Manifesto

Seven principles for technology that serves your mission

Technology is never neutral.

For social purpose organisations, the tools you choose shape who holds power, who can participate, and who gets left vulnerable. Convenience has a cost: in data harvested, in decisions outsourced to distant platforms, in communities made dependent on infrastructure they cannot see or influence.

TechFreedom exists to make those costs visible, and to support organisations that want their technology to match their values. This manifesto sets out what that means in practice.

  1. Technology choices are cultural and political choices. Every tool you adopt shapes how your organisation works, what it values, and who holds power.
  2. Data must be governed in the interests of the people it concerns: subject to laws that respect their rights and safety, held in jurisdictions that don’t conflict with the communities served, and visible to the organisations responsible for it.
  3. No single company should have the power to stop an organisation working overnight. Essential services need clear exit paths, backups, and alternatives. Continuity cannot be an afterthought buried in a contract.
  4. People have a right to organise, learn, and receive services without being tracked beyond what is necessary. Tools that treat users as raw material for surveillance capitalism have no place at the heart of social purpose work.
  5. Organisations must be free to leave any platform without threat or punishment. Open standards, data portability, and interoperability are baseline requirements, not optional extras. A tool that is hard to leave is a risk regardless of how polished it appears.
  6. The true cost of a tool includes migration, training, and the energy spent working around its limitations. Long-term affordability matters more than introductory discounts, and budget decisions should account for realistic future pricing.
  7. TechFreedom stands with organisations making this journey, together rather than alone.

Ready to put these principles into practice?

The TechFreedom programme turns this manifesto into action: three sessions, a cohort of peers, and a concrete roadmap.

See the programme