End of Year Greetings from BD4D

December 19, 2025

As 2025 comes to a close, we want to thank you for your encouragement, ideas, and time as we’ve worked to develop the Better Deal for Data™ into an adaptable, lightweight data governance standard.

We round out the year by publishing a refined set of seven BD4D Commitments, which will serve as the foundation for our v1.0 launch in early 2026, and highlighting two of our community partners who are putting BD4D™ into practice in their organizations.

 

Refining the BD4D Commitments

Over the last eighteen months, our team has had dozens of meetings and interviews to learn about data collection, sharing, and use in the social sector. Many of the people and organizations with whom we met have also offered valuable insights on how the BD4D Commitments might support their impact. Based on this feedback, we felt the need to revise the original, eight draft commitments proposed inour April 2024 white paper.

The big news about the changes is that there is no big news. Our goal remains: to create a standard that advances the cause of responsible data use in the social sector. You can learn about what we did change, and why,in this note from our CEO Jim Fruchterman. Read on to see the seven refined Commitments.

Declaration. We make the following commitments to “You,” all of the individuals or organizations that we serve and whose data we touch. We make these commitments to You about “Your Data,” non-public information related to You which we collect, analyze, store, and/or share.

  1. Purpose. We are using Your Data to benefit You, Your community, humanity, and the planet, not for private gain or profit.
  2. Ownership. We don’t claim ownership of Your Data.
  3. Control. We will delete Your Data, correct it, or transfer it to You if You ask.
  4. Monetization. We will not monetize Your Data by providing it to third parties for compensation.
  5. Protection. We will steward Your Data with care, and comply with applicable data privacy laws
  6. Research. If we or a trusted partner do research based on Your Data, we will follow best practices around the anonymization of personal data, and published research papers or reports will be made available to You for free.
  7. Binding. We will be legally bound by these Commitments, and anyone we share Your Data with will be similarly bound.

 

From Principles into Practice

Responsible data stewardship requires the participation of the individuals and communities an organization serves. We have embraced this approach in building the Better Deal for Data, and in the coming months will be introducing several of the organizations who have greatly impacted our own work. We highlight two of them, The Soil Inventory Project and The Cadasta Foundation, below. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can adopt the BD4D Standard in your organization, we’d love to hear from you!

 

TSIP logoThe Soil Inventory Project

The Soil Inventory Project (TSIP) builds soil data infrastructure and tools, turning agricultural data into trusted insights for farmers, researchers, and industry partners. TSIP’s Fieldvision platform provides a complete web and mobile system for soil sampling design, field data collection, and analysis. We are collaborating with the TSIP team to test how the BD4D Commitments affect trust, transparency, consent, and data sharing in web and mobile apps.

 

Cadasta Foundation logoThe Cadasta Foundation

The Cadasta Foundation provides technology and training that help communities and partners secure, protect, and defend their land and resource rights, unlocking the social, economic, and environmental benefits of equitable land tenure around the world. Pano Skrivanos, Senior Manager for Strategic Projects, has been an active participant in our development process while leading an ethical data stewardship initiative at Cadasta. As an endorser of the Better Deal for Data, they have built upon the BD4D principles in their own practices for responsible data ownership, sovereignty, and governance.

 

What’s Next

Looking ahead to 2026 and the release of the full BD4D Standard, we’re excited for the chance to get input from far more organizations as they adopt the Standard and the BD4D Playbook to guide its real-world, practical implementation, and share their suggestions on how to make it better.

As always, we invite your feedback and questions on the BD4D Commitments, and are grateful for your continued support!

Jim, Celine, and the Better Deal for Data team

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