Breaking Ground

Hello, everyone!

It's been a while since our last update, so we wanted to catch you up on some of the early work we've been doing behind the scenes to set up the organization and what's coming up soon.

Building the Organization

Turns out, setting up a nonprofit entity is...hard work! That said, we're excited to say that we're in the final stages of the paperwork and have been blessed to add some new members to the team while doing so.

Board of Directors

Forming a board of directors is a core part of decision-making and maintaining checks and balances in a nonprofit. As such, we wanted to build a board that brings experience and knowledge in areas we don't currently have while helping us amplify the things we're already pretty good at.

And, boy, are we excited about the folks who are working with us. Here is our inaugural board:

• Erin Kissane: Erin is a writer, technologist, and researcher focusing on making and mending networks for conviviality and collective survival at her studio, wreckage/salvage. She co-founded and co-led the volunteer-powered Covid Tracking Project at The Atlantic, was a founding member of (Knight-Mozilla) OpenNews, and previously spent a decade advocating for the open web and leading editorial strategy projects for clients including Brookhaven National Laboratories, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and W.W. Norton.
• Ben Werdmuller: Ben is a technology leader who cares deeply about building platforms to support a more informed and equal society. He currently leads technology at ProPublica. Previously, he co-founded Elgg and Known, was the first CTO at The 19th, and supported mission-driven startups at Matter.
• Susan Mernit: Susan is a strategist, writer, and nonprofit leader passionate about building sustainable, people-centered networks. She has worked at the intersection of media, technology, and social impact, leading organizations like Hack the Hood while supporting nonprofits through AI coaching, fundraising, and organizational development. A former VP at AOL and Senior Director at Yahoo!, she now consults on nonprofit strategy, AI integration, and fundraising innovation.

All three have been instrumental in our early days, providing us with direction and mentorship.

Fiscal Sponsorship

While setting up our nonprofit, our goal was to become a 501c3 entity. As we began the paperwork to make that happen, we realized it would take a lot more time and funds to accomplish, often taking up to two years to receive the designation.

To ensure this doesn't slow us down, we've partnered with Mallory Knodel's Exchange Point Institute (EXP) fiscal sponsorship program. This program enables us to get tax-free donations and helps us focus on project development and advocacy.

Mallory also brings extensive experience in digital and human rights. She's worked on technical standards with the IETF, IEEE, and the UN, is the Executive Director of the Social Web Foundation, is involved in the Free Our Feeds project, and so much more.

Our long-term goal is still to become an independent 501c3 entity, and we look forward to working with EXP throughout the process.

Branding & Website

We were honored to work with Scott Kellum of Typetura on our branding. From the beginning, we've discussed the open social web as a series of constellations, and we even included a photo from NASA in our initial blog design. Scott ran with the idea and designed a logo and other artifacts you'll begin seeing across our work.

For now, here's our new logo:

Thank you, Scott - we love it!

You'll also see some of the design language over on our new website that we're working on.

Conferences

ATmosphere Conference

The ATmosphere Conference is taking place on March 22nd! Ryan, Anuj, and Erin will all attend and give presentations. We're also helping organize a pre-conference meet-and-greet on Friday the 21st and a meetup after the conference on Saturday the 22nd hosted by A New Social!

We're excited to meet folks in the AT dev community, so RSVP to the events and let us know if you'll also be there. For that last one, there may be some first-gen exclusive stickers for ya 😉

FediForum

FediForum is taking place April 1-2nd! We'll be attending and demoing a new tool we've been working on behind the scenes. We look forward to showing you the power a cross-protocol network can give users.

Members of the team have been regulars at FediForum over the last couple of years, and it'll be a ton of fun to see everyone again while meeting some new folks. Make sure to register soon!

Bridgy Fed Config

We're also ready to announce our first upcoming launch: Bridgy Fed Config.

Until now, to bridge your open social web accounts, you had to follow the Bridgy Fed account on your platform, then post some manual tests to see if it was working. While this made it easy to onboard natively, it felt opaque and hid some features behind a DM bot.

With Bridgy Fed Config, we're introducing a settings page where you can sign in with your Bluesky, Mastodon, Pixelfed, and/or Threads account and turn the bridge on with a simple switch. We'll also add other features soon, like setting up a custom domain if you're bridging from ActivityPub to AT, seeing your bridged posts, and more.

The first version of Bridgy Fed Config will launch in early April 2025.

More Coming Soon

As you can hopefully tell, we've been trying to set the right foundations for some of our more ambitious goals, and we're excited about what's coming up next!

We have a jam-packed roadmap for the next few months. We're building new services, working with platforms on easier ways to bridge, speaking with users to understand what they need from us, and continuing to spread the message of an open social web.

If you want to contribute to our projects or chat with us about our work, reach out at letsbuild@anew.social.