosure
What we disclose, and where.
Disclosure is not optional, and it does not depend on whether the relationship looks good.
| Situation | Disclosure | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Any sponsorship, any amount | Published | Public sponsor register, updated quarterly |
| Above [NAMED-DONOR THRESHOLD] | Named, with amount | Annual transparency report |
| Any condition attached to funding | Published in full | Sponsor register and annual report |
| Sponsor linked to a published subject | Disclosed on the record | The affected dossier or report |
| Offer refused on integrity grounds | Reported in total | Annual transparency report |
Fund a field, not a finding.
If you want to support investigative work on investment fraud, recruitment and visa scams or cross-border money flows, the conversation starts with the field you care about — and ends with you having no say over what we find.