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title: The Civil Society Technology Foundation
title: About CSTF
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---
The Civil Society Technology Foundation is a global, volunteer-led, US 501(c)3 non-profit charity incorporated in Washington State.
## Hello, Neighbor
## Purpose
Society is held together with care. People helping people. When we join others around us we form community.
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.
The Internet connects us instantaneously with people around the world and, in that very real way, we become neighbors.
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.
The Internet is a pathway towards engaging with others in meaningful ways. Social networks, discussion boards, event listings, and community hubs are all ways we can engage with others. Oftentimes, though, the websites and apps we use are designed and mediated in a way that make us feel more isolated than ever.
This is a crisis of _digital self-determination_.
CSTF is working to change that by putting the control of the Internet back where it belongs, in the communities that connect on it.
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.
Our flagship project, Wild Cloud, allows communities of all sizes to host their websites and applications themselves, on their own computers, for members to access and enjoy.
_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._
Wild Cloud serves your neighborhood, whether that is an apartment building, a city block, a town, a club, or an organization, _any_ community. It provides a place for your community to host the apps that suit you, to keep your data private, and to grow with you. Beyond purchasing your own computers and investing your time, Wild Cloud is free, allowing you to keep your resources where you want them, inside your neighborhood.
Wild Cloud is the missing piece of your neighborhood's technology puzzle. Open Source software provides much of the software your neighborhood requires. AI-coding agents make custom software, software that is by your neighborhood and for your neighborhood a new possibility. With Wild Cloud, all your software, and all your hardware stays entirely within your communities control.
## 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.
CSTF is a place for people who believe communities can build their own technology—and who want to help make that happen.
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.
Not because the alternatives are scary (though sometimes they are). But because community-owned technology is simply *better*. It's more affordable. It stays when companies leave. It reflects what neighbors actually need. And building it together turns out to be one of the best ways to meet each other.
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.
## What We've Noticed
We believe digital self-determination, including control over data, identity, and computation, is essential to democratic participation and institutional resilience in the digital era.
All around the world, communities are quietly building remarkable things:
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.
**In Chattanooga, Tennessee**, the city built its own fiber network. Now 170,000 residents have gigabit internet for $50/month, the city has attracted billions in economic development, and no corporate ISP can decide to raise prices or abandon the community.
**In Barcelona**, a network called Guifi.net has grown to over 37,000 nodes—the largest community-owned telecommunications network in the world. It started with neighbors who wanted internet access in rural areas. They just... built it themselves.
## Principles
**In Detroit**, the Equitable Internet Initiative trains residents as "Digital Stewards" who build and maintain neighborhood wireless networks. Participants say they've met more neighbors installing antennas than in years of living there.
The Civil Society Technology Foundation operates according to the following core principles that guide all our work, partnerships, and initiatives.
**In rural Lancashire, England**, farmers formed B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North) and dug trenches across their fields to lay fiber optic cable. They now have faster internet than central London.
### Self-determination by Design
**In Brooklyn**, Red Hook WiFi kept the neighborhood connected during Hurricane Sandy when commercial networks failed. Neighbors maintained the mesh network themselves.
**Users must own their data and control their computing environment.**
These aren't tech startups. They're neighbors who decided to build something together.
Digital systems should be designed with autonomy as a foundational requirement, not an afterthought. This means:
## What We Do
- 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.
CSTF exists to help more communities do what Chattanooga, Detroit, and Barcelona have done—but for all kinds of technology, not just internet access.
### Tools Over Policy
### We Build Tools
**We build alternatives rather than asking for permission.**
Our [Wild Cloud project](/projects/wild-cloud) gives communities everything they need to run their own digital services—email, file storage, collaboration tools, and more. Think of it as a community center for your digital life, one that actually belongs to your community.
While policy reform has its place, we prioritize creating technical solutions that enable autonomy regardless of regulatory environments:
### We Share Stories
- 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.
We collect and tell the stories of communities building their own technology. These stories show what's possible and help communities learn from each other.
### Open Source, Always
### We Grow Knowledge
**Software must be libre—free to use, study, modify, and share.**
We create guides, documentation, and learning pathways that help people understand and maintain their own technology. Technical knowledge is a gift we can give each other.
Open source is not simply a development methodology but a foundation for digital self-determination:
### We Connect Neighbors
- 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.
We bring together people who are building community technology—practitioners, organizers, curious beginners. Together, we're all learning.
### Self-Hosted Infrastructure
## What We Believe
**Individuals and communities should control their own infrastructure.**
**Communities can do this.** The examples above aren't flukes. They're proof of what's possible when neighbors decide to build together.
Centralized hosting creates fundamental risks of capture, surveillance, and dependency:
**It works better.** Community-owned technology isn't just more ethical—it's often faster, cheaper, more reliable, and more responsive to what people actually need.
- 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.
**Everyone can contribute.** You don't need to be technical. Communities need organizers, teachers, writers, encouragers, and people willing to learn. The technology is just an excuse for neighbors to work together.
### Democratized AI
**Simple is better.** The best solutions are often the simplest ones. We favor approaches that communities can understand, maintain, and adapt over time.
**Artificial intelligence must be open, efficient, and serve civil society.**
**Open means trustworthy.** When you can see how something works, you can trust it. When you can change it, you can make it yours. That's why everything we build is open source.
As AI becomes increasingly central to digital systems, its governance and accessibility are critical:
**Joy matters.** This work should be enjoyable. Building things together, learning new skills, meeting neighbors—these are good things. If it feels like drudgery, we're doing it wrong.
- 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.
## What Becomes Possible
### Transparent Governance
When communities own their digital spaces, wonderful things happen:
**All governance must be visible, accountable, and auditable.**
**Neighbors meet each other.** The technology becomes an excuse for connection. Installation days become community events. Teaching becomes a way of caring for each other.
How we govern ourselves models the world we seek to create:
**Local needs get met.** Tools can reflect local values, languages, and priorities—not the one-size-fits-all approach of global platforms.
- 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.
**Skills grow.** People who never thought of themselves as "technical" discover they can learn, contribute, and teach others.
### Healthy Ecosystems Win
**Resources stay local.** Instead of subscription fees flowing to distant corporations, communities invest in their own infrastructure and each other.
**Projects succeed through their value to communities, not popularity or funding.**
**Resilience builds.** Communities that control their own technology can't be cut off by a company's business decision.
We evaluate success by contribution to civil society, not market metrics:
## Who We Are
- 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.
CSTF is a volunteer-led nonprofit (a US 501(c)(3) charity) based in Washington State. We're small, we're growing, and we'd love your help.
### 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
### Directors
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alt="Paul Payne, CSTF Director"
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_CSTF is recruiting for board members and other positions. View our [open positions](/contribute/positions) for more information._
_We're looking for more neighbors to join us. See our [open positions](/contribute/positions) if you're interested._
## Contact
## Come Say Hello
We'd love to hear from you.
### Online
Join our [community forum](https://forum.civilsociety.dev) to get in touch with us. You can view member profiles and send direct messages once you register.
Join our [community forum](https://forum.civilsociety.dev) to connect with others building community technology. Come introduce yourself—we're friendly.
### Mailing address
### Mail
7405 168th St NE #621<br/>
Redmond, WA 98052