Legal

Disclosure of Proprietary Interests

How Crisis Lab, the operating brand of Capacity Building International, handles interests that could bias our judgment, and how we disclose them.

Our work only holds its value if you can trust that what we publish is what we actually think. This policy sets out how we handle interests that could bias that judgment across everything we produce. It covers who has to disclose what, when, and to whom.

Purpose

This policy maintains compliance with U.S. local, state, and federal regulations and upholds a standard of professional conduct across Capacity Building International and its subsidiaries, including Crisis Lab. It ensures transparency about any proprietary interests held by the people who teach, write, host, or edit for us.

Capacity Building International is an IACET Accredited Provider, and IACET names Crisis Lab as CBI's accredited education platform. Our conflicts framework follows ANSI/IACET 1-2018, Standard 1.7, and this policy is how we implement it.

Scope

This policy applies to everyone producing content for us (employees, instructors, analysts, editors, guests, and contributors) and to everything we publish, not only accredited courses:

Courses and learning events
Crisis Lab Intelligence briefs and analysis
The newsletter
The podcast
Community content posted in an official capacity
Sponsored content of any kind

Policy statement

We require anyone teaching, writing, or presenting for us to disclose any proprietary interest in the products, instruments, devices, services, or materials used or referenced in their content. A proprietary interest includes ownership of rights in the material, a financial or equity interest in a company discussed, a consulting or advisory relationship, paid speaking or endorsement arrangements, and grant or research funding from an interested party.

The obligation is to disclose, not to abstain. A real interest, disclosed plainly, is compatible with good work. An undisclosed one is not.

Responsibilities

Instructors, authors, hosts, and contributors are responsible for disclosing their proprietary interests to the Managing Director, before the content is delivered or published.
The Managing Director reviews all disclosures for appropriateness and compliance, decides what must appear on the published material, and keeps the record of disclosures.
If you are unsure whether something counts as a proprietary interest, disclose it and let the review decide. The cost of an unnecessary disclosure is nothing; the cost of a missed one is our credibility.

Disclosure requirements

1. In marketing materials and syllabi

Disclosures of proprietary interests must be stated on designated overview materials such as syllabi and marketing materials. Examples of appropriate disclosure statements include, but are not limited to:

"The Instructor holds rights (e.g., copyright) to this material."
"The Instructor has a financial interest in this material/(name of company)."
"The Instructor is a consultant for this (name of company)."

2. At the beginning of the learning event

Instructors must verbally disclose any proprietary interests at the start of each educational session.

3. In published analysis, newsletters, and podcast episodes

A relevant interest held by an author, host, or guest is disclosed in the piece itself, at the top of a written piece and spoken aloud in an episode. It is not buried in a footnote.

Process and limits

We may permit an instructor or author with a proprietary interest to deliver a learning experience or publish analysis, provided the interest is appropriately disclosed.
Instructors and authors are prohibited from exclusively promoting goods or services related to their proprietary interests.
Where an interest is significant enough that disclosure alone would not cure it, we reassign the work.

Sponsorship, advertising, and affiliate arrangements

Sponsored content is labeled as sponsored, clearly and at the point where you encounter it, not at the end. Advertising in the newsletter or podcast is identified as advertising.
Sponsors have no influence over our analytical judgments. They do not choose our topics, review our findings before publication, approve our conclusions, or receive favorable treatment in analysis. Buying a sponsorship buys the placement and nothing else.
Affiliate links and gifted access, where we use them, are disclosed in the piece that carries them. We do not recommend a product because a commission attaches to it.
We decline sponsorships where the sponsor's interest would compromise a subject we cover.

Editorial independence

Our editorial team decides what we investigate, what we conclude, and what we publish, on the merits of the evidence. No sponsor, advertiser, client, partner, or platform has a veto or a preview. Where our own commercial interest touches a subject we are covering, we say so in the piece.

Use of artificial intelligence

Our content is produced with AI assistance under human editorial review. We use AI tools for research support, drafting assistance, structuring, and analysis of source material. Every published judgment is reviewed, verified, and approved by a human author who is accountable for it. AI does not decide what we conclude and is never the last reviewer before publication.

Facts, figures, and citations are verified against their actual sources before publication. We do not use subscriber or customer personal data to train AI models. See our Privacy Policy.

Photo credits

The home page collage uses stock photography licensed through Canva, one public-domain FEMA photograph (Emergency Operations Center in Texas, Jocelyn Augustino / FEMA), and "Closeup of Excel Spreadsheet template to track printouts" by Texas State Library and Archives Commission, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Questions, concerns, and reporting

If you believe an interest should have been disclosed and was not, or that a piece of our content was influenced by an undisclosed relationship, tell us at [email protected]. We investigate every such report, and where we find we got it wrong we correct the record publicly on the piece concerned.

Capacity Building International, 5900 Balcones Drive #13770, Austin, Texas 78731-4257, United States.

Review and oversight

This policy is reviewed annually and updated as necessary to reflect changes in operational procedures, accreditation requirements, or legal obligations.
Records of disclosures are retained for the period our accreditation requires.