You can now donate to T4P
Tech for Palestine has been around for over a year now, and we have made the progress we have with barely any money, just an initial donation of $20,000. Through amazing project leaders and volunteers we have helped start and support over 40 projects advocating for Palestine, and made Tech for Palestine a voice within the movement.
However, we always want to do more, and being a volunteer-only organization is not our goal — our goal is a Free Palestine. So we've for several months been looking at how we can accelerate not just the work of our projects and our own work, but also the work being done throughout the movement.
As you might guess, that involves money! We believe that raising funds will significantly accelerate the progress we make. As such, you can now donate to T4P, and we would very much appreciate it if you would.
Our Theory of Change
Our Theory of Change is creating tens of thousands of projects for Palestine. If you look at the "hasbara movement" (Israel's propaganda efforts), there are tens of thousands of organizations fighting to keep Palestine occupied. Whether it's the racist ADL, AIPAC, or simply a group of parents at the local school trying to indoctrinate children with the idea that opposing Israel's occupation of Palestine is antisemitic, these organizations are well-organized, coordinated, and funded.
Tech for Palestine's mission is to create a vast ecosystem of projects for Palestinian liberation, that push back against racism and occupation, and that address every part of the hasbara ecosystem, as well as promoting, advocating, and sharing the unique aspects of Palestine's struggle for liberation.
Thus our incubator, which has helped start and support over 40 projects, and through which we direct our volunteers, marketing, mentorship, and connections to the ecosystem.
Our dream is that in the future, we can spot an opportunity, quickly put together a project leader, a team, and sufficient funding and other resources to accelerate it into the ecosystem. But we're starting a bit smaller. Let's talk about what we're doing now, structured as two conceptual “funds”.
Seed Fund
The Seed Fund is for new projects, to get them off the ground. This will help support the work of projects in the incubator, as well as other young projects which we believe in. Initially, we'll be able to pay their expenses and allow them use things they wouldn't otherwise have access to (e.g. hosted services or paid databases). Then, as our donation base grows we hope to be able to give grants that allow project leaders to work full-time on their projects.
The projects we support will mostly be from the T4P Incubator, which focuses on our key themes of scaling up boycotts, media bias, protest tech, tech industry and VC divestment, reaching new audiences with the Palestine message, Silicon Valley / Palestine partnerships, bias in AI, and exposing hasbara.
However, we will also support young non-T4P projects where it makes sense. Many projects don't need the full range of T4P services, or want to keep a very low profile for various valid reasons. We plan to support these projects too.
Finally, the seed fund will also be used for our new team of engineers at T4P. Our engineers -- currently four Palestinians who we've hired through Apricot – are helping projects in their earliest stages.
Growth Fund
The Growth Fund is for existing successful projects. Obviously, successful projects from T4P which break out of orbit and need to accelerate will be eligible for these funds.
However, as we've become part of the broader movement, we've found there are some fantastic projects and organizations that are doing amazing work, and that are massively underfunded. While many do not have the resources or the platform to do significant fundraising that does not mean they are any less pivotal.
We have already successfully placed $150,000 in organizations like this through some friends of T4P, and we intend to direct a lot more to them. Because we are well positioned to know all of these groups and to see the impact they have, and because we know how central their work is to enabling the work that our projects do, an important goal of the growth fund is to accelerate their growth and sustain their success too.
Supporting our work
The work we've done over the last year could not have been done without our amazing community, volunteers, and project leaders. We've come from absolutely nothing to a volunteer staff of 25 running T4P, supporting over 40 projects — each with their own leaders and staff — that are doing amazing work for Palestine, such as Boycat, Find a Protest, Newscord, Apricot, Media Bias Meter, Jaywalk, Accountable Media, Palchat, and ethics.vc.
With your support, we can accelerate these projects and increase their impact towards a liberated Palestine. Please consider donating to support the work we do. All donations are used as needed across both funds.