Editorial independence
How we’re funded — and why funders can’t buy a word of this site
Someone reading this site at 2 a.m. after a diagnosis deserves to know that no funder shaped what they’re reading. This page explains where our money comes from, the firewall between funding and content, which gifts we’ll refuse, and exactly what we’ll disclose — in plain language, like everything else here.
Where our money comes from
Today: individual donations
Our cash funding comes from individual readers — one-time and monthly gifts made through our secure Stripe checkout. We have also received free and discounted software from technology companies — see in-kind support below.
Next: more grants & mission-aligned licensing
As the organization grows, we plan to apply for foundation and public grants, and to explore licensing our educational content and tools to mission-aligned organizations. Both will follow the rules on this page.
The firewall: funders never influence content
Money and editorial decisions live on opposite sides of a wall. These rules apply to every donor, every grant, and every future licensing partner — no exceptions for size.
No sponsored content
No article, listing, or tool on this site is sponsored. Nothing we publish exists because someone paid for it to exist.
No pay-for-placement
No one can pay to be mentioned, recommended, ranked higher, or included in our Support & Assistance Finder or anywhere else on the site.
No advertising relationships
We run no ads and have no advertiser relationships, so there is no advertiser to please — and never a reason to write for one.
Funders never see content early
No donor or grantmaker reviews, previews, or approves content before publication. Funders read our pages the same way you do: after they're live.
No funder logos on educational pages
Acknowledgments belong on this page — not next to health information, where a logo could look like an endorsement or an influence.
Editorial standards decide, not revenue
What we publish is governed by our editorial process and sources — never by what would attract or keep a funder.
Which gifts we accept — and which we don’t
We decline gifts that come with editorial strings attached — a request to cover a topic a certain way, soften a finding, mention a product, or avoid a subject.
Educational grants from pharmaceutical or other industry sources are accepted only if they are fully unrestricted, disclosed on this page, and firewalled from all content decisions. As of today, we have not accepted any.
We may decline any gift — from anyone — if accepting it could reasonably undermine readers' trust in what they find here.
We will never screen your wealth
Many nonprofits use commercial “wealth screening” or “prospect research” services (vendors like WealthEngine, DonorSearch, and others). These services build a profile of a donor from real estate records, stock holdings, political giving, and past charitable gifts. They return a score that estimates the person’s net worth and how much they could give. Fundraising teams use that score to decide who gets a form email and who gets a personal call asking for a much larger gift — almost always without the donor knowing it happened. Read more about how the practice works on our explainer article.
We pledge, in writing, that we will not:
Run donors or supporters through any wealth-screening, prospect-research, or donor-capacity-scoring service — commercial or otherwise — to estimate anyone’s net worth, income, assets, or ability to give.
Use a wealth score, capacity rating, or similar profile to decide who gets asked for a bigger gift, who gets personal outreach versus a form email, or how much to suggest someone give.
Buy, license, or accept donor wealth or capacity data from a third party about anyone who has given to, or engaged with, Cancer Explained.
If we ever build a major-gifts program, it will be built on the same thing every relationship on this site is built on: someone telling us, in their own words, that they want to give more or get more involved — never a machine’s estimate of what we could extract from them.
Our disclosure commitment
Any funder — foundation, company, or institution — whose giving (cash or in-kind) exceeds $5,000 in a calendar year will be listed on this page, updated at least annually. Individual donors are different: we do not publish individual donors’ names without their permission, because supporting a cancer education site can itself be private health information.
Cash funders (as of September 2026): none. No institutional funder has yet given cash above the disclosure threshold. When one does, they will appear here.
In-kind support
We also run on free or discounted tools from technology companies — not cash, and not sponsored content (the firewall above applies here too: none of this buys coverage, placement, or influence over anything we publish). We’re grateful for the support of:
- Google Ad Grants (donated search advertising)
- Stripe
- Microsoft
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Workspace
- Slack
- Canva
What donations actually fund
Donations pay for the unglamorous things that keep a free library alive: hosting, source-checking, support-listing verification, translations, accessibility work, and building new plain-language explanations. We keep a public changelog of what gets built, so you can see your support at work.
Earned income, honestly
If we license our content or tools in the future, that revenue will support the free library — it will never put educational pages behind a paywall, and licensing partners get no more editorial influence than any donor (which is to say: none). We will account for any earned income under applicable tax rules, including unrelated business income tax where it applies, and we’ll say plainly on this page when licensing revenue becomes real rather than planned.
Our tax status, plainly
Cancer Explained is a project of National Cancer Information Foundation, a Wyoming public benefit nonprofit corporation, recognized by the IRS as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Full organizational details are on our Transparency & Governance page.
Questions about funding
Questions about a gift or this policy? Email donate@cancerexplained.org. Grantmakers and organizations interested in supporting or licensing the work of National Cancer Information Foundation can reach us at partnerships@cancerexplained.org.