Community Policy | Hyam Institute

Community Policy.

How we engage with, listen to, and coexist with every community we touch.

We believe that a business needs to engage with local communities, be they local, regional, national or global.

1. Our Belief

Technology does not exist in a vacuum. Every product we build lands somewhere - in a neighbourhood, on a screen, in a life. Behind every user is a community: a web of relationships, direct or indirect histories, needs, and ways of knowing the world that is far older and richer than any app we will ever create.

We believe that communities are not mere target audiences. They are not test groups, not demographics, and not problems to be solved. They are the reason we exist. Our mission is to serve, not to extract. To listen, not to assume. To coexist, not to impose.

"Nothing about us without us."

This is the principle that guides everything in this document.

This policy sets out how we interact and engage with communities - with historical and ancestral ties, rural, and urban - with honesty, humility, ubuntu (essential human virtues, compassion and humanity) and genuine respect.

2. Scope

This policy applies to all communities that our products, partnerships, and operations interact with - directly or indirectly. This includes:

Communities with Historical and Ancestral Ties and First Nations Peoples (CHATFNP) globally, including those affected by the land, data, or resources our work touches.
Rural communities, including agricultural, coastal, and remote communities whose lives and livelihoods depend on land and nature.
Urban communities, including residents of under-resourced neighbourhoods, diaspora communities, and those navigating housing, health, and economic inequality.
Marginalised communities within all of the above, including those facing discrimination based on race, gender, disability, age, or class.

Where we are unsure whether a community is affected by our work, we assume they are and act accordingly.

3. Communities with Historical and Ancestral Ties and First Nations Peoples (CHATFNP)

3.1 Our Commitment to Communities with Historical and Ancestral Ties and First Nation Peoples' Rights

We recognise that CHATFNP have inherent rights to self-determination, to their lands and territories, and to their cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. These rights are enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which we uphold as a baseline - not a ceiling.

We acknowledge that technology has historically been used to extract from, surveil, and marginalise CHATFNP. We strongly reject and refuse to continue that pattern.

3.2 Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)

Before we build anything that affects CHATFNP, their land, data, culture, language, or knowledge - we seek Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

This means:

Free: consent given without pressure, coercion, or inducement.
Prior: sought before any work begins, not after decisions have already been made.
Informed: communities have full, clear information about what we are proposing and what its effects may be.

Accordingly, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is not a one-time box to tick. It is an ongoing relationship. If a community withdraws consent, we stop. No exceptions.

3.3 CHATFNP Data Sovereignty

CHATFNP have the right to govern data about their people, lands, and cultures. We follow the CARE Principles for CHATFNP Data Governance:

Collective Benefit: Data should serve the community, not external interests.
Authority to Control: CHATFNP have the right to govern their own data.
Responsibility: We have a duty to use data in ways that strengthen communities.
Ethics: Rights and well-being of CHATFNP are the primary concern.

We will never collect, store, or use data relating to CHATFNP without explicit governance agreements in place. Data generated by or about CHATFNP belongs to those communities.

3.4 Cultural Respect & Representation

We do not appropriate, commercialise, or misrepresent CHATFNP cultural heritage, symbols, stories, or knowledge.
We actively seek voices from CHATFNP in design and testing processes, paying fairly for that expertise.
We challenge internal assumptions and work to decolonise our processes over time.
Where a product touches languages or knowledge systems of CHATFNP, we will partner with community experts and defer our conduct to their authority.

4. Rural Communities

4.1 Understanding Rural Realities

Rural communities are not simply urban communities with less infrastructure. They have distinct economies, social structures, relationships with land, and ways of life that are often invisible to tech companies built in cities. We strongly reject the assumption that rural means behind.

Rural communities are often the most directly affected by environmental change, agricultural policy, and digital exclusion - and the least consulted in the design of technology that claims to serve them.

4.2 Our Commitments to Rural Communities

We design our products for low-bandwidth and offline-first, where our products serve rural users - connectivity should never be a barrier.
We conduct ethnographic research in rural communities in person, not just through surveys and analytics.
We recognise the diversity within rural life: fishing communities, farming communities, remote communities, and market towns each have distinct needs.
We do not build products that accelerate rural decline - such as tools that replace local services, concentrate economic power in cities, or undermine local livelihoods without offering something in return.
We actively seek partnerships with rural organisations, cooperatives, and land trusts that understand communities we do not.

