EIN 13-4167155

Witness

IRS 501(c) type
501(c)(3)
Num. employees
30
Year formed
2001
Most recent tax filings
2022-06-01
Description
Witness is an international nonprofit organization that empowers people to use video and technology in protecting and defending human rights. Operating globally in five regions, Witness assists individuals in utilizing these tools to promote justice in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and the United States. The organization actively addresses technology threats and opportunities by prioritizing innovation that serves a healthy and informed society. Headquarters are located in Brooklyn, NY.
Total revenues
$6,505,968
2022
Total expenses
$4,654,213
2022
Total assets
$12,318,415
2022
Num. employees
30
2022

Program areas at Witness

Training and capacity buildingthe cornerstone of Witness' program model is building capacity with vulnerable and marginalized communities using video and technology for human rights. Its priority cross-cutting themes address the world's most complex and urgent challenges and focus on the most vulnerable groups: war crimes; land defense; and state violence. It also engages in global field building work on related issues that fall outside of these themes, but are critical to protecting and defending human rights, such as: documenting election violence, filming protests, climate justice, gender-based violence, hate speech, and safety and security. (continued on schedule o)witness trainings help fill critical gaps in the use of video for human rights, ensuring that the videos people often go to great lengths to capture can be trusted and verified; that activists can stay safe and manage risk; that evidentiary videos can be found amidst mass volume; that movements and groups can use visual storytelling in strategic and impactful ways; and that new and existing technologies can enable greater citizen participation. A global organization, Witness is rooted in five regions globally (asia & the pacific, latin america & the caribbean, middle east & north africa, sub-saharan africa, and the united states). Each year, program staff provide a series of both in-person and virtual trainings to communities, human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and lawyers around the world, sharing concrete resources, guidance, and tools around the safe, ethical, and effective use of video and technology for human rights. Between july 2021 and june 2022, Witness trained more than 2,566 individuals representing affected communities in more than 39 countries, including brazil, colombia, democratic republic of congo, ecuador, malaysia, mexico, myanmar, peru, philippines, nigeria, south africa, sudan, yemen, ukrarine and the united states. Trainings covered a range of human rights issues and addressed key skill set areas, including video as evidence, video advocacy, archiving, ethics, and security.
Technology threats and opportunitiesbuilding on a rich history of anticipating the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging technologies, Witness remains laser-focused on ensuring that innovation operates in service of a healthy and informed society, while serving and protecting the most marginalized. It engages actors across the human rights and technology ecosystem, bringing grassroots perspectives to global technology companies pushing them to be more accountable and scaling impact in the process. Witness utilizes an understanding of the real and unprecedented threats posed by emerging technologies to develop threat models, advocate to companies on rights-respecting approaches, and collaborate on applied research. (continued on schedule o)the organization is a thought leader and cross-sector convener, addressing the threats of media manipulation, surveillance, and security facing vulnerable groups and the human rights movement at large.witness' systems-level work brings a global perspective rooted in the actual experiences of vulnerable communities rather than in abstract ideas. All work draws on local feedback and is informed by real-world examples of how these tools and platforms are being deployed by both marginalized communities, as well as by bad actors to spread misinformation, undermine trust, target activists, and put communities at increased risk. Witness' theory of change is rooted in lived experiences, harm reduction, and systemic change. In the face of apocalyptic narratives surrounding both existing forms of social media and new emerging technologies such as ai, it is also committed to upholding the positive uses of these technologies, which enable civic participation, mobilization, and accountability.throughout the year, Witness organized cross-disciplinary convenings to identify threats and solutions related to existing and emerging technologies. These gatherings bring together a range of stakeholders and perspectives, spanning frontline communities, human rights defenders, technology company representatives, researchers, and journalists. The proliferation of mis- and disinformation has placed pressure on technology companies to roll out scaled efforts to preserve trust in the content people create and share. Witness has established itself as a leading voice around authenticity infrastructure over the past few years, ensuring that this public discussion and technical work incorporates a human rights lens, works to dispel mis- and disinformation, and rebuilds eroded public trust. It is influencing concrete technology specifications to ensure that emerging authenticity tools are grounded in human rights, free expression, and civic journalism values and concerns. Witness is also a consistent and strong media voice globally, advocating for key issues by being quoted, referenced in, or authoring op-eds in outlets such as the mit tech review, the new yorker, the bbc, npr, the Washington post, wired, and cnn.
Resource creation and distributionwitness' online library is home to over 260 training resources in more than 27 languages. The library enables anyone, anywhere to access, download, and adapt a range of open source tips and guidance on how to use video more safely and effectively for human rights. Year after year, Witness has seen an increase in the overall engagement with these resources, demonstrating appetite and need for its materials across issue areas, regions, and languages. (continued on schedule o)the organization recognizes the strategic power of social media as a tool to widely distribute information, as well as the fact that activists and vulnerable communities worldwide are turning to these platforms to communicate, advocate, and participate in society. Witness' goal is that whether a media activist in guatemala en route to film a political protest, a survivor of gender-based violence in india hoping to bring visibility to the issue and achieve accountability; or a member of a persecuted population in myanmar trying to preserve footage of genocide, anyone can come into contact with Witness' guidance at the critical moment when they need it most.global social media efforts are led by a team of locally-based communications experts who enable Witness to be more timely, responsive, and proactive, pushing out resources when people need them most. They are also well-placed to anticipate emerging threats (e.g. The online targeting of activists), and plan effective, locally-grounded responses. By keeping a pulse on what human rights issues people are talking about, confused about, concerned about, or excited about globally, Witness is able to tailor outreach and catapult knowledge into key spaces, greatly increasing reach and impact. The goal of this global social media work is to achieve "meaningful engagement" with online audiences; the hope is that those who encounter our resources will share the knowledge on and also function as a resource within their own community.between july 2021 and june 2022, Witness created, adapted, tailored, and disseminated critical resources on topics such as: documenting during internet shutdowns; the right to record; strategic communications for the defense of land and territory; visual storytelling for immigration justice; forced evictions and forced displacement; ethical interviewing; filming hate; documentation apps for human rights; and more. As a result, Witness cultivated over 2.8 million meaningful online engagements with its guidance and resources; tip sheets, videos, and curricula were downloaded more than 166,076 times. The team experimented with creative dissemination methods (e.g. Meme-based guidance and podcasts), penetrating hard-to-reach spaces and ensuring that many more people using video for human rights are aware of, and able to access, Witness' guidance.
Learning and sharing:a primary mechanism by which Witness helps build the fabric of ecosystems is through the unique ability to learn and share, ensuring that guidance and tools can be adapted to, and shared with, vulnerable communities facing similar issues around the world. As patterns of injustice and marginalization repeat themselves across borders and geographies, so too must the strategies and tactics for how video and technology can help realize opportunities and expose these abuses. A rohingya villager trying to archive and preserve the mass volume of war crimes footage captured on their mobile phone via whatsapp in myanmar can learn from a civic journalist in syria who has already thought through these challenges and workflows in a war crimes context; just as a community leader trying to prevent the illegal deforestation of their land in malaysia can learn from indigenous leaders using video evidence to end the illegal invasion of their ancestral lands in the amazon. Between july 2021 and june 2022, Witness adapted and deployed guidance related to: internet shutdowns; strategic communications for land defense; evidentiary databases of state violence documentation; and the role of audiovisual witnessing in securing justice and accountability for victims of international crimes. The internet shutdowns guidance, for example, has been translated into eight languages, adapted into numerous formats, and shared with communities facing similar challenges globally. These tips were integrated into a range of guides and toolkits by partner organizations such as internews, access now, and amnesty international. In regions like latin america, for example, where Witness has been deliberately building and cultivating activist networks for longer periods of time, there is concrete evidence of how guidance is being appropriated, adapted, and shared - and at times even "mainstreamed" by key partners. For example, the latin america team supported a collective in chile to collect evidence of state actors repressing protests and uprisings over. Drawing upon Witness guidance, and to demonstrate the ongoing and systemic use of excessive force to ensure compliance with pandemic restrictions, the collective is creating their own database for audiovisual human rights violations. As uprisings continue, an organized database will help this group and other collectives' catalog and share abuses with lawyers, organizers, activists, and the public.

