NGO decisions to support or reject local movements are based on criteria deriving from the NGOs' substantive, cultural, ethical, tactical, and organizational features. Often these factors remain unwritten and informal, known by key staff members and enforced by NGO managers. Some NGOs, particularly those hearing frequent appeals, formalize their criteria. In a few cases, NGOs have shared these documents with the public. The first sample below is from an Annual Report by the New York–based Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of the world's largest human rights organizations, which was founded in 1978 and is dedicated to “protecting the human rights of people around the world.” Because of the report's public nature, the criteria discussed in it are rather vague.

The second document, from the San Francisco–based Sierra Club, is an internal memorandum obtained in 2001 from a high-level staff member and described as an “informal … starting point [including] some of the factors we weigh” in deciding which local causes to support.

The third document is an excerpt from the Investigative Protocols of the Factory Assessment Program administered by the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC). WRC seeks to enforce codes of conduct covering labor practices for the manufacture of goods carrying collegiate logos and has more than one hundred affiliated colleges and universities. This section of the Protocols discusses the criteria that WRC weighs when deciding whether to conduct investigations of possible code violations.

Excerpt from Human Rights Watch's World Report 2001