Witness Inc.

“In october 2014, witness amended several policies to ensure compliance with the new york nonprofit revitalization act. This entailed minor changes to our conflict of interest policy, whistleblower policy, bylaws, certificate of incorporation and compensation policy.”

“Senior management reviews and evaluates the information being compiled for the 990 in advance of preparing a draft, and reviews the final 990 prior to irs filing. The finance committee of the board of directors reviews a final draft of the 990, and then the final 990 is circulated to the full board prior to irs filing.”

“All applicable personnel, including board of directors, officers and key employees, sign a conflict of interest statement, in conjunction with witness' published conflict of interest policy, on an ongoing basis. Any potential conflicts are discussed as they may arise, and resolved at the semiannual board of directors meetings.”

“Base salary and salary increases for the executive director are reviewed and approved by the executive committee of the board of directors, taking into consideration, and staying within the parameters of the organization's salary structure, which is updated every two years after originally being created by an external compensation consulting firm in 2005. This salary structure includes salaries for all staff, including the executive director and other key staff.”

“The organization's conflict of interest policy is available upon request. The organization's financial statements are made available to the public on its website, www.witness.org, and by request.”

“Witness is an international organization that trains and supports people around the world to use video safely, ethically and effectively to document human rights abuses. As more people use mobile devices to film, witness aims to provide these "citizen witnesses" with customized training, tools, and timely support to create real change. Witness identifies critical situations and provides intensive, on-the-ground support to those affected by abuse, including training human rights defenders in documentation for evidence, video production, safe and ethical filming techniques and advocacy strategies. We advocate to technology companies to create changes at the systems level, to improve social media platforms for human rights uses and to protect the privacy and security of people filming, being filmed and sharing video online. Witness has also developed a groundbreaking video as evidence guide that provides a framework for the use of video as legal evidence. This comprehensive guide enables criminal justice systems to more readily open the doors to citizen-shot video and citizens a better understanding of how to capture video that can be used by a court of law. In 2015, in collaboration with the news lab at google, we launched the witness media lab to research and wrestle with some of today's most pressing issues around technology, video and human rights. For over two decades, witness has partnered with hundreds of organizations across the world, trained and equipped thousands of activists and made customized resources available to millions so that everyone, everywhere can harness the power of video for human rights change.”

“The organization had a total of 74 volunteers during the fiscal year, comprised of the following: 5 interns, 21 gala volunteers, 4 nyc marathon runners, 1 volunteer consulting attorney, 15 board members and 28 advisory members.”

“Foreign currency exchange loss -216,006.”