Who funds Witness

Grants from foundations and other nonprofits
GrantmakerDescriptionAmount
Skoll FundGeneral Operating Support$1,575,000
Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized WebOperating$1,000,000
Open Society FoundationTo Provide General Support$600,000
...and 25 more grants received totalling $4,923,546

Personnel at Witness

NameTitleCompensation
Samuel GregoryExecutive Director$154,560
Sara FederleinDirector of Philanthropy$101,388
Tanya KaranasiosGlobal Programs Director / Deputy Director of Programs$123,363
Yvette Alberdingk-ThijmPast Executive Director
Michael HirschhornSecretary$0
...and 6 more key personnel

Financials for Witness

RevenuesFYE 06/2022
Total grants, contributions, etc.$6,411,076
Program services$0
Investment income and dividends$59,918
Tax-exempt bond proceeds$0
Royalty revenue$0
Net rental income$0
Net gain from sale of non-inventory assets$-16,328
Net income from fundraising events$0
Net income from gaming activities$0
Net income from sales of inventory$1,867
Miscellaneous revenues$49,435
Total revenues$6,505,968

Form 990s for Witness

Fiscal year endingDate received by IRSFormPDF link
2022-062023-04-25990View PDF
2020-062021-05-18990View PDF
2019-062020-10-05990View PDF
2018-062019-06-19990View PDF
2017-062018-04-10990View PDF
...and 8 more Form 990s

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Free the SlavesWashington, DC$1,935,417
Together for GirlsWashington, DC$2,770,201
Center for Victims of Torture (CVT)Saint Paul, MN$27,564,307
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)New York, NY$5,432,302
EarthRights InternationalWashington, DC$6,841,638
Data update history
July 3, 2023
Updated personnel
Identified 6 new personnel
May 19, 2023
Updated personnel
Identified 2 new personnel
May 8, 2023
Received grants
Identified 1 new grant, including a grant for $3,000 from Birks Works Foundation
September 7, 2022
Used new vendors
Identified 2 new vendors, including , and
August 1, 2022
Received grants
Identified 2 new grant, including a grant for $225,000 from Dropbox Charitable Foundation
Nonprofit Types
Social advocacy organizationsHuman rights organizationsInternational-focused organizationsCharities
Issues
Human rightsForeign affairsInternational development
Characteristics
Operates internationallyNational levelReceives government fundingTax deductible donations
General information
Address
80 Hanson Pl 510
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Metro area
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA
Website URL
witness.org/ 
Phone
(718) 783-2000
Facebook page
WITNESS 
Twitter profile
@witnessorg 
IRS details
EIN
13-4167155
Fiscal year end
June
Taxreturn type
Form 990
Year formed
2001
Eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions (Pub 78)
Yes
Categorization
NTEE code, primary
Q30: International Development, Relief Services
NAICS code, primary
813311: Human Rights Organizations
Parent/child status
Independent
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