New Harvest operates in three anchor regions – the U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands – and undertakes projects and initiatives around the world.
While corporate giving has never been a primary source of charitable funding, having support from the private sector is important for legitimacy, acceptance by local policymakers, and may be required by certain collaborative, government funded grants and programs.
Our work, especially in facilitating collective actions across a range of stakeholders often works across borders and sectors. In a biotechnology-driven field, collaboration and coordination between the public and private sectors, across regulatory environments, and between disciplines is critical to achieving global impact. No one benefits from acting in isolation.
New Harvest’s corporate giving policy aims to allow for all of our anchor regions to have the resources and local legitimacy needed to achieve our goals.
It is also designed to ensure that New Harvest is able to pursue bold collective actions and groundbreaking research while rigorously protecting our independence, objectivity, and reputation.
Corporate Giving Principles
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New Harvest’s work is not for sale. Where eligible, gifts from corporations or corporate-controlled foundations will not be considered or accepted where an expectation of influencing our research, our agenda, or our mission exists.
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For research projects, gifts from corporations or corporate-controlled foundations will not be accepted where an expectation of influencing the design, collection, analyses or interpretation of research or the decision to publish the results exists.
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New Harvest reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to refuse any gift, particularly those that are not consistent with its mission; that could hinder New Harvest’s independent role; that could introduce a material real or perceived conflict of interest; that could expose New Harvest or our partners to liability, reputational harm or adverse publicity; or that could violate local, state or national laws.
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New Harvest accepts gifts that help to further our mission, that are consistent with our organizational values and with local philanthropic norms, and that enable New Harvest and its partners to achieve significant impact.
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New Harvest recognizes that receiving money from corporations or corporate controlled foundations carries the perception of influence, at the very least from unintentional bias (which is a real thing). We hope that the practical measures we put in place to avoid this on projects will address such concerns, and we are open to feedback on our efforts.
Our full Gift Acceptance Policy can be found alongside other documentation on our Transparency page.
*Inspiration for our policy was drawn from previous work by the Environmental Defense Fund.
