Glossary

Automatic translation.

ACFID: Australian Council for International Development: association of Australian international cooperation NGOs, with a code of conduct that members commit to follow. acfid.asn.au
ACNC: Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission: the authority that registers and oversees charities in Australia and publishes their annual reports. acnc.gov.au
Active since at least: First year in which the organisation appears in an official source.
AECID: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo: the Spanish government agency for development cooperation.
AICS: Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, which keeps the list of accredited civil society organisations. aics.gov.it
Aid channelled through NGOs: The part of official development assistance that a government entrusts to NGOs to spend in recipient countries. The OECD records it as aid «channelled through» NGOs, distinct from the general contributions a government gives an NGO for its activities.
Annual report: Document in which an organisation presents its activities and accounts for the year. We use it for the consolidated accounts of families and for the few organisations without a register among our sources: we only report figures printed in the document, with the link.
BMZ: Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung: the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Charities Regulator: The authority that registers and oversees charities in Ireland. charitiesregulator.ie
Charities Services: The New Zealand government office that keeps the register of charities and publishes their annual reports. charities.govt.nz
Charity Commission: The authority that registers and oversees charities in England and Wales. gov.uk
CHS (Core Humanitarian Standard): International quality and accountability standard for humanitarian aid; organisations can be verified or certified by independent bodies. corehumanitarianstandard.org
Consolidated accounts: Accounts that represent a group of entities as if they were one, eliminating internal transfers.
CRA (Canada Revenue Agency): The Canadian tax agency, which registers charities and publishes their annual returns (form T3010).
CRS (Creditor Reporting System): The OECD database in which donor countries record official development assistance every year, project by project, with the recipient country, the sector and the channel (government, UN, NGO…). OECD Data Explorer
CSO (civil society organisations): Term used by Italian cooperation law for NGOs and other non-profit bodies registered in the AICS list (in Italian OSC).
d-portal: Site that makes data published on IATI searchable, run by the IATI community. d-portal.org
DAC (Development Assistance Committee): The OECD committee that brings together the main donor countries, sets the rules for counting official development assistance and collects its data.
Don en Confiance: French body that awards a label to organisations that collect donations and respect its code of ethics.
DZI: Deutsches Zentralinstitut für soziale Fragen: German institute that awards the «Spenden-Siegel», the quality seal for organisations that collect donations. dzi.de
ECHO: Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations of the European Commission: funds EU humanitarian aid, largely through NGOs and UN agencies.
EIN (Employer Identification Number): The tax identification number of organisations in the United States; it identifies every non-profit in IRS data.
ETS (Ente del Terzo settore): Status of Italian non-profit bodies registered in the RUNTS; the acronym often appears in the organisation's name.
EU Transparency Register: Joint register of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission in which organisations that seek to influence EU policies enrol; it contains budgets and funding sources declared by the organisations themselves. transparency-register.europa.eu
Family (federation, confederation, network): A group of national organisations with the same name or mission, often coordinated by an international secretariat (for example Oxfam, Save the Children, Caritas).
FCDO: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: the British ministry of foreign affairs and development, which manages much of the UK's official aid.
Financial Tracking Service (OCHA FTS): The OCHA database that records humanitarian funding: who gives, who receives, for which crisis. Not to be confused with the EU's Financial Transparency System. fts.unocha.org
Financial Transparency System (EU FTS): The European Commission database listing the beneficiaries of EU budget funds and the sums committed each year. Not to be confused with OCHA's Financial Tracking Service. ec.europa.eu
Form 990: Annual tax return of non-profit organisations in the United States.
FPI: Service for Foreign Policy Instruments of the European Commission: funds, among other things, conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
FRA: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. It publishes periodic updates on NGO ships engaged in sea rescue in the Mediterranean and on the judicial or administrative proceedings concerning them. fra.europa.eu
