In the summer time, pockets bulging
February 13, 2011 5:54 PM   Subscribe

Interactive map of direct grants by U.S. grantmakers to non-U.S. recipients. Sort by country, grant organization, year, number of recipients, dollars and other ways. 2003-2011.
posted by cashman (28 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Iraq: a million
Afghanistan: half a million
Australia: three hundred million

This is not looking good...
posted by kozad at 6:01 PM on February 13, 2011



Switzerland $2,527,845,034
England $1,270,091,163

grants to numbered bank accounts?
posted by ennui.bz at 6:02 PM on February 13, 2011


I don't get it. Are we supposed to be reading something polemic into this? The tool itself isn't that interesting; there are many data visualization interfaces like this across the web...
posted by mr_roboto at 6:08 PM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Also, it doesn't work in Safari.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:09 PM on February 13, 2011


The tool itself isn't that interesting

I thought it was interesting, and pretty neat.
posted by cashman at 6:24 PM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


"England" is the #1 recipient. "United Kingdom" is near the bottom of the list. And "Northern Ireland" is in the middle of the pack.

[Yes, that FPP has given me one more thing to be obsessively pedantic about]
posted by Dimpy at 6:25 PM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


i problem is that i have no idea what this data is about... assuming it is about endowed foundations, it seems like most foundations exist as some kind of tax dodge. unless there is something about grants to the swiss and *english* i don't understand.

"England" is the #1 recipient.

not so many banks in scotland or wales.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:28 PM on February 13, 2011


actually i shouldn't have said most, just a significant percentage.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:29 PM on February 13, 2011


Yeah, I would like to know what sort of grants these are. Maybe if it were distinguished by e.g. grants to aid organisations, vs grants to scientific research vs grants to skeevy tax dodges, it would be interesting.
posted by lollusc at 6:41 PM on February 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


The site does work on Safari and Firefox - at least, it does for me. But it takes much longer than you'd suppose to come up.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:24 PM on February 13, 2011


context?
posted by lalochezia at 7:34 PM on February 13, 2011


What the hell? Why isn't this shit secret yet? I mean this is a democracy.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:30 PM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I would like to know what sort of grants these are. Maybe if it were distinguished by e.g. grants to aid organisations, vs grants to scientific research vs grants to skeevy tax dodges, it would be interesting.

If you click through the individual countries it lists the recipients and the specific amounts each received as well as the grant provider.
posted by calamari kid at 8:39 PM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


I think this depiction is potentially misleading. International aid dollars are very typically provided to countries that maintain the most effective type of assistance for a specific need. For instance, Australia may receive dollars which are directed to AusAID in support of cyclone recovery to developing nations in the South Pacific. Or AIDS support administered by UN organizations might have funneled through Switzerland whose banks oversee money for the UN HQ in Hague. And the vast majority of our support to Afghanistan and Iraq were DoD and State Dept dollars which would not typically be labelled as 'aid.'
posted by discodill at 9:51 PM on February 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


Apologies, I should say that the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS is located Geneva. The UN Headquarters is of course in New York. The second largest UN office is in Geneva and also maintains several other commission HQs which may account for such large amounts.
posted by discodill at 10:06 PM on February 13, 2011


not so many banks in scotland or wales.

Buh?
posted by schmod at 10:08 PM on February 13, 2011


Apologies, I should say that the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS is located Geneva.

Of course the WHO is also headquartered in Geneva.

In fact, if any of the posters in this thread had bothered to actually look at the data, they would see that the big grant money going to CH is going to:

1. World Health Organization $760,637,118
2. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria $578,407,600
3. Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization $375,250,000
4. Medicines for Malaria Venture $261,090,000
5. Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition $161,670,721
6. Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics $109,509,796

Switzerland gets a lot of grant money because it hosts the World Health Organization, not because it has (actually, used to have) secretive banks.

The money to England is going primarily to Marie Stopes (a reproductive health organization), a couple of tropical medicine organizations, and the big universities. In addition to banks, England has some of the top research universities in the world.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:24 PM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Maybe if it were distinguished by e.g. grants to aid organisations, vs grants to scientific research vs grants to skeevy tax dodges, it would be interesting

Yeah, that data is all there. The design is kind of crappy, and the page loads slowly, so patience. But it's all there.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:33 PM on February 13, 2011


Countries with no grants:

Saudi Arabia, Oman, Syria, North Korea, French Guiana, Western Sahara, Ivory Coast, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herz.

If I missed any, feel free to add.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 11:11 PM on February 13, 2011


If I missed any, feel free to add.

Israel. Strange that not one of these organisations is giving grant money to Israel. Not even this foundation:

AVI CHAI is a private foundation endowed by Zalman C. Bernstein that is committed to the perpetuation of the Jewish people, Judaism, and the centrality of the State of Israel to the Jewish people.
posted by three blind mice at 1:57 AM on February 14, 2011


The map shows that Israel get $368 million dollars in grants to 2319 recipients.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 3:20 AM on February 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'm interested in seeing a world map that knows each country's military aid from the U.S. and E.U. and military expenditures, seperated by internal, U.S., E.U., China, and other, and then computes an average adjusted price for U.S. and E.U. military purchases. In other words, you show which dictators who get the highest percentage of their military budget paid for by U.S. tax payers. And maybe show where U.S. military aid is sponsoring the growth of say the Chinese defense industry.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:32 AM on February 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


Three blind mice: I think you're not giving the system enough time. When I click on Israel it shows that the example you picked, the Avi Chai foundation, gave eight grants totaling $108 million.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:42 AM on February 14, 2011


Grants' Atlas.
posted by Kabanos at 7:45 AM on February 14, 2011


Switzerland gets a lot of grant money because it hosts the World Health Organization, not because it has (actually, used to have) secretive banks.

The Global Fund's main offices are also in Geneva, iirc.
posted by elizardbits at 9:50 AM on February 14, 2011


Eponysterific.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 12:07 PM on February 14, 2011


I know that you can click through to see the recipients. But seeing a several hundred long list of organisations doesn't really demystify the data for me. I would have to do a ton of clicking (and looking up, and calculating, and guessing) to figure out what sorts of percentages of grants are going to what sorts of recipients.

So I stand by my earlier comment that it would by nice if the data were sortable or tagged or labeled by TYPE of organisation. Or TYPE of grant. Or purpose of grant. Or even primary activity of recipient.

Unless I'm missing something and that sort of sortability/searchability IS present.
posted by lollusc at 5:35 PM on February 14, 2011


Ooh, okay, I found this (pdf from the same site) that does the sort of breakdown I was after. But now it isn't differentiated by country any more.

Also, I'm clearly missing something, because the page linked by the OP keeps referring to the data as "map", but I'm only seeing a list.
posted by lollusc at 5:38 PM on February 14, 2011


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