Thread by @SarahJamieLewis

This. One funder rejected one of our proposals with the sentence "we don't believe your approach of focusing on unrepresented, marginalized communities will scale" 🙃

That was the moment I fully gave up on a large part of the existing "human rights" space.

https://twitter.com/ealshafei/status/1177032073502019584

It's fine, instead of investing in consentful technology stacks designed by and for people from impacted communities, the human rights space will keep producing an endless stream of "how to setup gpg" guides for people to never read.

Oh don't also forget all the reports they fund on what is wrong with current technology and why marginalized voices aren't incorporated into designs which always conclude the main problem is funding accessibility!

Gotta fund more of those.

If I'm bitter, it's from seeing an infinite line of mediocre men being ludicrously funded for technically infeasible ideas which they take years to not-deliver on

and we sit here in a pile of grant rejections, making significant differences but struggling to raise $300k.

January 2020 is the month when @OpenPriv will have to cut back on staff costs (we already only pay minimum wage), which in reality means our staff are already thinking about finding new/additional jobs.

@OpenPriv Yesterday we released our 2018 End of Year Report and Financial Statements. Look at all the amazing work we did last year, and all the amazing work we've done so far this year - and then look at how little budget we do all of that work with.

openprivacy.ca/blog/2019/09/2…

@OpenPriv We have hundreds of other ideas for new software, research programs, community engagements, and problems we could tackle if we had the resources.

openprivacy.ca/donate/

@OpenPriv How many orgs do you know who could do the same level of work that we do? How many orgs:

* build & publish software
* disclose vulnerabilities in public infrastructure (and get things fixed!)
* work with & offer support to marginalized community groups

openprivacy.ca/work/

@OpenPriv Personally, I think @OpenPriv offers amazing value for money for the work that we do based on our current income levels.

I think we could do even more given even the tiniest amount of funding it would take to make us sustainable.

@OpenPriv What happens if we run out of funding?

All the software (and infrastructure, and research) we've ever written is open source is and will continue be available:

We're into making every penny have lasting impact.

git.openprivacy.ca

@OpenPriv There is other work that we do like OP:Sec (openprivacy.ca/work/opsec/) that isn't widely visible and doesn't get headlines. Itjust wouldn't happen.

@OpenPriv We also wouldn't be around to contribute to research like we did with the Swiss Post / Sctyl / iVote disclosures this year.

Which would be a shame, I feel we're starting to get very good at annoying public bodies to take their responsibilities seriously.

openprivacy.ca/work/swisspost…

@OpenPriv If you think that any of that work is important, then I urge you to donate to us, and help support that work.

Because there isn't exactly a line of institutions or billionaires wanting to fund that kind of work.

openprivacy.ca/donate/