Manifesto

Software is powerful. It is damaging, and restorative. We've seen what it can do unchecked at a massive scale to our world. It has been at the heart of so much pain, healing, fear, hope, love, hatred, and everything between. The products we use have unprecedented control of our world. But like any other tool, software is a reflection of those who build it. We have the power in our hands to shape the tools we share. Here's how we do it.

1 |

Code for change, not cash.

Software caused massive damage through scaling at break-neck speeds to get better returns for investors, and stockholders. That stops with us. Under no circumstances will we build software to get rich. We are not here to get rich off of the data of our users, or irresponsibly scale a product to get better vanity metrics. Software is our tool to create change, not to create cash. No exceptions.

2 |

Trust is the most important user metric.

We serve our users first. Not investors. Not donors. Not partners. Users first, no matter what. Being able to help people with some of the hardest issues of their lives is a privilege, not an earned spot. Our users need to trust us for us to help them, and we won't do anything to harm that trust. It comes before anything else, and is what we optimize for while building products.

3 |

The future is accessible.

Second only to trust is accessibility. Not just in terms of design, but also pricing structure, language, and consistency. Software and the penetration rates of technology and the internet at large have enabled unprecedented access to tools, resources, information, and services. We take advantage of that accessibility and flexibility to provide tools for the issues people are facing, with no strings attached.

4 |

Help bottoms up.

Other companies prioritize broad markets to get investor attention, and then move forward into niche areas from there. That is not us. Whatever we create, we take a "bottoms-up" approach: we help the most at-risk and under-served populations first, and hit the broader markets and areas last. As a non-profit, we have the flexibility to go into the places where no one else can because it's unprofitable. Those people need our help and have been ignored the most, so they get served first.

5 |

Focus on the future.

We are here for a long time, and we need to act like it. We never take short-cuts to quickly scale. We build and scale slow, and we do it right the first time around. Helping people is a long, slow, and pain-staking process. As such, ALWAYS take the sustainable approach to moving forward, even if it doesn't benefit us right now. Optimizing for short-term gain at the expense of long-term vision is failing.

6 | 

We can’t save everyone, but we have to try.

The mission we have taken on is incredibly hard and taxing. It is very emotionally intense and raw. As such, we want to do everything we can. Sometimes it's not the smart business choice, or profitable, or going to have a strong ROI. That doesn't matter. We might not be able to save everyone, but we need to help the most people we can. We allocate resources to the biggest and most urgent issues we see first, and we go from there. Although we work in niche areas, we engineer solutions are used in a broad number of areas to have the most impact.

7 |

We are the change we seek.

Many things are obviously upsetting and wrong within the world. But no politician, organization, or person will come to fix it all. If we see something that needs change, we are the ones who initiate that change. It comes from us. If we wait for others, we will be waiting forever. National change starts at an individual scale. We have to push to make that change by ourselves, as an organization, and through the things we build. We don't wait for change from others, we push for it ourselves.

8 |

There is no “one“ savior

The goal we've given ourselves is monumental. We as an organization cannot do it by ourselves. We need to work with other companies, organizations, people, and anyone else we can find to spread the work around as far as we can. The more people involved, the closer we are to achieving our mission. There is no one central figure who will save us, and we as an organization will never fulfill that role. Change on a massive scale comes from massive amounts of people. We have a role in that change, and we need to empower others to do their part, and pay it forward whenever we can.

9 |

Machines of Loving Grace

We do not build these products to fill a gap in the market, because of pity, or to make our resumes look better. We build these products because we love the people around us - because we have seen how they can suffer, and want to do what we can to make the change they need. Everyone is capable of amazing change in the face of love and nurture. We provide that love through our products, and our work is how we share it.