We are excited to welcome CryptoHarlem as Proteus Fund’s newest fiscally sponsored initiative. CryptoHarlem works to promote digital safety and security in marginalized communities through education and training. The initiative also provides career development and mentorship opportunities to help address the underrepresentation of Black professionals in the cybersecurity industry, a gap which perpetuates a lack of digital knowledge in the Black community.
CryptoHarlem was founded in 2014 by Matt Mitchell, a leader in digital privacy and anti-surveillance advocacy, to address digital harms that disproportionately affect marginalized and vulnerable communities. Through resources, trainings and workshops, and other events, CryptoHarlem creates accessible education that is tailored to the unique challenges these communities face – empowering individuals and organizations to share what they’ve learned and multiply the impact of these offerings.
While CryptoHarlem has helped to fill an important need for more than a decade, its work to promote digital security and privacy has never been more vital than in this current moment. Movement activists and organizers are at greater risk for surveillance, harassment and doxxing now than ever before. Proteus Fund is proud to be able to provide operational partnership and support to CryptoHarlem, ensuring that more of the field can benefit from their expertise.
Our fiscal sponsorship of CryptoHarlem is in direct alignment with our mission to connect philanthropy to the frontlines of social justice to advance racial, gender, queer, and disability justice, and an inclusive, fully representative democracy. It is also in line with our commitment to supporting security, safety and wellness for movement actors, which we do through our Grantee Safety and Security Fund and other efforts.
We invite you to learn more about CryptoHarlem’s exciting, expanding work and look forward to supporting their continued growth and impact!
Alexandra Rachelle Siclait
Director of Fiscal Sponsorship
Paul Di Donato
President & CEO
Army Armstead recently became CryptoHarlem’s project director. Army brings years of experience in nonprofit leadership, grassroots organizing, and tech training to his new leadership role. He shared his thoughts on why CryptoHarlem’s mission and work are so important, particularly in this current moment.
There are people on the front lines doing real work against powers beyond our control, and sometimes, they are at risk. They are putting their careers and families at risk. [The threats] are very layered. With activists, they’re worried about phishing emails. They’re worried about being doxxed. But with organizations, they may think a scam email that says ‘click now to receive the money’ is coming from a funder.
We want to be a solution, provide resources for everyone along the journey to meet people where they are and help them with whatever it is they’re experiencing. Whether you’re an individual or an organization serving these communities, you can do so safely. You can navigate the internet safely. You can protect yourself.
People are being targeted at the airport. So, we focus on how you travel safely with your devices, being mindful of what’s being held in your work laptop as opposed to a travel device. We’ve seen doxxing. I’ve worked with lawyers from bail funds who are helping people get out of jail that are having their addresses leaked. They don’t even come from our communities, but they’re allies and they’re still at risk.
All of our information is online but sometimes it’s scattered. The Delete Me program is one we can use to scrub that information, get it off of the internet. So that when you are at these rallies, when you are out speaking against these injustices, you can protect you and your family.
There’s also just a lot of fear and confusion about technology now. Should I use facial recognition? Should I have fingerprint ID? What are the laws against that? Even the basics of just changing your password. Don’t use the same one for everything. It’s small things that we overlook for convenience. But safety doesn’t come with convenience.
Matt Mitchell, our founder, wanted to close the digital divide. CryptoHarlem does offer fee-for-service opportunities, but the majority of our education and resources are free. We have resources on our website which are open source, which we’ve updated to be relevant to the current time and administration. We’re also ramping up our community workshops, which are aimed at supporting organizations helping vulnerable communities. Let’s help our network of leaders and community activists have the tools to keep their organizations and themselves safe in this current moment.
We also want the communities that we serve to be empowered to now be leaders and a part of this workforce, so career development is an emerging area of work for us. We want to offer certificates and trainings to help people pursue other professional opportunities and pathways to achieve economic mobility.
Lastly, we share our expertise through paid presentations and panels to organizations that can afford to pay, which will allow us to create more free resources and offerings.
We’re addressing a systemic inequality. That’s important for philanthropic leaders to be aware of – the inequities that exist in technology access and understanding. Being able to focus on digital privacy education and safely navigate the internet makes organizations more efficient.
Safety is a real concern for everyone whether you’re sitting behind a computer or on the front lines at a protest. We need to humanize technology. We’re policed. We’re surveilled. Technology is used against us [by bad actors], but what happens when we build it ethically? What happens when we can control it and use it for good? We definitely have the skills. It’s just about being able to advocate for it and apply it.