This library of "DemTools" consists of software, approaches, toolkits and guides that DemTech regards as trusted technology-related resources for the democracy community. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a curated list of tools and resources known by DemTech experts to be valuable for enabling democratic actors to conduct their work in a safe, reliable, and cost effective way.
Before you get started, please read these important considerations for using digital tools.
Text messaging is one of the most popular forms of communication today. Signal is a full-featured, easy to use messaging app that is one of the best around. Unlike WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, or basicSMS, Signal additional cost beside your cellular data plan, is very secure, and…
Cloudflare provides protection from distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on websites and many common forms of hacking. One of the largest companies in the internet infrastructure space, Cloudflare has special programs aimed at protecting human rights, democracy, and government…
Internet censorship, slowdowns, and complete cuts are an increasingly common risk, particularly around critical moments like elections. But how do you know if your connection is bad or the whole internet has been shut down? Ooni was developed by human rights technologists to collectively monitor…
We all have too many passwords. The only way to create and safely manage them all is to use a password manager like KeePassXC. A free, open source tool, KeePassXC can secure your passwords and other important information easily, though without automatic cloud…
Without a trustworthy computer, no aspect of our digital lives is secure. For those with a strong desire to keep themselves safe online, and willing to make some sacrifices in ease of use to do so, the free, open-source Tails operating system is a great option.
Many organizations want to know what people think about a given topic, understand their needs, or receive feedback. SurveyMonkey is one of the largest survey creation tools out there, with millions of questions answered in their system every day. With very little technical expertise, people can…
Many civic organizations and governments collect data in their work, but gathering useful insights from spreadsheets can be challenging. Data visualization tools such as Tableau can help an organization understand what their information means and use it to make informed decisions.
Deflect provides solid protection from distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on websites. Built for and by people within the human rights and democracy community, Deflect can help defend against some of the most common ways a malicious actor may try to take down an organization’s online…
Civic, political, and governmental groups need to keep in touch with their people, and reaching audiences on their near-omnipresent phones has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to do so. Telerivet is one of the easiest ways for small organizations to have conversations, using a…
Transifex is a popular, well-established online translation platform, allowing a global group of volunteers, paid interpreters, or machine translators to collaborate on new “localizations” into any desired languages. While built for translating software, it can be used for other purposes as well…
Civic, political, and governmental groups need to keep in touch with their people, and reaching audiences on their near-omnipresent phones has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to do so. Twilio is a commercial provider of mobile device connectivity via text, messenger app, and…
Integrating technology can be a positive for local government,…
Interested in the world of participatory budgeting and or other forms of participatory democracy? PeoplePowered.org…
VPNs are powerful tools to help avoid surveillance or censorship. Outline, by Jigsaw, a project of Google/Alphabet, is open source software to host your own VPN and share access with your community without risking that a service provider could violate your privacy. With some technical skill and…
A simple website builder that doesn't require the ability to write code.
As someone who stands up for democracy, you are likely to find yourself –- if you haven't yet already –- the target of a cybersecurity attack. This is not intended to be alarmist; it is reality these days, even for individuals that do not consider themselves to be particular targets. The good…
The #think10 safety planning tool provides women in politics guidance on how to enhance their personal security by combining scores from a self-assessment questionnaire and the country score from NDI’s new Women’s Political Participation Risk…
Critical Mention is a media monitoring and media contact monitoring tool. Users have access to television, radio, print media, podcasts, online news, and social media. While the tool is in English, it draws from news sources in over 90…
Canva is a graphic design tool that enables users to drag-and-drop feature and layouts to easily design beautiful visual content and infographics.
Airtable is a spreadsheet platform with database functionalities that allows users to create visualizations, processes, and integrations for custom applications.
