Funding Technology

Funding Technology: Gunner

Themes – fundraising, revenue generation, paying for technology

• Poor economic decisions based on high need in low income communities
• Nonprofits make poor tech decisions best on their need
• Free dropbox, etc. These free tech tools place our data under their control.
• Paying for tech is not about tech is about data. It is your digital power
• Paying for tech should be based on the value and safety and power of your data.

• We’re being taught tech in superficial terms vs data.
• Smart phones are being used to surveille us
• Social Justice workers are seen as terrorists
• They want us to take the free stuff so they can hack data
• We are headed to digital martial law (already happening in China)
• Supporter lists are on google sheets, etc. they can just freeze and close our accounts
• It’s about “they” (government, corporations) they want to take our data
• They go after “Muslim” and “Black Lives Matter” (Black Identity Extremists, so called)
• Retaining control of your data
• Social Media – IG, implications, lots of nonprofits think that social media will help, per Aspiration it’s important to reach your people
• Aspiration doesn’t put any data down on Facebook- you should not use FB to organize undocumented people
• Data minimization – what you do and don’t ask
• Data Gaps – Grindr allows people to indicate if their HIV+ , this is a big problem – permanent database, Grindr is monetizing that data.
• Google Drive info stays there forever – even if you delete it
• If your adversary is not the government – google is a more secure option
• However government can access anytime via your google addy. Google pushes it out to an intermediary server that the government can access.
• Use the minimum viable amount of tech you can possibly use.
• Learn from your friends – use the tech that your friends use, so you can call on people for assistance

• Funding tech – tech cost, data cost (it costs money to acquire signatures, doing research, staff time)
• Aspiration runs on Linux system
• Realize the risk of everyone using the same tech
• Open Source technology, software – with Cloud this changed everything,
• Electric Embers.coop alternative to gmail (activist hosting – would they fight if the Feds come for your data)
• Riseup.Net - to join their coop you have to be willing to go to jail and stand up to the feds
• Spread out internationally, to spread info around beyond a particular jurisdiction
• FISA warrants – they can get the data without notifying anyone, however Riseup has a warrant canary b/c they can’t tell individuals that their info was breached
• Government asks google for data 10,000 x’s per year
• Social graph, refers to who you’re connected to is a finger print more precise than your actual finger print – guilt by association (being used as circumstantial evidence)
• Block Chain is the new “e” – Block chain undermines real community connection, also not environmentally sustainability currently using more power than the country of Ireland.
• Nonprofits exist to mitigate the negative externalities of the capitalist system – startup culture presumes that privilege is something you can buy.
• Apple – is exploiting the concept of privacy – at least we understand privacy is something that matters, google says “just trust us”
• Nonprofit work is a cost center
• Freegeek.org -hardware recycling, can turn donating hardware into money
• Pay for tech – learn to tell a new story
• Bury the tech in your grant narrative applications
• Aspiration can help you write grants etc.
• Funding is a fashion show – everyone is into “AI”
• Aspiration model – tech folks billing at market rates for large orgs ($150+/hour), to subsidize pro bono work for nonprofits that can’t pay for tech
• Funding – invert power dynamic, critique the funder, and use the notes in your pitch back out at them
• Talk to a funder like they work for you! I want to understand how you can help us.
• Talk to them like a partner
• Ask them a question they can’t answer, but in a sincere way.
• Don’t act like you “need” it
• Crowdfunding – overhyped, but worth trying because the costs are low.