---
title: The Civil Society Technology Foundation
heroStyle: background
showDate: false
showWordCount: false
showReadingTime: false
cardView: false
aliases:
- /foundation/
- /foundation/core-principles/
- /foundation/mission-statement/
---

The Civil Society Technology Foundation is a global, volunteer-led, US 501(c)3 non-profit charity incorporated in Washington State.

## Purpose

The foundational technologies of our digital lives are open and free. The architecture of the Internet was intentionally designed with standardization, open protocols, and distributed governance to ensure it remained robust, interoperable, and accessible to all. The Internet and the technologies that run upon it hold the promise to empower individuals and communities locally and globally with the tools to communicate, organize, and innovate without barriers.

However, instead of embracing this potential directly, individuals and organizations have increasingly turned to commercial platforms and service providers to mediate access to technology. While convenient, our usage of technology is now largely centralized, gated, and governed by the increasingly few at the expense of access, privacy, and self-determination of the many. Over-reliance on centralized platforms has resulted in degraded health and weakened civil liberties as they too often prioritize engagement and control over user welfare.

This is a crisis of _digital self-determination_.

Digital technology is in its essence a common good. It is software and software, like knowledge or speech, is free to all. Free to be created. Free to be shared.

_The Civil Society Technology Foundation collaborates to remove barriers to creating, sharing, and using software. Our work spans open software development, educational resources, and community engagement, creating pathways to technological self-determination for individuals and communities in alignment with their values._


## Mission

The Civil Society Technology Foundation (CSTF) empowers individuals and communities to reclaim digital self-determination through the development and dissemination of open-source, self-hosted technologies.

We exist to create a world where technology serves people by reducing dependency on centralized platforms and enabling direct control of digital infrastructure and applications.

Through accessible tools, educational resources, and community engagement, we advance practical autonomy: the capacity of users to understand, create, modify, and maintain the technologies they rely on.

We believe digital self-determination, including control over data, identity, and computation, is essential to democratic participation and institutional resilience in the digital era.

This work is motivated by a conviction that open systems, federated infrastructure, and transparent governance are not only technically feasible, but socially necessary. By building and sharing common resources, we contribute to a broader ecosystem of public digital goods—critical to any robust civil society.


## Principles

The Civil Society Technology Foundation operates according to the following core principles that guide all our work, partnerships, and initiatives.

### Self-determination by Design

**Users must own their data and control their computing environment.**

Digital systems should be designed with autonomy as a foundational requirement, not an afterthought. This means:

- Data remains under user control by default.
- Consent must be explicit, informed, and revocable.
- Infrastructure should be designed for individual or community ownership.
- Privacy is a fundamental right, not a premium feature.

### Tools Over Policy

**We build alternatives rather than asking for permission.**

While policy reform has its place, we prioritize creating technical solutions that enable autonomy regardless of regulatory environments:

- Direct action through tool-building creates immediate paths to autonomy.
- Self-determination cannot wait for legislative or corporate reform.
- Working alternatives demonstrate what's possible and accelerate change.
- Technical empowerment reduces reliance on regulatory protection.

### Open Source, Always

**Software must be libre—free to use, study, modify, and share.**

Open source is not simply a development methodology but a foundation for digital self-determination:

- Source code transparency enables trust verification and community oversight.
- Freedom to modify ensures tools can adapt to evolving needs.
- Rights to redistribute create resilience against capture or abandonment.
- Collective improvement leads to higher quality and security.

### Self-Hosted Infrastructure

**Individuals and communities should control their own infrastructure.**

Centralized hosting creates fundamental risks of capture, surveillance, and dependency:

- Local infrastructure ownership provides true digital autonomy.
- Self-hosting creates resilience against external disruption.
- Community-scale infrastructure balances efficiency with self-determination.
- Infrastructure design should prioritize simplicity, reliability, and maintainability.

### Democratized AI

**Artificial intelligence must be open, efficient, and serve civil society.**

As AI becomes increasingly central to digital systems, its governance and accessibility are critical:

- AI systems should run on commodity hardware where possible.
- Models and training data should be publicly available and auditable.
- Development should be guided by public needs over commercial imperatives.
- Benefits should accrue to communities, not just model owners.

### Transparent Governance

**All governance must be visible, accountable, and auditable.**

How we govern ourselves models the world we seek to create:

- Decision-making processes should be documented and accessible.
- Influence should be earned through contribution, not financial control.
- Community participation in governance should be substantive, not symbolic.
- Accountability requires both transparency and mechanisms for change.

### Healthy Ecosystems Win

**Projects succeed through their value to communities, not popularity or funding.**

We evaluate success by contribution to civil society, not market metrics:

- Genuine utility to real communities outweighs vanity metrics.
- Sustainability matters more than rapid growth.
- Complementary projects create more value than competitors.
- Diversity of approaches strengthens the ecosystem as a whole.

### Interoperability via Consent

**Standards emerge from alignment, not imposition.**

True interoperability respects autonomy while enabling cooperation:

- Protocols should be open, documented, and implementable by anyone.
- Standards adoption should be voluntary and beneficial.
- Federation should respect boundary decisions of participants.
- Gateways between systems should preserve user autonomy.

### Contribution Defines Membership

**Participation is earned through action. Identity is contextual and optional.**

Communities grow stronger through active contribution:

- Value is created through doing, not just affiliating.
- Multiple forms of contribution should be recognized and valued.
- Identity verification should be proportional to the context.
- Privacy and pseudonymity are valid choices in appropriate contexts.

### Critical Adoption over Blind Use

**Pragmatism means understanding trade-offs.**

We advocate informed choice rather than ideological purity:

- Users should understand what rights they give up and why.
- Perfect autonomy may be balanced against practical needs.
- Transition paths from closed to open systems are valuable.
- Transparency about compromises builds trust and education.

## Directors

<div class="not-prose">

{{<figure
  src="/people/paul-payne.jpg"
  href="/people/paul-payne/"
  target="_self"
  alt="Paul Payne, CSTF Director"
  nozoom="true"
  caption="Paul Payne, CSTF Director"
  class="max-h-80"
>}}

</div>

## Contact

7405 168th St NE #621<br/>
Redmond, WA 98052

+1 (206) 790-6707
