Witness Inc.

“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.”

“At the beginning of each fiscal year members are sent a new conflict of interest and directors & officers questionnaire that must be completed by board members.”

“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 operates globally in five regions: sub-saharan africa, asia and the pacific, latin america and the caribbean, the middle east and north africa, and the united states. Our global team designs solutions, provides guidance, and develops strategies that enable human rights defenders and ordinary people to hold the powerful to account and stand up for justice. Witness aims to ensure that videos can be trusted and impactful, that human rights defenders can be safer, and that many more people can participate in the fight for human rights. Co-founded in 1992 by advocate and musician peter gabriel, to date, witness has partnered with more than 570 human rights groups representing 135+ countries and trained 11,350+ human rights defenders and civic activists. In the last year alone, we reached over 1 million people with witness resources. As a result of witness' guidance, activists around the world are better equipped to use video and technology more safely, ethically, and effectively to defend their rights and realize opportunities, protect rule of law, fight oppression and inequality, hold governments accountable, and fully participate in society. Highlight activities from the last year include: 1) adapting video as evidence guidance for immigrant communities in the united states: this year, we expanded our video as evidence work in the u.s., responding to an expressed need from lawyers and advocates hoping to document abuses against immigrants and migrants, and use that footage to defend their rights in court. In november, we partnered with alma migrante on a video as evidence training. We trained more than 50 community members in how to document migrant abuse by police and immigration enforcement, capturing and submitting video as evidence in federal courts, video advocacy, digital security, the right to record, and more. In collaboration with a legal fellow, our team has developed a localized (forthcoming) video as evidence guide to be widely shared with immigrant communities across the country. 2) supporting strategic communications for land defense in mexico: this year, witness' school for strategic communication on land defense brought together community leaders and activists representing land defense movements across mexico. We set up 8 learning communities with 95 people, conducting interviews to surface gaps and needs. Throughout 2019, our trainings helped movements deepen their power analysis and strategize on how to use video to challenge dominant narratives. Participants drew inspiration from one another, as well as from case studies of how other communities have leveraged video to strengthen their fight for justice. We concluded by launching a diagnostic report (in spanish), a comprehensive overview of all that we learned. 3) addressing the human rights impacts of content moderation: witness is helping preserve critical human rights content being removed due to machine learning, and influencing global norms around how to handle the inadequacy of content moderation responses. Building upon previous successes restoring critical human rights footage removed from youtube, this year we we spearheaded an open letter opposing a proposed eu regulation to erase extremist content online, and published a white paper with eff and the syrian archive that unpacks the impacts of "extremist" speech regulations on human rights content. In october, our partnership with syrian archive was featured in the new york times. 4) preparing for the threat of deepfakes: witness remains focused on ensuring that technological innovation serves and protects the most marginalized. One emerging threat is around sophisticated, personalized video manipulations called "deepfakes." since organizing the first cross-disciplinary expert convening in 2018, we have become an expert in this space. This year, we led threat modelling workshops; shared surveys of potential solutions, and published a report explaining how diverse stakeholders can work together”

“Foreign currency exchange loss -39,961.”