The thing standing between this and a real organization is other people.
Not funding. Not software — that part already works. Miftah cannot incorporate without directors, cannot teach without a classroom, cannot audit without a client who signs, and cannot clean a block without a neighborhood that wants it cleaned. Every one of those is a person saying yes, and every one of them is free.
Read this before you offer anything
Miftah Foundation is not incorporated. No application for federal charitable tax exemption has been filed with the IRS and nothing is pending, so nothing given to it is deductible on anyone's return. There is no board, no bank account and no insurance policy. Zero programs have run.
That means anything you commit to here is a commitment to a design, made with your eyes open — and it is also why nothing on this page asks you for a dollar. The full picture is on the transparency page.
Four ways in, ranked by how much they actually unblock.
They are in this order deliberately. The first one is the only thing that has to happen before anything gets filed; the rest can be arranged in parallel and none of them can start the clock on their own.
Path 01 · the blocker
Take a board seat
Three to five directors, most of them independent of the founder, is the threshold before anything is filed. It is a legal necessity and, more importantly, it is the point at which one student stops being the only person checking his own work.
Most useful right now: someone who has run a nonprofit's finances, someone from K-12 or higher education, and someone with legal training.
Commitment: unpaid, roughly four meetings a year, plus reading a short packet before each one.
What you would inherit: a written program design, a conflict-of-interest disclosure already published, and an organization with no history to clean up.
Cost to you: time · Risk: named as a director of a small charity
Nothing here needs a credential except a willingness to be trained and supervised. There is no volunteer programme to join yet — this is a list of the roles that would exist on day one, and a way to be on it before there is one.
Bilingual CS mentor — Spanish or Arabic alongside English, teaching a CodeBridge cohort at a partner school.
Cleanup coordinator — run one EcoImpact Saturday: site, supplies, safety briefing, the scale, the log.
Student security auditor — supervised Shield work inside a signed scope, on real client systems.
Writer or translator — turn a piece of the immigration or scholarship maze into a Passage guide someone can read at midnight.
Cost to you: an afternoon at a time · Gate: adults working with minors need a background check once that policy exists
An organization saying "we would use this" is worth more than money at this stage, because it turns a design into a specification. It costs your organization nothing and commits it to nothing until there is something real to sign.
Schools and colleges — a bilingual CS cohort, on your schedule, with your teachers, taught by trained volunteers.
Small nonprofits — a free security audit under a written scope, with a report an executive director can act on.
Immigration attorneys and DOJ-accredited representatives — take Passage referrals, so students reach someone qualified instead of a forum thread.
Campus offices and neighborhood associations — point students here, or name a block that needs a Saturday.
Cost to you: $0 · Commitment: a conversation, then a scope
The most concrete thing on this page. A pilot site is a specific room, campus, organization or block where the first version of one program would run once, small, and be measured honestly — including if it fails.
A classroom for one CodeBridge cohort, one term, one bilingual instructor.
A block in San José that does not get swept, with somebody local who will vouch for the choice.
Your nonprofit's systems, named in a signed engagement letter, for the first Shield audit.
A campus office willing to be the first place Passage guides are handed to real students.
Cost to you: $0 · What you get back: the raw measurement, published whether or not it flatters us
These are narrow, one-off and specific. Each is an afternoon of a professional's time that removes a hard gate nobody else can remove.
An attorney, for one document
Shield cannot approach a single client until there is an engagement letter that names scope, ownership and a window, and that letter should not be drafted by a student from a template. Reviewing one page is the whole ask. Unpaid, and there is no expectation of an ongoing relationship.
Review the engagement letter →
A security professional, to supervise
Student volunteers do not touch a client system unsupervised, and no report reaches a client without a professional reading it first. That role is the difference between a training program and a liability. Time-boxed per engagement, not open-ended.
Supervise student auditors →
Or just watch from a distance
Entirely reasonable, and genuinely useful. One email and you get told when the Articles are actually filed and when the first program actually runs — not a newsletter, not a drip sequence, and not a list anybody sells.
Be first to know when we file →
The Terms
What you will never be asked for.
Money. There is no donate button, no checkout and no payment path anywhere on this site, and there will not be one until there is a corporation, a board and an account that is not a person's. Nothing given today is deductible on anyone's return, so a gift now would cost you more and help less.
Exclusivity. Partner with a dozen other organizations. Nothing here asks anyone to stop doing something they already do well.
An NDA, or a logo you have to justify to somebody. No partner is named publicly without written permission, and no client organization is ever named in a case study.
Your data. Nothing on this site collects anything. There is no form, no tracker on this page, no account to make and no list you are quietly added to. Every path above is a plain email to a human.
A decision today. Asking what stage something is at is not a commitment to anything, and it is a completely normal email to send.
What actually happens when you send one of these. It goes to one person's inbox and he answers it himself. Expect a short, direct reply that tells you honestly what stage things are at — which today is early, unincorporated and unfunded. If a role or a pilot is not ready, you will be told that rather than strung along.
Pick the one that fits and send it now.
Board seat if you can govern, pilot site if you have a room or a block, and "tell me when you file" if you would rather just watch. All three are equally welcome.