Building the future
of Civil Society
Civil Society has the expertise to take on the defining challenges of our age. What it lacks is the resource to turn that expertise into impact at speed and scale.
UpSide builds that capability as shared infrastructure, owned by the organisations that use it.
Civil society is strong on expertise and commitment, but short on resources.
Too much to track
The EU passed 2,251 legal acts in 2025 alone, in addition to the strategies, consultations and reports that set the agenda. No advocacy team can watch the whole landscape by hand, and the windows that matter can slip past.
Guesswork, not strategy
Even when organisations know which files are in play, they often lack the strategy or tactics to influence them. Advocates describe being “constantly surprised about how things work” and not knowing “who they need to target”.
Under-tooled coordination
Advocates working on the same files want to coordinate, but are stuck using slow and clunky tools: email, shared folders and messaging apps. A shared view of who’s working on what is one of the unmet needs they name most.
This is not a capability failure but an infrastructure gap. And an infrastructure gap we believe can be closed.
When the infrastructure exists, everything else becomes possible
When civil society organisations have shared intelligence infrastructure, they do not just become more efficient. They become capable of a different kind of influence. They know which policy window is coming nine months before it opens. They know which voices carry credibility with which decision-makers. And they have the relationships, in place and maintained, to activate those voices at precisely the right moment.
That is the shift UpSide is building toward. Not NGOs doing more of the same with better tools. CSOs as the connective tissue of a much broader and more powerful coalition.
The information burden
Automate the intelligence work that consumes so much time, and give policy teams back the capacity to do what only people can do.
Build the coordination capability
Shared intelligence, aligned positions, coordinated timing. The infrastructure that lets organisations act with the coherence of a movement.
Activate the wider coalition
With the intelligence in place and the network primed, identify the moment, find the right messenger, and bring in the voices that shift the conversation.
A shared intelligence platform, owned by the people who use it
Two layers: a knowledge layer and an action layer, powered by AI, verified by humans and held as a cooperative. Together they give advocacy organisations the capabilities they need to meet the challenges of the moment.
Shared, queryable intelligence
A knowledge base covering regulation, political signals and insider institutional knowledge, across cause areas and borders, built cooperatively by the organisations that use it.
Private by default, shared by consent. Public information is open to all whilst your organisation’s own data stays yours. Where organisations choose to pool intelligence, they do so on their own terms, under Chatham House rules. The platform finds the patterns across what is shared, without exposing what any one organisation holds.
Targeted strategy for policy windows
Public consultations, legislative votes, strategy publications and Commission proposals, tracked, dated and surfaced before the deadline closes. And synthesis of the wider narratives and political debates that are shaping public discourse.
Preparation, not reaction: if a regulation is due in nine months, you start planning now, so you are prepared when the time comes. Reaching the right people, with the right message, at the right time.
Owned by users. UpSide is a not-for-profit building a cooperative platform. The organisations that use the platform democratically govern it, and co-own the data. The shared knowledge makes the whole movement stronger.
Building shared infrastructure
Working tools, tested and applied with real organisations on real policy files. Each one is a building block for the larger platform.
Amendment tracker, EU Tobacco Products Directive
Maps organisational positions against proposed legislative amendments. Flags where coalition partners agree and disagree. Built and tested with a major European public health organisation.
“Normally I’d spend days searching through these amendments; now it’s all analysed and presented in a much easier-to-understand format.”
Policy Officer, EU Public Health Organisation
File Tracker, EU food and alt-protein files
Maps who holds which positions on upcoming EU food regulation, covering organisations, policymakers and allied actors across multiple cause areas.
“This would be gold. I’d spread this to everyone.”
Advocate, EU food-systems NGO
National legislative tracker, emerging nicotine products
An AI pipeline scoring how 37 European countries regulate e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches, across 55 provisions each and more than 2,000 data points — in days rather than the months it takes by hand. Presented at ECTOH (the European Conference on Tobacco or Health), Europe’s largest tobacco-control conference, and at the European Parliament to MEPs pressing for stricter rules.
“Around 85% accurate, and worth weeks of manual work”
Policy specialist, EU Public Health
Each of these tools tests a different piece of the platform. They are building blocks: useful now, and designed to slot into the larger architecture as it grows.
What UpSide is building sounds amazing, something everybody would be hoping for if they knew it was already in the making.
Director, an EU NGO alliance, 2026
We start by embedding with your team
We learn how your organisation handles policy intelligence, what your current tools and processes look like, and where the gaps are. Then we build.
Every tool we create is tested with a real organisation on a real policy file. The building process itself is part of the product: working with us changes how your team thinks about knowledge, coordination and strategy.
We are currently working with a small number of pilot partners across European advocacy. If your organisation works on civil society causes and you recognise the problems described above, we would like to hear from you.
As trust develops over time, more is shared. We start with public information, the intelligence layer that you receive directly. Once that is working, and you have seen what it produces, we move toward coordination: shared intelligence between allied organisations, on your terms, when you are ready.
Built by people who worked inside these organisations
We met through the School for Moral Ambition fellowship, each working inside a European advocacy organisation for our fellowship year. Independently, we found the same thing: the expertise was there, the commitment was there, the capability to make any of it compound was not. UpSide is our response.
SKStephanie Kersten-Johnston
Co-founder
Strategy & Operations Lead
Leads strategy, pilot partnerships and operations. Steph brings 20 years of experience in large corporations and NGOs, across sustainability, circular economy and food systems. Most recently at the Good Food Institute Europe, working on alternative protein advocacy. Based in Amsterdam.
LinkedIn →
LPLaura Picot
Co-founder
Research & Engagement Lead
Leads user and impact research, foresight and relationships. An Oxford PhD in food and climate, with previous specialist roles at the FAO, Systemiq and the European Policy Centre in Brussels. On the advisory board of TABLE, an impartial food systems knowledge platform. Based in Amsterdam.
LinkedIn →
PHPeter Halliwell
Co-founder
Product and Comms Lead
Leads UpSide’s technical architecture, product and intelligence system. A background across climate science, management consulting, Silicon Valley startups and digital product development. Built UpSide’s first policy intelligence tools during his role at the European Respiratory Society. Based in Hamburg.
LinkedIn →UpSide grew out of our shared conviction: civil society has the expertise and the commitment, but not the shared infrastructure to use them well. We are building what we wished existed when we were inside the organisations we now serve.
Three ways to work with us
Pilot partner
If your organisation works on European advocacy and you recognise the Gap described above, we would like to hear from you. Pilots are focused, practical, and built around what your organisation actually needs.
info [at] up-side.orgFunder
We are building the infrastructure layer that makes all the campaigns you fund more effective. If you believe civil society needs better infrastructure to compete on equal terms, we are keen to talk.
info [at] up-side.orgFollow our progress
We post occasional updates: what we are building, what we are learning, where we are. No cadence, just when something is worth sharing.
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