Supporters & finances

Especially in the second half of 2024, we saw a significant increase in new donors. This success is partly thanks to our long-running year-end campaign and increased visibility in national media. We also made donating through our website easier and faster🔗Donate easy & fast, and launched new merchandise in our webshop.

We met our donors and corporate supporters at the Big Brother Awards and our anniversary celebration at Boogieland, where we unveiled a special 25 years pin for our donors.

The following companies supported us in 2024:

Duckduckgo, team.blue en Freedom Internet

BIT, Greenhost, IB-Vision, Unc Inc en Voys.

Cryptography in Context, Hunki Enterprises, Intermax Cloudsourcing, Root Legal, VBVB ICT en Yourhosting.

Breedbandwinkel.nl, Considerati, CT&V advies, GeoCat, Green Mini host, Het Rooster, iCulture, Mark Verhijde Advies en Projecten B.V., Mijndomein, NederHost, Nijweide BV, PrivacyLab, RealConnections, Talksome en Zygomatic.

Charys, DevNomads, Leemshop en Mindshards.

Byte, DMARC Analyzer, Ekco, Hosting.nl, Mollie, Passbolt, Rick Pastoor, Sentia, Smoose, Xolphin.

For some of our work, it is difficult to find (enough) financial support from individuals. Foundations therefore play an important role for us. They help secure the sustainability of our work and support the development and growth of the organization. Sometimes they make it possible to take a big step forward at a crucial moment, for example by funding a new role or research into a new work program.

In 2024, our core costs were supported by the following foundations.

We received project funding from Luminate for Litigating Big Tech (together with the Public Interest Litigation Project (PILP) and Nederland Wordt Beter🔗See all our collaborations), from Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds for our collaboration with Amnesty, Open State Foundation, Waag, Setup, and Public Spaces, and from Open Society Foundations as part of the New Executives Fund. We also received support from Goeie Grutten, SIDN fonds, Civitates, the Creative Industries Fund NL, and EDRi for our work on platform regulation and the Stay Loud campaign🔗Read the Stay Loud-campaign highlight.

Incidental larger donations from individual donors led to higher income than budgeted. By the end of 2024, we also saw a structural increase. However, attracting (new) corporate supporters and the associated income remains an important focus point.

We budgeted for 2024 with an expected negative result, planning to use our designated reserve. Reality turned out differently. Lower than planned personnel costs resulted in a better outcome. This deviation is due to evolving insights in the growth phase of the organization: a significant part of the planned staffing costs will shift to 2025.

To enable this growth, 2024 focused on future-proofing Bits of Freedom. Together with external advisors, we worked on a new organizational structure. From February 2025, we will switch to a co-director model. In Q1 of 2025, two new colleagues will start, followed by four additional hires later in the year. We also decided to reduce working hours from 40 to 36 hours per week. Combined, this explains the shift of personnel costs towards 2025. Finally, we reserved €50,000 for a move or renovation, which has (so far) not taken place.

We therefore close the year with a positive result, which will be used in the coming years. This brings our designated reserve to about €933K and our continuity reserve to about 25% of our costs for the coming year.

In 2024, we spent 6% of our expenditures on fundraising and about 4% on management and administration. 89.9% was spent directly on our mission. This aligns with our principle to spend no more than 20% of our budget and time on fundraising, management, and administration.

In our expenditures, we plan for 16 FTE. A number of specific projects and events have already been budgeted, and the income largely pledged, for about €237K, of which we will contribute €47,000 ourselves.

We have multi-year agreements with six foundations. In 2025, our agreements with Adessium, Luminate, Goeie Grutten, Stichting Democratie en Media, and Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland (SIDN) will expire. We hope to extend these contracts. We aim to secure an additional €130,000 from foundations in 2025.

From donors, we aim to raise €415,000 in 2025. From companies, we hope to raise €115,000.

If we achieve these ambitions, the difference between budgeted income and expenses will be -€568,000. This negative result will be covered from our earmarked reserve. We will not use our continuity reserve in 2025.

For Bits of Freedom, it is crucial to maintain a sustainable financial situation and remain fully independent. Our financial planning looks ahead five years. In recent years, we have seen growing interest from private foundations in our work. Meanwhile, contributions from individual donors are growing more slowly. This means our funding mix is shifting slightly: the share of our income coming from foundations is increasing. In 2025, we expect to raise 25% of our income from donors, 7% from companies, 57% from foundations, and 12% will be allocated towards specific projects or programs, mostly from foundations. Since project funding carries risks for effectiveness, good employment practices, and safeguarding knowledge and expertise, it is not the ideal form of income.

Regarding asset management and financial reserves, Bits of Freedom aims to maintain a continuity reserve of at least 25% of our annual costs for the coming year. This is a common percentage for NGOs of our size. By the end of 2025, we expect to have a continuity reserve of about 25%.