OUR APPROACH

Brave. Hopeful. Creative.


The definition of ‘unhack’ is to “restore a broken system to a functional state”.

In the wake of Brexit, the so-called ‘migrant crisis’, and global rise of populism, we watched democracy start to unravel. In 2018, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán secured a third consecutive supermajority in a rigged election. Hundreds of thousands took took to the streets in protest but nothing changed...

That is when our European team decided to set up Unhack Democracy, united by a belief that we had to step up and take a stand to defend democracy at the ballot box. Our year-long investigation uncovered widespread irregularities that put Orban’s supermajority into question. Since then our activities have expanded across Europe, running ARTivist voter & poll worker mobilisation campaigns, advocacy on election observation, electoral integrity conferences, e-learning for ballot counters and much more.

But the problem of democratic decline runs deeper than the ballot box and it is spreading. We believe that civil society is fundamental to helping people re-imagine the world they want to live in, rewire democracy for good and sell it better.

Unhack Democracy is a member of the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE) and the Global Network of Domestic Election Monitors (GNDEM).

THE PROBLEM

We are in a political and economic paradigm shift.

Authoritarians and populists are successfully exploiting this to sell false solutions. They are competitors in the democracy space with a good sales strategy but bad product. At the same time, civil society is static and scared, trying to defend democracy and the status quo by playing by rules which no longer apply. 

OUR SOLUTION

  • Our REWIRE programme and network helps rising civil society leaders use neuroscience, creativity and entrepreneurship to deliver innovative tools, campaigns and projects that build bridges, open up institutions and develop new pathways for engagement that puts citizens front and centre.

  • We believe you have to see it to become it. We inspire and nurture civil society and citizens with actionable lessons from successful shifts driven by democracy, business, and art.

  • By rethinking the relationship between democracy & business we work to rewire the broken funding model for activist work.