4.3 Agricultural & Land-Based Communities

Where our work touches farming, forestry, fishing, or other land-based livelihoods, we apply additional care:

We consult farmers, crofters, fishers, and land managers directly, not only through industry bodies.
We are wary of building tools that increase dependency on corporate platforms or erode traditional knowledge.
We recognise the economic precarity of many agricultural livelihoods and price our products accordingly.

5. Urban Communities

5.1 The Urban Complexity

Cities concentrate both privilege and inequality. A product that works for a well-resourced urban professional can simultaneously harm a resident of a deprived neighbourhood two miles away. We hold both realities in mind at all times.

5.2 Our Commitments to Urban Communities

We actively design for under-resourced urban communities, not just the users who are easiest to reach.
We are alert to the ways technology can accelerate gentrification, surveillance, and displacement and refuse to build tools that do so.
We work with community organisations, grassroots groups, and local charities that are embedded in the communities we aim to serve.
We conduct user research in community spaces, community centres, libraries, food banks - not just online panels.
We offer accessible pricing or free tiers for community organisations, charities, and social enterprises working in underserved areas.

5.3 Digital Inclusion

Digital exclusion is a form of inequality. We design our products with it in mind:

Products are tested on low-end devices and slow connections.
We follow WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards as a minimum.
We provide plain-language content and avoid jargon.
Where relevant, we support multilingual access.

6. How We Engage - Our Principles

6.1 Listen First, Build Second

We do not arrive in communities with solutions. We arrive with questions. Before any product is designed, we spend time understanding the actual lives, needs, and concerns of the people we hope to serve. This is not a phase to be rushed.

6.2 Pay for Expertise

Community knowledge is expertise. We pay people fairly for their time, insight, and guidance, whether they are community elders, rural farmers, or urban community organisers. Extracting knowledge for free from communities that are already under-resourced is exploitation, even when well-intentioned.

6.3 Share Power, Not Just Output

Wherever possible, we create structures that give communities genuine power over the products that affect them, not just consultation rights. This may mean community seats on advisory boards, co-ownership models, or community-controlled data governance. We are committed to exploring what this looks like in practice.

6.4 Be Honest About Our Limitations

We are a small tech studio. We do not have all the answers. We will make mistakes. When we do, we will say so directly, explain what happened, and change our approach. We do not hide behind corporate language or process.

6.5 Long-Term Relationships, Not One-Off Consultations

Genuine community engagement takes time. We commit to ongoing relationships with communities we serve, not a single workshop before launch and then silence. We return. We follow up. We report back. We ask how things are going.

6.6 Do Not Harm

We will not build products that:

Enable the surveillance of communities without their knowledge and consent.
Concentrate wealth or data away from the communities that generate it.
Undermine community cohesion, local institutions, or cultural identity.
Exploit community crises or vulnerability for commercial gains.
Displace or replace human relationships with technology where those relationships are the point.

Community Impact Assessment

7. Community Impact Assessment

Before launching any product or entering any new community context, we conduct a Community Impact Assessment. This sits alongside, and is informed by, our Nature Impact Check.

The assessment criteria is as follows:

Which communities does this product affect, directly or indirectly?
Have we spoken to people from those communities in the design process?
Are there communities whose consent we have not yet sought?
Who benefits and who bears the cost, and is that distribution fair?
Does this product risk reinforce existing inequalities?
What mechanisms exist for communities to raise concerns or withdraw participation?

The outcome of our assessments are documented and shared with the full team. It is reviewed at launch and at each major product update.

8. Governance

This policy is owned by the Community Listener, who is responsible for applying it in practice, maintaining relationships with community partners, and reporting to the team annually on the progress of our commitments.

Any team member may raise a community concern at any point. Concerns are given the same weight as ethics, nature, or privacy concerns and are never dismissed on commercial grounds.

This policy is reviewed every 12 months, or sooner if our work meaningfully changes. Where possible, community partners are invited to contribute to the review.

9. Accountability & Transparency

Each year, alongside our Nature Report and Impact Report, we publish a Community Report.

It covers:

The communities we engaged with and how.
The Community Impact Assessments we conducted.
Any projects we declined or modified on community grounds.
Concerns raised and how they were addressed.
What we intend to do better in the year ahead.

This report is shared publicly. We believe accountability requires visibility.

9. Updates to This Policy

The Institute reserves the right to amend this Nature Policy at any time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date.

This is a living document, and communities are the custodians.

If you see something missing, say something.

Our Community Policy was last updated on 24th March 2026

"Communities shaped the world long before technology existed. Our job is to be worthy of the trust they place in us - and to earn it, slowly, every day."