Quotes start
We have
a vision of a more
equitable internet.
Caio
Ed
Dani
We work with technologists, newsrooms, fact-checkers, public health professionals, NGOs and academic institutions on award-winning projects from election monitoring to pandemic response to human rights documentation. This work supports our vision of a more equitable internet.

Our values

Meedan’s eleven core values reflect our operating principles, organizational culture and best practices as a team. We developed them with all our staff during team retreats and online conversations and seek to embody them in our daily work both within the organization and in the broader professional world.

Photo: Steven Snow for CredCon
Photo: Steven Snow for CredCon

01
Be global

Meedan operates globally and thinks globally. This includes working in and with underrepresented countries and regions, especially in emerging economies. While our organization is headquartered in California, our staff and partners operate in a number of different latitudes and time zones.

02
Practice empathy

Empathy is in a sense the base value at Meedan. To practice empathy we must have semantic, political, and ideological modesty and a deep respect for context—this occurs naturally in global systems where in the course of our collaborations we recognize and constantly bump into the fragility and contextuality of meaning.

03
Collaborate in community

We believe in designing with, not for, whether that’s designing a new initiative from the ground up or supporting a partner in their existing work. Collaboration requires holistic thinking and multistakeholderism, and we make active contributions to the global journalism, fact-checking, human rights and technology communities. Healthy communities are the byproduct of good collaboration.

04
Encourage inclusion

We encourage diverse thinking and diverse teams and recognize at the same time that with diversity can often come competing viewpoints. The tension that arises from diversity is not only inevitable, it is also desirable: it avoids the comfort of a single viewpoint that leads to narrow understandings and narrow experiences.

05
Own our impact

We value measurable impact, using both quantitative and qualitative metrics. Our work is more than words—we want to effect change for the benefit of others. Meedan team members are self-reliant, proactive agents who understand and buy into the overall organization direction, and we take responsibility for the organization’s overall success and commitment to deliver impact.

06
Embody awesome

In everything we do, we try to embody awesomeness in all its forms. We take pride in our work and in our individuality as people. That could mean an occasional “Fancy Friday” or Mario Kart tournament, or just being excellent to each other in drop-in virtual coffees with staff and partners.

07
Respect context

The meaning of a word is found in its use. We began as a language technology project grounded in a desire to show the linguistic contextuality of media narratives and build empathy. We have remained committed to the idea that our software should do a better job of holding, documenting, explaining, and sharing digital and semantic and linguistic contexts.

08
Demonstrate strong work ethic

We value strong work ethic and as a fully remote organization, we depend on our team members to be reliable, accountable for their work, and self-disciplined. We expect them to be dedicated to our mission and focused on always giving their best to help make positive, systemic change in the world.

09
Show kindness

We strongly support and encourage showing kindness - this is at the center and heart of everything we do. This goes past affirmations or a nice word here and there. This may mean pulling an all-nighter to help a colleague on a huge project, or having a tough conversation. Kindness is not always soft and can take extra time, but our work must always be grounded and modeled in kindness.

10
Commitment to our partners

Meedan commits to delivering a high quality of service to the people with whom we work and who use our products and services. We expect Meedan team members to be an integral part of the commitment to support the mission and needs of our external relationships.

11
Commitment to independence

At Meedan, one of our major priorities is transparency and accountability to our stakeholders, including our audience, supporters, and the general public. We are committed to providing clear and accurate information about our funding sources, including any potential conflicts of interest, and openly disclosing our financial statements. Our funding partners or sponsors do not have any influence or control over the content we produce. We do not engage in practices that could compromise the accuracy, independence, or transparency of our work.

Theory of change

To achieve an equitable internet, we think about our impact along four timescales.

Meedan's Theory of Change Visual
In the short term, we address crises of information trust and harmful content through better workflows and tools that help teams contextualize and verify content, with quick turnarounds and broad reach.
In the medium term, we work with civil society organizations through capacity building efforts that help maximize their ability to engage with the new dynamics of the internet while ensuring their own sustainability as organizations.
In the long term, we seek to generate data sets and qualitative findings that enable research, expand knowledge, and build practical responses for contemporary information challenges.
Ongoing, we work to develop standards for digital media that can be utilized by tech platforms, data scientists and international standards bodies to make information access more equitable online.

Our supporters

Annual reports

Meedan is a 501(c)3 non-profit. Our annual reports detail our programming and operating budgets