The organization
Why a nonprofit?
Because the problem with dating apps is not bad design. It is who the design serves.
Mission. Help people find lasting relationships through evidence-based matching, operated without a profit motive, and publish open research on what predicts relationship success.
The structure
Kindred is being incorporated under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, the federal statute governing organizations that exist for a purpose rather than for profit. A not-for-profit corporation has no shareholders and pays no dividends. Surpluses, if any, go back into the mission. Because Kindred will ask the public for support, it is being structured as a soliciting corporation, which requires a board of at least three directors, the majority independent of management.
The practical consequence is the entire point: there is no one in the structure who gets richer when you stay single longer. Incumbent platforms answer to investors whose returns rise with your engagement. Kindred's board answers to a mission whose success is your departure.
One payment, ever
The membership fee, planned at $50 CAD, is paid once, at joining. No recurring billing, no premium tiers, no boosts. A subscription, even a nonprofit's subscription, would quietly recreate the incentive to keep you around; a one-time fee makes Kindred financially indifferent to how quickly you leave. It also acts as a seriousness filter: a pool where everyone has made even a modest commitment is a pool of people who mean it. The first 1,000 founding members in the GTA join free, because a great pool matters more than early revenue.
Funded like Wikipedia
Beyond membership fees, Kindred plans to run the way Wikipedia does: deliver clear value, then ask the people who received it to fund it for the next person, voluntarily. Donations will be solicited without tax receipts, because Kindred is pursuing not-for-profit status rather than registered charity status, and we would rather be straightforward about that than imply otherwise. Research grants, pursued with university partners, fund the open-science side of the work.
Where we are
In the interest of the same honesty: Kindred today is a waitlist, a plan, and a founder building in public. Federal incorporation is in progress. Next comes the founding board, a closed alpha in the GTA to test verification and safety systems, and then the GTA beta. Waitlist members hear about each step first.
Get involved
Kindred is recruiting its founding board and early collaborators: a privacy or technology lawyer, a relationship-science academic, and a nonprofit finance professional are the target profiles for the first three director seats, alongside volunteers in data science, trust and safety, and community growth. If the mission reads like something you want your name on, write to kindredmatching@gmail.com.