Technology Tools

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 cloud-hosted contact database to send messages in various ways, including over the cellular connection of Android phones you control yourself.

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. Publicly shared free, open source code can use Transifex without cost.

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 communities.

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 and document censorship.

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 voice aimed at larger, more technically sophisticated organizations with mass communication needs.

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 synchronization.

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 doesn’t track and monetize you as a user.

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 reasonable monthly cost, Outline is a powerful circumvention system for civic and political groups or rights organizers.

A simple website builder that doesn't require the ability to write code.

Decidim is an open-source citizen participation platform that allows governments to empower people to participate in the policy process. The platform was first used in Barcelona and has spread to over 30 countries. Decidim is a complex platform with a wide variety of features. It can be configured to allow citizens to suggest proposals, comment on pending legislation, vote on implementing initiatives. It can also be used to host meetings, surveys, participatory budgeting, issue mapping, and citizen assemblies.