Why we’re building this
Nonprofits have to do more with less.
We believe nonprofit software should close the gaps between the systems an organization already runs, and give its people back the hours those gaps take.
The organizations we talk to are doing extraordinary work with too few hands — time goes to reconciling systems that don’t speak to each other, re-entering information that already exists somewhere, and working around tools that were never designed for how they actually operate. Every hour spent on that is an hour not spent on the mission.
A software company that supports nonprofits should be as mission-driven as the nonprofits it serves. This is why we are building Steward as a public benefit corporation from day one.
Our commitments
What we’re committing to, in writing.
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Product direction
What we build is driven by the needs of the organizations using it.
We don’t have customers. We have members, and their voice carries. Bringing new technology to the sector is our job, but what we build with it comes from what member organizations tell us they need. When that conflicts with what carries the highest margin, the need wins.
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Donor privacy
Donors are people on our platform, not records in it.
Privacy and control belong to the person the data is about. Donors have the right to know how their information is used and to keep control of it.
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Portability
Your data and your donor relationships belong to you.
You can take everything and leave at any time, in a format you can actually use — not an export that needs an engineer to open. Nothing about your history lives only inside Steward.
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Consent
Consent is built into the structure, so trust doesn’t have to be rebuilt.
Donors decide what is shared, with whom, and for how long, and can change their minds. You inherit that trust instead of having to earn it back every time.
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Agent authority
Software acting on your behalf stays inside what you authorized.
Where AI agents do work for you or for your donors, they operate under explicit permissions and leave a record of every action. They cannot widen their own authority.
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Fair placement
A bigger budget never buys a better position.
Placement in search, recommendations, and discovery is never for sale. A community organization with two staff members and a national one with two hundred appear on the same terms.
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How we’re paid
We don’t sell your data, and we don’t sell ads.
There is no version of Steward where your data becomes someone else’s product. We don’t sell donor records, we don’t rent access to your supporters, and we don’t run advertising against your work. The organizations using the software are the ones paying for it, and that keeps our incentives pointed the same way as yours.
Why a public benefit corporation
A mission you can hold us to.
Every commitment above is one that a growing company eventually gets asked to relax. The request arrives reasonably, from people with real arguments, at a moment when the money matters. As a public benefit corporation, we write our purpose into the charter, and the board is obligated to weigh it alongside returns.
A public benefit corporation doesn’t make us immune to that pressure. It makes giving in to it a decision the board has to defend, on the record, against the purpose we committed to.
We also think this is good business rather than a concession. Organizations that trust their software stay with it and tell others. Building for the sector’s benefit and building a durable company are the same project.
The organizations we serve put their missions in their founding documents. We should too.
Contact
We’re building this with nonprofits, not for them.
If you work at a nonprofit organization and this sounds like the software you wish existed, we would like to hear from you. Our member organizations shape what gets made.
Contact us