Updating the Better Deal for Data Standard: Version 1.1

We’re happy to share our first update to the Better Deal for Data (BD4D) Standard. Since announcing the Standard in January 2026, we’ve been working with many nonprofit organizations as they adopt improved data practices using BD4D. The Standard is now gaining traction as a set of basic data governance norms for nonprofits, but it was clear that we could refine a few items to ensure that BD4D is easily adoptable by more nonprofits while still maintaining the essence of our seven Commitments. A core tenet of the BD4D initiative is to co-develop the Standard with the participation of our nonprofit community, and we expect to continue to improve the Standard in close consultation with them.

Here’s a summary of the main changes we made.

Monetization

We heard from many organizations and nonprofit leaders that the language of the Monetization commitment was unclear. Common concerns were that it would forbid using impact data for fundraising, or prohibit any earned income from products or services a BD4D Adopter might offer (which is not the intent of this Commitment). Beyond this, several NGOs shared that the existing language created uncertainty, as it could easily be interpreted in different ways by different members of their community.

Our resolution to this challenge was use more straightforward terms, and include the definition of “Your Data” in the updated Commitment:

• Version 1.0: We will not monetize Your Data by providing it to third parties for compensation.
• Version 1.1: We will not sell or share nonpublic information about You (“Your Data”) in exchange for compensation from third parties.

This does not change the meaning of the Monetization commitment, but it makes it far less likely for readers to think that anything that involves data is off-limits, such as the publication of an annual report with aggregate impact data, or including publicly available information in a data exchange.

You can read more about BD4D and Monetization in our 2025 Major Questions essay, Nonprofits and Funding, published during the initial development of the Standard.

Focusing the Standard’s Commitments on the BD4D Adopter

We also heard concerns from nonprofits that provide technology products, platforms, and services that they read the Standard as requiring them to police the behavior of their clients and end-users, or to refuse to comply with lawful data demands from applicable government agencies. We decided to underscore the Standard’s focus on data that are reasonably in the control of the organization adopting the Standard. Let’s explore some real-world scenarios presented to us by nonprofits:

• A baseline scenario is that the nonprofit is directly collecting the nonpublic data (“Your Data” in the Standard’s defined terms). The Standard requires a BD4D Adopter to use this data only for social good, to correct or delete the data if asked by the individual or organization from whom it was collected, and not to sell the data for profit. It also requires the Adopter to ensure that any other organization that the data is shared with (such as a research institution) will also abide by the BD4D Commitments. We refer to this as putting obligations on “downstream” users of the data, including other nonprofit organizations. Since in this scenario the BD4D Adopter controls the data it originally collected, in the case of deletion request, it also has the ability to confirm that the request is from the stakeholder from whom it was collected, and to inform its downstream users that that data should be deleted.
• The alternative scenario has to do with “upstream” data collection, where an Adopter was not in the driver’s seat when the data was collected, and likely isn’t even able or allowed to look at the data. This is a more common scenario for Adopters providing tech tools to other users. For example, one of the nonprofits I’ve founded provides crisis response technology to other nonprofits. Part of that platform’s contractual commitments to its nonprofit partners is to not decrypt or look at the confidential data being held. In addition, sometimes there is also a legal requirement to not view the confidential data being stored. In tangible ways, an Adopter is highly compliant with the promises in the BD4D by not accessing the data of partner organizations at all!

So, we needed to revise the Standard to clarify that adopting the BD4D did not require a tech-providing organization to violate other promises or contractual commitments to its users, or to force its “upstream” users to adopt BD4D. The BD4D commitments the Adopter makes to its users still hold, but don’t extend to indirect stakeholders. For example, what if a tech platform gets a request from an individual to delete data they provided to an organization using the Adopter’s tech platform? Because the Adopter has contractually agreed to not look at the confidential data of the platform-using organization that collected the data in the first place (an agreement fully consistent with the Adopter’s promise to abide by the BD4D Standard), the Adopter is not permitted to go digging around to find out if the request is legitimate or even if the data in question is in encrypted storage.

The same is true when nonprofits are forced to comply with data access demands from government agencies. And, BD4D already requires Adopters to comply with applicable law.

As a result, we made the following adjustments to the version 1.1 Standard, compared to the 1.0 Standard:

• We rewrote an example in the Declaration’s Explanatory Text to read: “Nonpublic data that is held or processed, but not otherwise controlled or used, by a BD4D Adopter solely as part of a product or service they provide to another entity.”
• We simplified another example in the text supporting the Declaration to clarify this same issue.
• We clarified the scope of the Binding commitment to include all governmental rules and requirements, including this revision of its Explanatory Text: “This Commitment does not apply to the extent it conflicts with, or is legally superseded by, law or government regulations or requirements which apply to a BD4D Adopter.”

Minor Cleanups

We also made some minor edits that we don’t believe change the commitments being made. They include:

• Moving the provision about data sharing with professional advisors, such as attorneys and accountants, from the Explanatory Text for the Monetization commitment to that of the Binding commitment.
• Moving the statement about consulting legal counsel to a more applicable section of the Binding commitment’s Explanatory Text
• Updating the relevant sections of the BD4D Playbook to be consistent with these changes to the BD4D Standard.

You can follow a complete list of version updates and revisions in the BD4D Standard & Playbook Changelog on our website.

Conclusion

We don’t think any of these modifications change the requirements of the BD4D Standard in a material way. However, we are committed to make BD4D easier to adopt for nonprofits who are trying to do the right thing when it comes to data governance. We look forward to more feedback from the nonprofit community on how to make Better Deal for Data even better!