One of the world’s most influential global investigative news organizations, whose work has regularly produced political shockwaves, has been primarily funded since its launch by the United States government, according to a review of budget documents, audit reports, and interviews with its founder and government funders.
In the world of investigative journalism, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a known quantity: a nonprofit news outlet backed by civic-minded philanthropists—a ProPublica, but for global corruption. “Investigative reporting has to be a global phenomenon. It takes a network to fight a network of corruption. And OCCRP is that network,” said Drew Sullivan, co-founder and head of OCCRP. "It's the most important investigative reporting organization you've never heard of.”
What has thus far been obscured from the public is the magnitude of its government funding and the strings attached to it. OCCRP’s founding and most generous donor, the one responsible for a majority of the organization’s budget, is the government of the United States and within the government, the largest donor is USAID—the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Between 2014 and 2023, the American federal government provided 52 percent of the money actually spent by OCCRP, and, since its founding in 2008, has shoveled at least $47 million (and committed $12 million more) to the ostensibly independent, nonprofit newsroom. Other Western governments—including Britain, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands—have kicked in at least $15 million during the last 10 years. That’s according to a tabulation of OCCRP’s annual audit reports, cross-referenced with federal budget documents outlining disbursements. The review was conducted by a consortium of international news outlets, including Drop Site News, and is being published in conjunction with news outlets in Italy, France, and Greece. (Sullivan quibbled with the methodology behind the analysis, arguing grants that are passed through to other organizations shouldn’t be counted. Using his methodology, the figure still reaches 46 percent.)
While OCCRP has consistently disclosed that it accepts some money from governments, including the United States, the full extent of the financing has not previously been revealed.
The board of directors of OCCRP, in a statement to the consortium of news outlets jointly publishing this reporting, confirmed the U.S. is its major funder, though disputed the idea that they have been anything but up front about it. As its board told us in a statement:
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