Fundación Lealtad: Spanish foundation that analyses NGO transparency and good governance and awards the «ONG Acreditada» seal.
Humanitarian aid: Emergency assistance to people affected by war, disasters or epidemics: food, water, shelter, care, protection. It is part of official aid but has its own rules and channels, and is recorded mainly by OCHA.
IATI: International Aid Transparency Initiative: international standard with which donors and organisations publish data on their aid projects. iatistandard.org
IATI activities: A project or part of a project published on IATI. A platform that raises funds for others may publish thousands of them.
IID (Istituto Italiano della Donazione): Italian association that checks its member organisations every year against its Charter of Giving and awards the «Donare con fiducia» mark.
Innsamlingskontrollen: Norwegian body that monitors organisations that collect funds and publishes the list.
INTPA: Directorate-General for International Partnerships of the European Commission (DEVCO until 2021): manages EU development cooperation.
IOM (International Organization for Migration): United Nations agency for migration (in Italian OIM). With its Missing Migrants Project it records, incident by incident, people who died or went missing along migration routes; its data are a minimum estimate. missingmigrants.iom.int
IRS: Internal Revenue Service: the US tax agency, which recognises the tax exemption of non-profits and receives their Form 990.
Main sector: The macro-sector (health, education, emergency…) with the highest share of the organisation's activities.
NEAR: Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations of the European Commission: funds countries neighbouring the EU and those applying for membership.
NGO (non-governmental organisation): Private non-profit organisation, independent of governments. On this site: those working in international cooperation, humanitarian aid and human rights.
NTEE: National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities: the US classification of non-profit activities.
OCHA: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: coordinates the response to humanitarian crises and runs the Financial Tracking Service. unocha.org
OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (in Italian OCSE): brings together 38 mostly high-income countries. Through its Development Assistance Committee (DAC) it collects data on official development assistance in the Creditor Reporting System. oecd.org
Official development assistance (ODA): In Italian APS, Aiuto pubblico allo sviluppo; in English ODA, Official Development Assistance: funds that governments give to low- and middle-income countries for development and humanitarian aid, under OECD rules. It includes funds given directly to the governments of recipient countries as well as those that pass through UN agencies, development banks and NGOs.
Open Cooperazione: Italian platform on which NGOs voluntarily publish their own budget and activity data. open-cooperazione.it
OSCR: Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator: the authority that registers and oversees charities in Scotland. oscr.org.uk
Quality mark: Certification awarded by an independent body to an organisation that meets rules on transparency, management and fundraising. Almost all marks are national and voluntary: their absence is not a negative signal.
Registry data: Data filed with a public authority (charity register, tax administration).
RUNTS: Italian National Single Register of the Third Sector, the register of third-sector bodies in Italy.
Sea rescue (SAR): Search and rescue of people in danger at sea (in Italian Soccorso in mare). It is the responsibility of States, through coast guards and coordination centres; some NGOs take part with ships, reconnaissance aircraft and alert hotlines.
Self-declared data: Data voluntarily reported by the organisation (for example on Open Cooperazione or in the EU Transparency Register).
Share for the mission: Part of spending allocated to institutional activities (programmes), as opposed to fundraising and structure.
Sida: Styrelsen för internationellt utvecklingssamarbete: the Swedish government agency for development cooperation.
Svensk Insamlingskontroll: Swedish body that checks every year the organisations that collect funds with a 90-konto and publishes their income, assets and spending shares. insamlingskontroll.se
T3010: Annual return that Canadian charities file with the Canada Revenue Agency, with income, expenses and activities abroad.
USAID: United States Agency for International Development: the US government agency for development and humanitarian aid, scaled back and largely closed in 2025.
Wikidata: Free, collaborative database of the Wikimedia Foundation; we use it for founding dates, websites and names in various languages. wikidata.org
ZEWO: Swiss foundation that certifies public-benefit organisations that collect donations, with a quality mark. zewo.ch
90-konto: Fundraising account issued in Sweden by Svensk Insamlingskontroll to organisations that accept its annual checks. See Svensk Insamlingskontroll.

The full list of sources, with licences and update frequency, is on the Sources page.