Working with industry
One of the first questions I was asked when I started working at the Data Transfer Initiative was, “Could you do this work without industry?” I had just finished describing our mission as an organization, and the kinds of work we do - policy research on data portability and building tools to make end-to-end portability effective and trustworthy. Before that, of course, I had shared our origin story: DTI was launched out of the Data Transfer Project, a collaboration of technology companies, who continue to partner with us and support our efforts.
I don’t recall the exact words, but the answer I gave then is the same one I’d give today, and it’s along the lines of “Maybe, but not nearly as effectively.” We could tap into the growing number of third-party accessible APIs for data import and export; we could build shared data models and adapters that translate between services. But it would take more time and more resources, and the resulting portability tools wouldn’t be as effective, because they wouldn’t benefit from the testing and development that can be undertaken by working with the service providers.
Our members and partners are key contributors to our effectiveness as an organization. And the organizational structure reflects that. We’re structured under U.S. tax laws as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. It’s less common than a 501(c)(3), which is the classic nonprofit status. Organizations operating with 501(c)(3) status have a number of structural advantages and opportunities, notably the ability to seek donations that are tax deductible for the donor; however they come with higher administrative overhead and cost.
Another common nonprofit designation is 501(c)(6) - that’s the status given to trade associations, nonprofits that are built around their members, and whose orientation (whether explicitly or implicitly) is towards advancing those interests. Trade associations are structured around members and charge them dues, which are not tax deductible.
The IRS lists organizations like ours in a bucket of “other non-profits,” which always makes me chuckle. We’re structured as a 501(c)(4) to allow us to have members and partners and to charge dues like a 501(c)(6), but to operate with greater autonomy and in service of a mission like a 501(c)(3). The dues we receive provide, thus far, all of our operating revenue; however we’re able to receive, and are pursuing, grants and other sources of funds as well.
The official term for a 501(c)(4) is a “social welfare organization.” Our mission, and our work as an organization, must serve to improve social welfare. The mission statement adopted by the board of directors last year is: “Empower people by building a vibrant ecosystem for simple and secure data transfers.”
To advance that mission, in our view, requires a lot more than just convenings and policy analysis. We need to build tools, and put them in the hands of users.
Which is why it’s a big deal for us to launch something new, built on the Data Transfer Project. Like the previous tools deployed by our founding members Apple, Google, and Meta, last week’s new tool, which allows Google Photos users to transfer their data directly to Apple’s iCloud Photos, will be available to literally billions of people. We can’t ship products at that level of impact without partnering with industry.
But as great as it is to work with those three organizations, we want to collaborate on the same level with others too. Which is why we’re recruiting new partners. More partners means more tools and more impact, provided of course that we retain mission orientation and alignment on core principles.
We’re delighted that our first new partner, ErnieApp, joined us earlier this year. We have big plans for our collaboration with them. We’re talking to a few other organizations as well, and if this is something you’re interested in, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
The DTI network of collaborators and supporters is broader than just our formal partners, of course. One of those organizations is CODE, who has been invaluable in contributing to our efforts. Another is Inrupt, with whom we ran a very successful hackathon last fall. We’re preparing an update to our website to provide more clarity into organizations that we work with in various ways to advance our mission.
We work with other associations and groups as well. Some of these are fairly unstructured and our staff participate in more individual capacities. Others are more formal - for example, DTI is a member of the W3C and the European Internet Forum.
My background is in policy work, and policy is a field where collaboration is the norm, not the exception. An individual, deeply researched policy brief may be a terrific academic work in its own right, but to have impact, to move the levers of power, requires champions and evangelists from other perspectives who can validate and communicate the ideas behind the agenda to many different kinds of audiences.
It’s a bit like data portability, in fact. In our 2023 Annual Report, I wrote, “Data transfer takes two (at least!).” DTI as an organization has an outsize impact because of how we have designed our work to be alongside others.