interalia strategy 2025-2026
Our vision
We dream of a well-resourced, diverse civil society ecosystem, able to grow, thrive and hold power to account. To make that possible, we dream of a network of fiscal hosts, providing a shared infrastructure of operational support, knowledge and resources, which strengthens the resilience of the civil society ecosystem, transforming our relationships with each other to be centred around care instead of competition.
Our mission
Interalia enables and empowers members of civil society working at the intersection of tech and social justice to advance their core missions, by taking care of their operations and finances as they evolve.
Why we exist = the challenges we’re responding to
The challenge
What we’re doing
Our desired impact
Increasing bureaucracy of existing as a ‘professional’ civil society organisation
Offering a reliable home for all things operational/finance, so that civil society groups and projects can focus on advancing their missions.
More projects and groups working at the broad intersection of tech + society are in a position to receive funds and also push their own missions and goals forward, leading to a more diverse, active and resourced ecosystem working on these topics.
Closures and shrinking of the fiscal host space
* We’ve secured initial core funding, and seek more to ensure that we’re not dependent upon the income of our hosted projects for our own basic stability and infrastructure.
*in the long term, building a consultancy business as a mixed business model for our work.
*Putting money aside for a ‘solidarity fund’ to support projects in times when they are unable to pay our fees or need a ‘holdover’ in their cash flow.
* Working with other values-aligned fiscal hosts to explore what partnerships and network possibilities there might be to increase our own resilience.
A network (formal or informal) of values-aligned fiscal hosts, able to share resources and build resilience between ourselves.
A business model that removes our dependency on hosted projects, which in turn shifts the power dynamic; and enables us to prioritise our operational infrastructure.
Lack of accountability within the fiscal host space
* Commissioned research diving deeper into this topic to ensure that we learn from what’s already out there
* Setting up an advisory board and external whistleblowing service to ensure that projects feel able and empowered to hold us accountable for our actions
Projects feel able to hold us accountable for our actions without worrying about redress. That these practices spread within our peer fiscal hosts.
Funding for digital rights issues isn’t reaching affected communities as much as it could
*Building pathways + relationships for people closest to the problems to be able to obtain funds to work on tech/society issues themselves.
*Prioritising our own resources for groups who are closest to the issues they work on.
An increase in diversity within the tech + society ecosystem, with more creative and appropriate solutions developed as a result of people who know the problems most deeply being involved in designing the solutions.
Turbulence within philanthropy and donor funding
Taking part in ongoing conversations about reimagining how to ensure the most important parts of civil society work continue, even while funding cuts hit broadly; and offering a fiscal host to teams or organisations who need to reorganise.
Groups are able to focus on their core missions without having to spend resources (re)building operations or finance teams, in light of upcoming cuts.
Our approach
Reliable: We are operations and finance professionals, bringing decades of experience to fiscal hosting. We aim to be timely and reliable in the services and support we provide.
Creative: Where others might shy away, we are excited by tricky bureaucratic problems, and we see these as a puzzle to be solved in collaboration with our hosted partners.
Collaborative: Our partnerships and hosted projects are a two way relationship: there’s no one-size-fits-all, because different people have different needs. We work with our projects to ensure that they get what they need to be able to carry out impactful work, and to find solutions together.
Caring: We know that administration and bureaucracy can often be scary and intimidating. We believe that problems shared are problems halved: we are here to talk through any issues without judgement.
Accountable: We are grateful for feedback and input that helps us improve what we do and how we do it – we offer various pathways for holding us accountable and offering us feedback.
Reimagining fiscal hosting
Fiscal hosts have the potential to be a transformative shared infrastructure for civil society, increasing the resilience of civil society broadly speaking. For that to happen, though, we need space to build relationships between fiscal hosts, and begin to build the trust, protocols, and figure out how to share what infrastructure between us in a way that meets the evolving needs of civil society.
