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@StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears - this is what the automated analyzer said about the fund you mentioned above - I only ran it against the landing page.

Potential red flags requiring investigation:
  • (20201216140815 -> 20210415045030) Between December 2020 and April 2021, Izindlovu Fund underwent significant rebranding with a notable mission shift from elephant-specific conservation to broader wildlife conservation. The founder attribution (Ben Van Hoo) was removed from the homepage, and the meaningful Zulu etymology explaining the organization's name was deleted. The navigation structure was completely overhauled, with 'HEC solutions' (Human-Elephant Conflict) removed and multiple new programs added, suggesting either rapid expansion or scope creep. The tagline changed from 'Empowering Elephant Conservation Projects for a Brighter Future' to the more generic 'We Support Wildlife Conservation to Safeguard our Planet's Ecosystem.' These changes collectively suggest an organization in transition, with potential governance implications around founder departure or strategic redirection.
  • (20211208094627 -> 20220126050809) The primary concern is the complete removal of transparency and credibility claims. The 'BEFORE' version explicitly stated Izindlovu was recognized by the Belgian King Baudouin Foundation and that '100% of our profits and received donations go to the local field projects we support.' Both claims vanished in the 'AFTER' version with no replacement explanation. The site shifted from a trust-focused messaging approach to a campaign-focused fundraising model, which could indicate governance changes, issues with the foundation relationship, or a decision to stop guaranteeing full pass-through of donations.

Thanks for this -- that second thing really strikes me as suspect.

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Double checked some things. The recognition from the King's Foundation lasted until June 30th 2025, per the shared doc on their site, but since it states that it can be renewed that may just need an update. It's sometimes nice if one can read and understand Dutch lol. This can be easily checked.

The expansion seems to be real, they do mention their growth.

What I did found that's off is that the main activity of the fund is listed as other education, IT consultancy and admin, event organization and software design - but those codings are dumb af, so I wouldn't blame them for that.

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It's a couple of LLM queries and an email away to ask the mentioned foundation what happened.

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