SafeSignals is a privacy-first analytics toolkit that helps nonprofits and civic groups measure their impact without invasive tracking.
It combines encrypted event collection, aggregated reporting, and transparent consent flows so organizations can understand what works — while respecting the people they serve.
The problem
Most analytics tools were built for advertising, not impact work:
- they rely on third-party cookies, fingerprinting, and cross-site tracking;
- sensitive behavioral data is stored in clear form on third-party servers;
- communities have no realistic way to understand or control how their data is used;
- organizations that want to do the right thing are forced to choose between “no data” or “shady data”.
For nonprofits and civic teams working with vulnerable groups, this is not acceptable.
The solution: encrypted, consent-based impact analytics
SafeSignals offers an alternative: measure outcomes, not identities.
Organizations can still see trends, funnels, and outcomes — but individual people stay private.
Data is collected in a minimal, structured, and purpose-bound way.
Events are encrypted on the client before leaving the user’s device.
Analytics are computed as aggregates, not per-person profiles.
Architecture & technology
SafeSignals is delivered as:
- Lightweight client SDKs (web, mobile, backend) that perform encryption and data minimization before sending anything.
- Ingestion gateway that validates encrypted payloads and stores them in an append-only log.
- Analytics engine that runs aggregation jobs, exports metrics, and powers dashboards — always on encrypted or pseudonymized data.
- Key management interface so organizations control rotation, scoping, and revocation of encryption keys.
APIs are fully documented so impact tools, CRMs, or custom dashboards can plug into the same data in a controlled, auditable way.
Key capabilities
Self-hosted or trusted hosting
Organizations can deploy SafeSignals on their own infrastructure or use vetted hosting providers, while still keeping encryption keys under their control.
Client-side encryption
Events (e.g., “completed training module”, “submitted application”, “used hotline”) are encrypted with project-specific keys before transmission. Servers never see raw identifiers.
Pseudonymous session handling
Optional, short-lived identifiers let you understand sessions and flows while preventing long-term tracking or cross-project correlation.
Aggregate reports
Dashboards focus on metrics like completion rates, engagement by channel, or feature usage — with built-in protections such as minimum cohort sizes and noise injection where needed.
Consent & transparency layer
Embeddable consent components explain what is being measured and why, in plain language, with easy opt-out. Public-facing documentation pages show how data is processed.
Red-flag detection without surveillance
Configurable rules allow teams to spot problematic patterns (e.g. sudden drop in access to critical services) based on aggregated signals instead of per-user monitoring.
Governance and sustainability
SafeSignals is built as public-interest infrastructure:
- open-source core for community review, auditing, and contributions;
- clear data protection and governance guidelines that partners must follow;
- advisory input from privacy advocates, security experts, and frontline organizations;
- roadmap decisions guided by a public RFC process, prioritizing use cases where privacy violations would be especially harmful.
This ensures the toolkit remains aligned with the needs of people and communities, not just analytics power users.
How funding is used
Support for SafeSignals will be directed to:
- hardening the encryption pipeline, SDKs, and key management;
- developing ready-made integrations for common nonprofit and civic platforms;
- independent security audits and formal threat modeling;
- improved documentation, example playbooks, and training for non-technical teams;
- building a small privacy research fund to explore better defaults and techniques (e.g. differential privacy, secure enclaves).
By funding SafeSignals, supporters help create an analytics layer where respect for people’s privacy is a feature, not an afterthought.