---
title: "The Failure Commons"
number: 9
statement: "What incentives would get charities to publish their failures, and what happens to their funding when they do?"
progress: "A shared failure registry with a meaningful sample of participating organizations, and data on their funding before and after disclosure."
conditions: ["silence-about-failure"]
status: open
bounty: "Unfunded. The Question Bounties program will attach prizes once it is funded."
---

## Why it matters

The [Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/) costs the field its most valuable data. If disclosure turns out to be rewarded, the incentive problem is smaller than people fear. If it’s punished, funders need to see that.

## Where to start

Charitology’s [Failure Archive](/record/failure-archive/) is the commons in seed form. Pair it with a funder pledge not to penalize honest disclosure, and measure what happens.