SUCHO

Digital infrastructure plus human networks equals long-term sustainability

WHO

Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) is an international grassroots volunteer initiative launched in March 2022 to safeguard Ukraine’s digital cultural heritage amidst the Russian invasion. Founded by Anna Kijas (Tufts University), Quinn Dombrowski (Stanford University), and Sebastian Majstorovic (European University Institute), SUCHO quickly mobilised over 1,000 volunteers in its first week.

Initially focused on archiving Ukrainian websites, SUCHO’s scope has expanded to include fundraising for digitisation equipment, meme archiving, and providing training materials for Ukrainian cultural institutions. The initiative is decentralised, non-hierarchical, and never intended to become an NGO.

Sebastian Majstorovic, one of the coordinators, spoke with RECHARGE about how the team is sustaining this large-scale effort socially and financially.

WHAT

SUCHO began with the urgent task of web archiving and quickly evolved to support a wide range of needs emerging from Ukrainian cultural institutions. This included distributing digitisation equipment, supporting training initiatives, and helping preserve online cultural expressions like war-related memes.

Over time, Ukrainian institutions became central to the direction of SUCHO’s work. What started as an external rescue effort shifted into an evolving collaboration with local actors, who now often set the agenda. This approach supports not only immediate preservation goals, but also long-term capacity building in the sector.
Public and private funders have supported SUCHO either broadly or with targeted resources like server space or digitisation gear. Technical partners provide crucial infrastructure such as cloud hosting.

HOW

COLLABORATION

SUCHO operates as a decentralised online volunteer network. The collaboration model is grounded in grassroots mobilisation, where a rotating pool of volunteers (initially around 1,500, now a core group of 20) self-organise using shared digital tools. The founding trio drew on prior data-rescue experience and applied the Nimble Tents theory to enable rapid, large-scale coordination without forming a formal organisation.

The volunteers are mostly experts in the cultural heritage and digital preservation fields, many of whom try to bring their own institutions into the effort. New projects and decisions are made in a bottom-up fashion, with autonomy and initiative encouraged.

The SUCHO team prioritised low-barrier collaboration tools such as Slack, Google Drive, and Forms, which allowed for fast onboarding and flexible team-building. Coordination relies on resonance rather than hierarchy—if something gains traction in the group, it proceeds.

Personal motivation is the engine of the initiative. To prevent burnout, coordination roles are intentionally duplicated and shared, so responsibilities aren’t concentrated. Volunteers are encouraged to embed SUCHO’s work into their own professional ecosystems, creating a ripple effect of support across the cultural heritage sector.

FINANCING

Financial sustainability has been a challenge since the beginning. Many institutions were interested in supporting SUCHO, but could not transfer money to an unincorporated entity. Open Collective was instrumental in bridging this gap, allowing SUCHO to access and spend funds without registering as an NGO.

However, institutional grant processes were often too slow or restrictive to match SUCHO’s needs. Even with Open Collective, navigating administrative systems took time and effort. In many cases, the only option was for institutions to embed a SUCHO-related position rather than contribute directly.

SUCHO also had to think long-term. They deliberately reserved parts of their funding for future needs and sustainability, limiting the resources available for current projects. This tension between immediate action and future resilience remains an ongoing consideration.

IMPACT

SUCHO’s impact is measured less through formal metrics and more through the durability of its network and the continuity of its support. It has preserved thousands of Ukrainian websites, provided equipment for digitisation, and built a distributed infrastructure of people and knowledge.

Importantly, SUCHO documents not just what it does, but how and why. This includes successes, mistakes, and processes, all shared openly to help others replicate or adapt the model. This radical transparency is part of SUCHO’s long-term strategy—ensuring that what it builds can outlast any one group or crisis.

Rather than trying to institutionalise itself, SUCHO invests in personal networks and shared learning. That’s where the sustainability lies: in decentralised effort, community momentum, and infrastructure that anyone can pick up and run with.