Over the past three decades, NGOs and other civil society actors have repeatedly been heralded as reformers of undemocratic, elite-driven, or otherwise unaccountable international institutions. This paper (i) highlights the impact of coordination on NGOs'' effectiveness in challenging institutional policies; (ii) examines how increasing marketization undermines coordination; and (iii) identifies how the role of third-party donors in solving the collective action problem might, paradoxically, undermine the legitimacy of successful advocacy. Coordinated policy advocacy, in which multiple organizations work together using a common strategy and message, has been shown to maximize the chances of successful action. Indeed most successful reforms of international institutions are driven by coordinated, multi-NGO campaigns. At the same time, however, the NGO realm is increasingly marketized, as NGOs compete for the attention and funding of a scarce supply of members and third-party donors. This marketization creates a strong disincentive for coordination. Particularly within the advocacy realm, funding may not be contingent on successful advocacy (because supporters blame failure on the international institutions, rather than on the NGOs) but it is highly dependent on maintaining a distinct ''brand'' marked by a unique approach to advocacy or a specific take on the issues. Data from NGO campaigns to reform the World Bank demonstrate how a third-party donor with sufficient resources can solve the coordination problem by (1) funding multiple NGOs and (2) making funding conditional on coordination. The paper also suggests, however, that such a strategy, while effective, may allow wealthy donors to create the illusion of broad support for their agenda. This opens the door to the possibility that more successful NGO campaigns may be less representative, or that a trade-off exists between legitimacy and coordination.
