WIREDGOV

Over the past year, Breakthrough Social Enterprise has grown rapidly in scale, complexity and responsibility.

Solarpunk Cityscape made from Midjourney

We now work across prisons, public sector contracts, international delivery, digital platforms and AI-enabled education. We are entrusted with public funding, sensitive communities, and long-term outcomes that matter far beyond quarterly results.

As CEO, it became clear to me that our original Articles of Association no longer provided the level of clarity, protection or intent alignment that this stage of our journey demands.

That is why we have formally updated our Articles of Association.

This was not a cosmetic change. It was a structural one.

The core problem we were solving

Most organisations fail in one of two ways.

Either they scale without integrity, slowly drifting away from their mission under commercial pressure.

Or they protect their mission so tightly that they become brittle, undercapitalised and unable to operate at scale.

Breakthrough exists to prove a third path is possible.

But that path only works if it is encoded not just in culture or leadership, but in law.

The updated Articles do exactly that.

They hardwire our mission, our governance discipline, and our economic logic into the constitutional DNA of the organisation.

What actually changed

There are four substantive shifts worth highlighting.

1. A legally binding mission lock

Breakthrough’s mission is now explicitly defined and protected in the Articles.

Our purpose is clear: to empower underserved and marginalised communities to access, understand, and utilise digital technologies and artificial intelligence to enhance their lives, livelihoods, and opportunities.

More importantly, the Articles now restrict the company from pursuing activities that do not further this mission, except where they are clearly ancillary and supportive.

This removes ambiguity. It ensures future boards, directors and shareholders cannot quietly dilute our purpose over time.

2. A full asset lock

All income, property and assets of the company must be applied solely towards advancing our mission.

Profits cannot be extracted for private gain in ways that undermine that purpose. On dissolution, remaining assets must be transferred to organisations with similar social objectives.

This matters for three reasons:

• It protects public and philanthropic trust
• It reassures partners and commissioners
• It prevents mission extraction in exit scenarios

Breakthrough is now structurally designed to generate value for communities first, rather than being strip-mined for short-term returns.

3. Clear, modern governance mechanics

The Articles modernise how decisions are made, recorded and delegated.

They clarify directors’ authority, collective decision-making, conflicts of interest, delegation to committees, and use of electronic communication.

This is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is what allows an organisation to move fast without becoming sloppy.

Good governance is what makes speed sustainable.

4. Economic realism without mission compromise

Importantly, the Articles do not prohibit revenue, remuneration or commercial activity.

They explicitly allow:

• Fair remuneration for directors and staff
• Payment for services rendered
• Commercial partnerships and subsidiaries
• Reinvestment and capitalisation of profits

What they prevent is extraction that conflicts with the mission.

This is a subtle but crucial distinction. Breakthrough Social Enterprise is not anti-growth. We are anti-misalignment.

Why this matters now

We are entering a phase where Breakthrough will:

• Handle larger public contracts
• Build proprietary IP and digital platforms
• Form long-term institutional partnerships
• Potentially spin out or license ventures

At that scale, trust is not created by good intentions. It is created by structure.

These Articles tell funders, partners, regulators and communities the same thing:

• Breakthrough is serious.
• Breakthrough is stable.
• Breakthrough is not for sale to the highest bidder.

A long-term vision

This change is about more than compliance or governance hygiene.

It is about building an organisation that can survive leadership transitions, political cycles, funding shocks and technological change without losing its soul.

Breakthrough is being designed to outlive its directors, including me.

If we succeed, this organisation will still be doing meaningful work decades from now, in forms we cannot yet predict, but anchored to a mission that does not drift.

That is what good institutions do.

This update to our Articles is one quiet but decisive step towards becoming one.

Hardwiring Our Mission: Why Breakthrough Updated Its Constitution was originally published in Breakthrough Social Enterprise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.