Operational health is deeply intertwined with the ability of civil society organisations to achieve their missions – with our expertise and specialisation, we work to ensure strong operational and financial health of our hosted projects. In the long-term, we seek to be part of a (formal or informal) network of fiscal hosts working together to share resources, learnings and knowledge.
Our services
We offer the following core services as a fiscal host. We are registered in Germany but able to work worldwide, subject to political context and availability.
- Non-profit status: interalia is registered as a gGmbH in Germany, with 501(c)3 equivalency in the United States, which allows hosted projects to access funds from foundations and donations.
- Financial accounting: We track and monitor revenues and expenditures, provide regular financial reporting and offer policies and practices to ensure projects have solid oversight over their financial health.
- Human resources management: We can offer employment to project members based in Germany, and we take care of contracting for project members based elsewhere. We offer a range of values-aligned human resources policies and best practices for you to choose from based on what makes sense for your project and team.
- Risk and compliance: We can help you understand what kinds of insurance make sense for different projects, and help you assess activities from a risk mitigation lens.
- Grants management: We administer all grant agreements and support you with reporting.
In addition, upon request and subject to available funds, we can offer:
- Hosting for pooled funds: in situations where various philanthropies want to work together on a pooled fund, we are able to host and redistribute funds.
- Ad hoc support for individuals: for people facing administrative or bureaucratic hurdles, we aim to provide a friendly ear to talk through problems, whether or not you’re hosted with us.
What we don’t do
- Funding: We are not a funder, and we aren’t able to offer funds for projects –typically groups come to us once they have a potential source of funding, and we work with them to figure out how best to host and manage those funds.
- Fundraising: We are not fundraising experts, and do not offer fundraising advice on how to raise funds – this includes where to find resources or proposal writing. We can offer feedback if you have a particular opportunity in mind, though. And once you have a project and source of funds, we’re here to work with you to manage those funds.
- Legal support: We are not lawyers – we are able to connect you with lawyers in our network, but this may require extra financial resources if you are in need of legal support.
- Comms: We do not provide external communication services –it’s up to you to update your website or social media channels as you see fit.
- Team management: We do not manage your project team for you – we can offer policies and best practices, and connect you with others who might be facing similar challenges.
- Work outside of our bylaws: as a non-profit organisation, we’re bound by law to stay within our own bylaws. These are deliberately flexible, but there are some issues (such as political lobbying) that lie firmly outside.
The current political context
Civil society is facing a crisis moment, with widespread financial cuts and layoffs. We have yet to see the long-term financial impact of these cuts, and we know that many organisations are and will face huge operational challenges as a result. We are part of broader conversations within the space of how best to handle these, and we imagine that our biggest contribution will be providing a safe operational home for teams or projects whose original home or organisation might not provide what they need in the longer-run.
Who we work with
Our thematic roots lie primarily within the digital rights and internet freedom movements, and we are particularly interested in supporting the tech and society ecosystem, broadly understood as anyone working on topics related to the impact of technology and data on our society, in the broadest sense. By having this thematic focus, we hope we can also provide some networking and connection possibilities for groups working on aligned topics; and we also seek to meet the specific needs of these aligned eosystems.
We take groups on a rolling basis: if you’re interested in working with us, please get in touch writing to hello[at]interalia.host, and we aim to get back to you to set up a ‘get to know you’ call within one week.
Why us?
interalia was co-founded by Paula Grünwald, Kristina Klein and Zara Rahman. Together, we have been in executive leadership of non profit organisations including fiscal sponsors, national and international civil society organisations, and we bring a combination of operational, financial, strategic and research skills and expertise. Interalia was founded to meet the needs that we all came across, as outlined in this document, and we have been grateful for the support and advice of many people during our first year.
As of May 2025, the organisation is co-led by Paula Grünwald and Kristina Klein.
We also rely upon an Advisory Council which brings expertise from the legal, philanthropic, finance, technology and social justice fields, to strengthen our work. Our Advisory Council members include:
* Michael Brennan
* Vivian Kube
* Zara Rahman
* Hvale Vale