One of Mozilla’s key roles in the internet health movement is to address fundamental disparities created by unequal flows of capital. Mozilla moves money, with purpose and intent, and aims to disrupt a field largely focused on profit. We strive to not just move money, but shift power - away from Big Tech and towards the communities who have historically been shut out from ownership, control and decision-making.
Since 2019, Mozilla has focused its funding on empowering individuals and groups committed to building trustworthy AI, based on principles of accountability, transparency and agency. In 2023, the many applications for funding we received demonstrated to us both a clear understanding of the pervasiveness of AI and its entanglement with every aspect of our lives, as well as a growing concern about its impact on communities.
With the adoption of AI systems by institutions including government agencies, major corporations, healthcare providers, and even educational institutions, we have seen an increasing interest in interrogating the design, distribution and governance of these systems in order to earn public trust, and ensure community safety and well-being.
Through the years, we have learned that in order to address the challenges we face within our contemporary AI ecosystem, we need to create deep, system-wide changes. We need the transformative power of working as a movement.
That’s why Mozilla supports open source technologists, community organizations and collectives, advocates, researchers and creatives whose work centers promising approaches for interrogating and addressing society’s most pressing issues.
In order to create long-term change, we don’t just provide funding. We collaborate, co-create and partner - through a range of accompaniments - to simultaneously strengthen and fine-tune both our work at Mozilla and the work of movements we support.
These “accompaniments” are the wrap-around support we offer, beyond funding, which enables our fellows and awardee partners to thrive.
We design this accompaniment in collaboration with each cohort, letting them tell us what’s meaningful and important, and allowing their needs and discoveries to inform our own path. While we stay agile by design, our accompaniment approach strives to always center our core values: fostering connections, building community, and leveraging our power - and platform(s) - to lift up and amplify the work of our communities.
The fellowships and awards we offer are a key element of Mozilla’s movement-building engine. We ensure this engine runs by a) creating cohorts of fellows and awardees whose work is enriched by sharing, exchanging and learning from each other, b) creating spaces for them to convene, not just with each other but with other critical stakeholders, and c) intentionally resourcing collaboration and long-term partnerships.
So we spent the last year growing, nourishing and sustaining our communities: because we know they are the key.