Support the work

Funding and independence

CARO is funded by individuals. It has received no institutional or government money, and accepts no funding that gives a funder any say over a finding.

Funded by individuals. Never by an institution.

The method, the pilot and the book were produced by students, researchers and volunteers across Bangladesh since 2023. The costs were met by individual contribution.

What support covers

CARO maintains the standard and the method, publishes its research, and keeps the register of who applies the standard.

What support pays for
Hosting, domains and the publication archive
Independent methodological review of each new version
Translation of the standard and the method
Research projects, each funded on the terms below
Support never goes to the bodies that apply the standard. CARO does not fund them.

The terms, before the money

Conditions of giving.

A funder may

  • Be acknowledged publicly, or not, as they prefer
  • Receive advance notice of a publication
  • Receive a report on the use of their funds
  • Restrict a gift to a named cost on the list above
  • Criticise the work in public, like anyone else

A funder may not

  • Alter, withhold or withdraw a published finding
  • Review a finding before publication, or approve one
  • Influence the question set, the weights or the formulae
  • Direct which population is measured or when
  • Hold a seat, a vote or a veto on anything
  • Be exempted from measurement because they gave

Any term of an agreement that grants a power in the second column is void, and the remaining terms stand.

What gets published

If CARO receives funding from any source whose gifts in a year, taken together, exceed one tenth of its total donations for that year, that source is named in the annual accounts, with the amount. No other donor is named, so that giving stays safe for people who have reason to be careful.

Where a funder has any relationship — financial, institutional or personal — with a body being measured, that relationship is published alongside the measurement, not in a footnote elsewhere. If the relationship is close enough that disclosure would not cure it, the gift is declined.

If accepting a gift would make a future finding harder to publish, it is refused.

Give

CARO is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation

Contributions from United States taxpayers are tax-deductible to the extent the law allows. EIN 33-2441689, registered in the District of Columbia.

Give once Give monthly

For a grant, a restricted gift, or a conversation before giving, write to admin@carononprofit.org. Expect the terms above to be part of that conversation rather than discovered afterwards.

If you would rather not give money

Most of what CARO needs is not funding.

Apply the standard. Measure a population and publish the results with their provenance.

Test the method. Find a flaw in a formula, a bias in a question, a claim that outruns its evidence. Send it. Criticism that holds is published with the revision it produced, and credited.

Translate something. The standard and the method are only useful in languages people actually govern in.

Using the standard → The method →