Systemic Altruism
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Justice & public goodsPreliminary editorial review

NLnet Foundation

Stichting NLnet funds and supports open internet technology, standards and independent developers. Its grantmaking and connective support can reduce repeated infrastructure costs for public-interest implementers; this is distinct from NLnet Labs’ engineering work.

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Systemic Altruism practice potential: 78–88/100
90% of weighted axes reviewed. A mechanism hypothesis, not proven effectiveness or a donation recommendation.

Who this work enables

Tools & support for charities: Grants, connections and practical developer support can make reusable technical infrastructure easier for nonprofit and public-interest implementers to obtain.

Humanity’s Checklist source match

Coordination · Gatekeepers — editorial, partial alignment.

Shared developer support coordinates infrastructure work and can lower reliance on proprietary intermediaries. This is a partial editorial connection, not a finding about the benefit of every grant.

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

Resource reusable open technology and the independent teams building it

Six dimensions, with rationale

Structural depth

3 / 4

Grantmaking and support target the upstream conditions under which shared internet infrastructure is built, rather than delivering one downstream charity service.

Institutional reach

4 / 4

Funding standards and independent developers can affect infrastructure used across organizations and countries; portfolio size does not establish actual adoption or benefit.

Durability

3 / 4

Open project outputs can remain reusable beyond a grant, but continued maintenance, governance and interoperability still require capable institutions.

Scalability

4 / 4

Small projects, reusable code and shared expert networks offer a repeatable enabling model; selection, integration and support remain real constraints.

Funding additionality

Unreviewed

Unknown: open grant programmes do not establish an unrestricted marginal funding gap, counterfactual project pipeline or the effect of one more donation.

Community agency

Unreviewed

Unknown: developer participation and public-benefit aims do not establish binding decision rights for affected end users or communities.

Evidence and selection

Primary-source programme 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

For a defined grant cohort, do supported teams ship independently usable infrastructure that public-interest organizations still maintain and use two years later, compared with otherwise similar unfunded proposals?

Review confidence: Low–medium for the documented mechanism; low for causal effectiveness and donation comparisons. Stichting NLnet’s philanthropic funding and connective support for open technology, not the separate NLnet Labs engineering foundation or all outcomes of funded projects.

What remains uncertain

Dutch nonprofit foundation, RSIN 007989398, assessed for grantmaking and developer support only. NLnet Labs is a separate foundation already assessed; project outcomes are not counted as wholly attributable to either organization. Funding open work does not make NLnet its sole developer or maintainer, so no named-repository badge is assigned here. Published application information is not a promise of current eligibility, award or legal/tax advice. No independent portfolio-level causal or marginal-cost review was performed.

Sources to inspect

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