Jack Dorsey Invests $10M in Nonprofit to Advance Open-Source Social Media

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Block, is accelerating efforts to create a more open and experimental future for social media. Through a $10 million investment, Dorsey has helped launch an online collective called "and Other Stuff," a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing open-source tools and platforms that could rethink how social apps are built and governed.

Building a New Model for Social Media

"And Other Stuff," founded in May, brings together Dorsey and an experienced team, including Twitter’s first employee Evan Henshaw-Plath, Cashu e-cash platform creator Calle, former Truth Social engineering head Alex Gleason, and early Intercom employee Jeff Gardner. United by a passion for open-source protocols—especially Nostr, which Dorsey has championed since his departure from Twitter and Bluesky—the group aims to build not another company, but a "community of hackers." Their focus: creating social apps, developer tools, and libraries that support decentralized, user-owned networks over profit-driven, centralized platforms.

The collective's first wave of experimentation revolves around protocols like Nostr (a decentralized social networking system), ActivityPub (used by Mastodon), and Cashu, an e-cash platform. For example, their app Shakespeare allows users to build Nostr-based social apps with AI assistance, while heynow offers voice notes on the Nostr protocol. Other projects include privacy-centric messenger White Noise, a Cashu wallet, and the Nostr-powered community platform +chorus. Their open-source toolkit opens new possibilities for both developers and end users to build, fork, or remix social experiences, free from corporate constraints.

Rethinking Incentives and Protocols

Dorsey has frequently reflected on the pitfalls of traditional social media. He now argues that platforms like Twitter faltered by becoming companies reliant on advertising revenue. As advertisers wielded outsized power, platforms had to prioritize business concerns over user freedom or internet innovation. According to Dorsey, a true protocol should be as open—and as difficult to own outright—as Bitcoin. This belief led him to support projects like Bluesky, though he now questions whether its VC-backed structure will allow it to avoid similar challenges as legacy companies.

The strategy of "and Other Stuff" is to bypass these limitations by focusing on nonprofit, open, and modular approaches—from new apps to reusable developer libraries, all available for the community to use or adapt.

Shaping the Future: Social Media Bill of Rights

Ahead, the collective is designing a "Bill of Rights" for social media—principles and requirements to ensure privacy, security, transparency, portability, and user self-governance across platforms. This framework is intended to keep platforms accountable to users regardless of outside pressure, regulation, or commercialization. The team continues to contribute on multiple fronts: Dorsey on iOS apps, others on Android, developer tools, and social experiments. With significant funding and active collaboration, the nonprofit hints at further innovations yet to be announced.

Deep Founder Analysis

Why it matters

This initiative signals a shift toward decentralized, user-governed technology infrastructures. For startups and founders, it’s a strategic move away from VC-dependent platforms and proprietary algorithms, and toward open protocols that promote collaboration and resilience. As pressure increases on tech giants over content moderation, privacy, and revenue models, such nonprofit efforts offer a robust alternative—and could reshape the very landscape of digital interaction.

Risks & opportunities

The main risk is fragmentation. Without strong standards, multiple protocols could lead to siloed user bases or compatibility headaches for developers. On the other hand, open protocols open a wave of opportunities for niche networking apps, developer tools, and data sovereignty solutions. Historical parallels from the early web and open-source software movements suggest that such models can drive rapid innovation—but only if a strong community forms around shared values and interoperability.

Startup idea or application

Inspired founders could create "social protocol bridges"—middleware enabling interoperability between platforms like Nostr, ActivityPub, and centralized services. Another direction: a SaaS startup offering compliance tooling for the emerging "Social Media Bill of Rights," providing privacy and identity APIs for next-generation social platforms and enterprise clients seeking privacy-respecting digital communities.

Further Reading

For more on the future of decentralized platforms and social media innovation, read our DeepFounder piece on Jack Dorsey's new Sun Day app or our analysis of X's struggles with competition and CEO changes.

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