Systemic Altruism
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Justice & public goodsPreliminary editorial review

Center for Democracy & Technology

The US nonprofit combines research, policy analysis and convening on digital rights and technology governance. The proposed leverage is shared institutional capacity, not ownership of all digital-rights tools or proof that policy wins are attributable to it.

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Systemic Altruism practice potential: 79–89/100
90% of weighted axes reviewed. A mechanism hypothesis, not proven effectiveness or a donation recommendation.

Who this work enables

Tools & support for charities: Shared policy analysis, research and coalition capacity can help public-interest organizations engage technology governance without each rebuilding specialist expertise.

Humanity’s Checklist source match

Gatekeepers · Coordination — editorial, partial alignment.

Technology-rule advocacy and coalition work partially address institutional gatekeepers and coordination. This does not establish enacted reform, independent influence or affected-community authority.

Explicit checklist adoption: not verified. A mechanism match is not an affiliation, endorsement, evidence of effectiveness or a scoring bonus. Read the practice.

Focus classification: 2026-10-27. Based on the organization’s dated official sources below; earlier axis-review dates are unchanged.

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The proposed pathway

Build shared policy and research capacity for digital rights

Six dimensions, with rationale

Structural depth

4 / 4

Research and policy work directly target technology rules and institutional incentives rather than merely offering individual workarounds.

Institutional reach

4 / 4

Digital-rights rules can affect many sectors and organizations, though the breadth of a policy agenda does not establish causal influence.

Durability

2 / 4

Published knowledge can persist, but law, technology and political enforcement require continuing work.

Scalability

3 / 4

Shared research and convening can inform many implementers, while legal and policy work remains jurisdiction-specific and costly.

Funding additionality

Unreviewed

No current costed marginal funding gap, donor substitution or causal contribution against other policy organizations was audited.

Community agency

Unreviewed

Consultation, convening and rights-oriented missions do not establish binding affected-community rights over the nonprofit’s agenda or decisions.

Evidence and selection

Organization reported; current primary pages inspected via public web reader; direct HTTP access limits recorded

Illustrative inclusion to examine this mechanism. Inclusion is not an external recommendation or a verified comparative ranking.

A testable next question

Does additional CDT research and convening materially improve rights-preserving technology rules and their implementation beyond what comparable coalitions would achieve, with affected communities able to contest harmful tradeoffs?

Review confidence: Moderate for documented design; low for systemic attribution. The US Center for Democracy & Technology’s nonprofit policy, research and convening model, not every affiliated entity, coalition member or downstream policy result.

What remains uncertain

Primary pages read through the public web reader identify a US 501(c)(3), EIN 52-1905358; direct HTTP returned 403 for donation and financial pages. This access limit was not bypassed and the financial index is not an audit. The scope does not automatically include separately constituted European entities. No named software license was checked. Funding disclosure, policy alignment and research output do not by themselves prove independence, impact or community control; this is not legal or security advice.

Sources to inspect

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Axis review: 2026-10-27 · weighting method v0.2 (2026-10-26) · Method, conflicts and coverage