About the Organizations Databases
All of the standard elements of our databases apply – i.e., most of the information has been entered, written, and/or checked by university students; the links are checked at least annually; standard copyright and citation requirements apply; and readers should always verify information by going to the organization’s website directly, and so on. (For other information on all of our databases, go here.)
Beyond that, specifically with reference to our databases of organizations (i.e., find…product organizations, find…menstrual education organizations, etc.), also note that:
→ We only represent organizations that we can find and read; in practice, that means that most websites are written English or translatable to it, and can be found with Google or other common search engines. As such, we will never be able to have a complete list of organizations working on MHM. However, you can help by letting us know about any organizations not yet in our database (go to the contact page).
→ We generally include organizations that have a focus on puberty education and/or on some combination of producing, selling, and/or donating menstrual health products, machines, or production technology.
→ We are specifically focused on organizations targeting low-income individuals in the developing world. To retain a manageable focus, we do not generally include the big store brands from developed countries unless they have a well-developed social good program in place in the developed world.
→ IMHER tracks both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. In some situations, it can be useful to filter by one or the other (i.e., entrepreneurs who “sell” sanitary supplies even though they may do some non-profit work on the side, vs. those who primarily give/donate supplies or education even though they may have a social enterprise component). There are more than the usual number of “gray areas” in those distinctions, however, so always cross check against the other category if that information is key for a given search.
→ We only include organizations that (seem to) have active, ongoing MHM projects in place. We try to delete organizations that seem to have become inactive with respect to MHM work for an extended period of time.
→ We write the descriptions of organizations according to a fairly standard formula, so that organizations can be compared across one another. As such, our description may vary from how an organization describes itself (for example, we avoid upselling language because promotion is not our goal; moreover, we need to include a greater degree of specificity and precision about the nature of an organization’s work than they may use for a promotional website.)
→ Finding the information we need can be quite challenging on some websites, so we are happy to correct any errors you find in our description of your organization if you fill out the correction form (go to the contact page).
→ If your organization changes its mission or activities significantly (i.e., adds or eliminates countries or products, etc.), let us know here (go to the contact page) so we can update the database accordingly.
→ If you filter by country: In the country fields, we do not code individual countries for organizations that serve more than 10 or so countries; instead, those are coded as “Global.” So to pick up, say, “Days for Girls” in a search for organizations operating in South Africa, you would need to check off “Global” in addition to “South Africa”.