Systemic Altruism
← Back to the cohort
Justice & public goodsPreliminary editorial review

CONSUL DEMOCRACY Foundation

The Dutch foundation maintains CONSUL DEMOCRACY with an international software community and supports implementing organizations. Its platform combines participation functions that civil-society groups and public institutions can adapt.

Visit the organization ↗

Systemic Altruism practice potential: 71–81/100
90% of weighted axes reviewed. A mechanism hypothesis, not proven effectiveness or a donation recommendation.

Who this work enables

Tools & support for charities: Shared participation code and implementation knowledge can help nonprofits and civic organizations run deliberative processes without duplicating core platform development.

Open-source evidence · license checked

  • CONSUL DEMOCRACY — GNU AGPL v3 license file. Organization’s role: steward.
    The current repository says the open-source community maintains the application in collaboration with the foundation; Madrid was its originator. The inspected AGPL v3 grant is for this codebase, not every plugin, participant database, hosting contract or commercial partner. License-file snapshot: 885dfe40c773da9764f91dbc8ebd16e43f5d787c.

License checked 2026-10-28. This is not a security audit, proof of current support or effectiveness, or a promise of free hosting. A sponsor or steward is not necessarily the sole developer. Unchecked profiles are not evidence of closed code. No extra score points are added.

Humanity’s Checklist source match

Coordination · Gatekeepers — editorial, partial alignment.

Common participation workflows and reusable code partially address collective coordination and access to civic tools; they do not establish binding power or explicit checklist adoption.

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: 2026-10-28. Based on the organization’s dated official sources below; earlier axis-review dates are unchanged.

Compare alternatives for a funder →

The proposed pathway

Maintain shared participation software and implementation capacity

Six dimensions, with rationale

Structural depth

3 / 4

Shared participation infrastructure can change institutional decision procedures, although software configuration alone does not make consultation binding or redistribute power.

Institutional reach

3 / 4

The foundation supports a multi-organization user and partner network; its cumulative used-or-have-used figure is not independently verified current active adoption.

Durability

3 / 4

Maintained shared code and implementation knowledge can survive individual grants, while partner support, upgrades and institutional commitments remain necessary.

Scalability

4 / 4

An open application can be reused and adapted across organizations, with local facilitation, moderation, technical implementation and political context limiting simple replication.

Funding additionality

Unreviewed

Unknown: project activity and stated funding needs do not establish a current marginal funding gap, delivery capacity or what additional unrestricted donations would change.

Community agency

Unreviewed

Unknown: participatory design and community-oriented governance do not by themselves establish affected people’s binding authority over budgets, priorities, deployment or withdrawal.

Evidence and selection

Primary-source mechanism and identity documentation; no independent impact validation in this review

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

A testable next question

Across organizations adopting a defined CONSUL DEMOCRACY process, do proposals receive timely, publicly traceable and consequential decisions under published rules, including for previously underrepresented participants, beyond the prior process?

Review confidence: Low–medium for the documented mechanism; low for causal effectiveness and donation comparisons. The Dutch Stichting CONSUL DEMOCRACY’s current software/community support role, not Madrid City Council, certified commercial partners, all platform installations or the distinct Decidim association.

What remains uncertain

Scoped to Stichting CONSUL DEMOCRACY in the Netherlands, RSIN 859876986, and its current community-maintenance role. The foundation page’s identity and ANBI disclosures are not an independent donation-eligibility or financial audit. Madrid originated the application; the foundation and software community now collaborate on maintenance. Decidim’s historical connection does not make its separate association a subsidiary or justify counting municipal installations as additional charities. The AGPL v3 check is repository-specific and excludes content, participation data, hosted-service charges and partner guarantees. Cumulative deployments, awards and platform use do not establish consequential citizen authority or causal democratic improvement.

Sources to inspect

Propose a sourced correction →

Axis review: 2026-10-28 · weighting method v0.2 (2026-10-26) · Method, conflicts and coverage