---
title: The Silence About Failure
number: 6
summary: Charitology hypothesizes that fear of losing support discourages failure reporting. Published failure reports show a response, but do not measure the prevalence or funding cost of silence.
evidence: hypothesis
node: outcomes
flip: Failure reports are normal and rewarded. A charity that says what didn’t work is trusted more, and the field learns each lesson once.
sources:
  - title: Admitting Failure
    publisher: Engineers Without Borders Canada
    url: https://www.admittingfailure.org/
---

## What it looks like

If an unsuccessful program is reported without its lessons, another group may repeat the same mistakes. That is the proposed mechanism. The source below is an example of sharing failure, not a survey of what the sector leaves unpublished.

## Why it happens

Publishing an unsuccessful result can help later teams learn. Charitology’s hypothesis is that concern about funding can discourage such disclosure. The size and direction of any funding effect still need evidence; medicine also faces selective publication.

A few organizations have pushed the other way. Engineers Without Borders Canada published failure reports and started Admitting Failure, a site where people in development share what went wrong. Charitology’s [Failure Archive](/record/failure-archive/) exists for the same reason.

## No one is to blame

Public disclosure can be difficult, especially when staff and services depend on continued support. The proposed incentive deserves testing without drawing conclusions about people’s motives.

## What we don’t know yet

What incentives would get charities to publish failures, and what happens to their funding when they do? That is [Open Problem 9, the Failure Commons](/open-problems/the-failure-commons/).