The Great Unlearning: Catalyst’s Radical Blueprint for Tech Justice in the Voluntary Sector​

The Myth of Digital Neutrality

For too long, the UK voluntary sector has treated technology as a neutral utility—a sterile set of tools designed to facilitate efficiency, scale, and reach. But as we move deeper into 2025, that facade is finally eroding. We are beginning to recognise that technology is never an impartial bystander; it is a product of the dominant social and cultural groups that design it, frequently encoding and automating the very structural inequalities charities exist to dismantle. When an organisation adopts a digital tool without interrogating its origins, it risks unintentionally streamlining oppression.

The “so what” for charity leaders is no longer up for debate: tech justice is not a niche digital trend, but a primary social justice imperative. If left unchecked, the digital evolution of the sector will only deepen existing inequities, prioritising profit and efficiency over liberation and care. Catalyst’s recent strategic pivot represents a necessary intervention in this trajectory, shifting the focus from simple digital adoption to a visionary framework that repurposes technology to build collective power. This shift reached a definitive turning point this year as Catalyst secured its independence.

Breaking the Incubation Cycle: The Birth of a Justice-First CIC

The 2024/25 period marked a fundamental evolution as Catalyst transitioned from a programme incubated by CAST to an independent Community Interest Company (CIC) trading as “We the Catalysts CIC.” This was not a mere administrative exercise; it was a structural declaration that justice must be the core engine of the network, rather than an add-on. As Executive Co-Director, Hannah Turner-Uaandja observes, the organisation defies traditional sector categorisation: “It is a group of people, a community of practice, a working culture and set of behaviours and values. It is also a network of organisationsthato are trying to move in a particular direction.”

The path to independence was not without its “growing pains.” Establishing a new CIC consumed a significant portion of the directors’ time and energy, creating a complex internal landscape where activity continued to deliver funded work while the overarching structure shifted around them. While the network’s transparency was widely praised, some members felt uncertain about their roles during the transition. Yet, the quality of delivery remained high, proving that a justice-led mission can survive—and indeed thrive—amidst the friction of institutional rebirth.

Innovation from the Margins: Lived Experience and Liberatory Tech

At the heart of Catalyst’s recent success is the conviction that those most harmed by technology are the best qualified to redesign it. By centring “lived experience,” Catalyst is successfully upending the extractive power dynamics typical of the tech world. Through initiatives like the “Kindling Programme”—which uses micro-grants to spark tech justice work—and the “Tech Justice Roadtrip,” the network has demonstrated that transformative results occur only when communities possess the power to shape the tools that impact them.

This year, the network moved beyond theory to deliver substantive, justice-led outcomes:

• Participatory Grant-Making: Camden Giving pioneered a tech-enabled process that awarded £100,000 to four youth-focused groups. Yasmin Farah of Camden Giving noted the weight of this approach: “One of them made a comment… just being surprised we had actually built it the way they had specified… We were not just talking to them for the sake of it.”
• Feminist AI: Chayn convened 24 survivors from nine different countries to define the future of feminist AI. Eva Blum-Dumontet of Chayn described the provision of time and resources to ground innovation in survivor experiences as “transformative.”
• Creative Provocations: The publication of an Afrofuturist-inspired zine and the funding of “sparks” projects have invited a broader range of voices into the digital conversation, moving beyond the jargon of the “tech-bro” elite.

The practical application of these principles is already visible across the UK, as seen in these leading examples:

• Migrant Digital Justice: The Open Rights Group is helping the migrant rights sector challenge the Home Office’s access to personal data from GPs and schools, protecting digital identities from misuse in detentions.
• ‘I am not a typo’: A collective challenging Big Tech to update dictionary databases to include diverse names, reducing the “othering” effect of autocorrect errors.
• Glitch: Founded by Seyi Akiwowo, this charity focuses on ending online abuse, particularly for Black women and marginalised groups, through research and policy recommendations.

Wellbeing and the New Benchmark for Inclusive Research

In a sector frequently plagued by burnout, Catalyst has established that emotional well-being and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) are inseparable from digital strategy. A standout example was the launch of the Wellbeing Fund. Established as a direct response to the community trauma caused by racist and Islamophobic riots, the fund provided £1,940 in flexible bursaries to seven network members. This provided essential mental health support, proving that collective care is a prerequisite for sustained leadership.

The network also set a new standard for inclusive research with the 2024/25 Charity Digital Skills Report. Collecting a record 635 responses with strong representation from Black, disabled, and young people, the report provides an authentic look at the sector’s digital health. Furthermore, Catalyst is challenging extractive charity models through “Reciprocity Payments.” By distributing over £30,000 to honour the contributions of project participants, Catalyst is moving beyond “good intentions” toward tangible equity.

Sociocracy and the Evolution of Evaluation

Maintaining these values requires a radical departure from traditional hierarchies. Catalyst has integrated “Sociocracy”—a model of consent-based decision-making—into its governance, facilitating shared funding pots and more agile power distribution. This structural change is mirrored in the move toward “decolonising evaluation.” Traditional metrics often fail to capture systems change, which is relational and emergent. Working with the evaluator inFocus, the network has developed a “Decolonising Evaluation Workbook” to help practitioners value stories and participatory methods over rigid KPIs.

This shift requires a significant internal effort. Research from the “Agencies for Good” programme, led by Ray Cooper, highlighted a persistent gap between inclusive values and actual lived experience. As the network’s reflections suggest, moving to genuine action requires honest discussion:

“Moving from good intentions to real action needs honest discussion and learning (and often a good deal of unlearning too).”

This unlearning is essential for any organisation hoping to transition from performative inclusion to genuine power-shifting.

The Wider Context: Funding and Policy Landscapes

Catalyst’s work is deeply entwined with a volatile UK political climate. Parallels can be drawn to the “Justice Together” initiative, where sector-led advocacy recently achieved major wins, including the reversal of the Rwanda policy and a significant 33% increase in immigration legal aid fees. These victories mirror Catalyst’s own efforts to challenge systemic unfairness.

However, the funding landscape remains a challenge. Justice Together’s research highlights that “competition for funding” often undermines the very relationships needed for collaboration. To counter this, Catalyst convenes a Funders’ Forum (rated 4 out of 5 stars by participants) to surface barriers to equitable funding and maintains a “Find a Funder” database to increase transparency for grant-seekers.

To understand the strategic shift Catalyst is advocating, one must contrast traditional digital adoption with tech justice principles:

Conclusion: Deceleration and the Road to 2025/26

As Catalyst enters 2025/26, it is embracing the counter-intuitive concept of “deceleration and discovery.” In a sector obsessed with rapid “scaling,” Catalyst is choosing to do less in order to do it better—focusing on deep listening, power-sharing, and building direct relationships with grassroots communities. This is a deliberate move away from the “charity” mindset and toward a model of collective power.

Tech justice is not a fleeting digital trend; it is a burgeoning social movement that demands a total reimagining of our relationship with power. The long-term significance of Catalyst’s transformation lies in its ability to prove that a just digital future is possible. For charity leaders, the responsibility is now clear: we must ensure that the technology we build and use is designed to restore rather than exploit, with equity baked into the very code of our organisations.