Our mission
Unlocking the Promise of Tech for Social Good
The last years have taught us 3 important lessons.
The first is that we live in a time of systemic crises. Democracy is on the retreat, humanitarian emergencies are proliferating around the world and the existential threat of climate change is exponentially showing its claws. As a collective effect of these crises larger chunks of the world population are becoming vulnerable.
The second is that these crises are significantly different from the ones before because their causes, their manifestations and their effects are global in nature. They all ignore national borders and can only be solved through global action and coordination.
The third is that if we are to solve these crises we have to weaponize technology for social good. From combatting disinformation to monitoring elections and from providing safe housing for refugees to enabling access to healthcare for the vulnerable, the last few years have proved without a doubt that good technology deployed in a timely fashion saves lives.
But isolated efforts cannot solve global problems. That is why we have an urgent need to develop a global civic infrastructure to tackle the major challenges of our time.
However, the makers of technology for social good are in a crisis of their own.
Digital infrastructure, just like physical infrastructure, is extremely costly to maintain. The human, financial and organizational cost of maintenance prevents even the most successful civic technology organizations from scaling or keeping vital tools alive.
The effect is frequent burnout of communities, tools and organizations that puts in jeopardy civic infrastructure that we all depend on.
Moreover, very few if any of these makers have the capacity to pursue users in geographies other than their own. As a consequence, valuable digital tools with a global potential that could generate a ripple effect if scaled have only limited local or regional impact and are not shared and reused.
The result is not only a failure to meet the potential, but most importantly it translates into communities that do not get the critical support they need, a slow response to emergencies and a very costly duplication of efforts.
The mission of Commit Global is to unlock the promise of tech for social good by lifting the burden of maintenance and scaling off the shoulders of the makers. We select and support those open source digital tools that can solve critical global problems and we integrate them to form the Civic Infrastructure needed around the world.
Filip Muki Dobranić
Founder Danes je nov dan
The old cynical joke: "Open source is free if your time is worthless," caries within it an important truth. We can (and have been able to) produce the best of open software tools to support communities, but without treating them as the infrastructure that they are we are doomed to fail.
Our objectives
Make sure vital open source digital tools are up to standard and do not die out.
Ensure equal availability of Civic infrastructure around the world.
Integrate tech for social good efforts from around the world into a coherent Civic Infrastructure that responds timely to critical global issues.
Guarantee equal access of CSOs and affected populations from around the world to the Civic Infrastructure.
Christopher Worman
Co-Founder, Chief Partnership & Strategy Officer ConnectHumanity.Fund
Too often we struggle to rebuild or repurpose tools after a disaster. With increasing challenges to climate, democracy, natural disasters, etc, if we can do better, we should. Commit Global can by maintaining the shared Civic Infrastructures people need - that we all may need - as the challenges increase in our poly-crisis world.
Our values
Who we help
Civic Tech Makers
By taking the crippling burden of maintenance off their shoulders we ensure they can focus on the community and innovative side of their work. We also ensure that no organization that has built a vital piece of technology for social good will ever have to take the hard decision to discontinue that tool due to lack of capacity. Most importantly, we ensure that the vital tools they created get to help as many people as possible around the globe.
CSOs
Civil society works tirelessly to make the world better for all of us. Equipping civil society, no matter its size or geography, with the Civic Infrastructure they need will hugely grow their capacity to help. Be it digital case management systems for the chronically ill, to communications for the vulnerable or sensors to collect better data, technology can help solve global problems and we want to make sure that those on the frontline of making our world better have access to it.
Regular people
It is always all about the end beneficiary. Well built and deployed technology can save lives and act as an impact multiplier. We make sure that the vital digital tools from around the world are consolidated into a coherent Civic Infrastructure that helps civil society organizations intervene much more impactfully. This translates into better, safer and more efficient services that reach exponentially more people on the ground changing their lives for the better.
Funders
Billions of USD have been spent globally in the last decade on building technology for social good. Despite producing some amazing tools, the impact of this investment is lagging behind expectations and potential due to two blindspots: the crushing cost of maintenance and lack of global consolidation mechanisms. The model of Commit Global sets to strategically solve these issues and by doing so salvage, preserve and scale the best results of this investment.
Find out more about Commit Global
Discover our story and how we work to maintain the critical Civic Infrastructure designed and developed by civic tech makers, in order to provide support for civil society organizations and vulnerable populations around the world.
