Systemic Altruism
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Poverty & opportunityPreliminary editorial review

Democracy at Work Institute

The Democracy at Work Institute provides shared research, developer resources and technical assistance for worker cooperatives. It is a nonprofit distinct from the affiliated US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, not a second score for the federation’s membership work.

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Systemic Altruism practice potential: 76–86/100
90% of weighted axes reviewed. A mechanism hypothesis, not proven effectiveness or a donation recommendation.

Who this work enables

Tools & support for charities: Shared cooperative research, democratic-management guidance and technical assistance can reduce duplicated learning for worker-cooperative developers and local public-interest institutions.

Humanity’s Checklist source match

Gatekeepers · Coordination — editorial, partial alignment.

Cooperative development seeks broader access to ownership and coordinates shared workplace-management practice. This is partial editorial alignment, not verified governance quality, checklist affiliation or 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: 2026-10-27. Based on the organization’s dated official sources below; earlier axis-review dates are unchanged.

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The proposed pathway

Make worker-cooperative development and democratic management easier

Six dimensions, with rationale

Structural depth

4 / 4

Worker-cooperative development seeks to change ownership and workplace decision rules rather than only provide conventional employment services.

Institutional reach

3 / 4

Shared research and technical assistance can support multiple cooperative developers and institutions; actual attributable reach was not independently established.

Durability

3 / 4

Enforceable cooperative governance and ownership can persist, but business viability, participation and ongoing organizational support are necessary.

Scalability

3 / 4

Reusable development and management resources can spread, while local finance, legal arrangements, worker learning and market conditions constrain replication.

Funding additionality

Unreviewed

No current marginal technical-assistance bottleneck, alternative cooperative-development capacity or funding counterfactual was audited.

Community agency

Unreviewed

A worker-democracy mission does not establish binding affected-community rights over the institute’s budget or verify actual participation and minority protections in supported cooperatives.

Evidence and selection

Organization reported; current primary mechanism sources inspected

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

A testable next question

Do developers using a defined DAWI assistance package create cooperatives with better independently verified survival, job quality and enforceable worker participation than comparable developers, after accounting for selection and financing differences?

Review confidence: Moderate for documented design; low for systemic attribution. The separately incorporated Democracy at Work Institute’s nonprofit research, education and cooperative-development capacity. It excludes the affiliated USFWC membership organization and does not score every supported cooperative.

What remains uncertain

The about page distinguishes the institute’s separate 2013 incorporation from USFWC affiliation; the donation page self-identifies a registered 501(c)(3). Neither is an independent current tax-eligibility or governance audit. Historical or future-tense governance descriptions are not treated as verified current board arrangements. Shared resources and data tools are not a checked open-source software license, so no code badge is assigned. Cooperative formation and ownership do not guarantee viable firms, equitable jobs, safe debt or meaningful democratic practice. No client outcome, causal job effect or all-federation effectiveness is established.

Sources to inspect

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