I’ll be honest, I didn’t think this one would be the hard part.
Back in July, right after the IRS recognized the Cannabis Device Safety Institute as a 501(c)(3), I applied for Google for Nonprofits. It seemed like a formality. We had the determination letter, the EIN, the state registration. How hard could it be?
Four tries and about three and a half months, as it turns out.
The first few applications came back “not eligible,” and not because of the organization. Google’s verification partner had already confirmed CDSI was a real nonprofit. What they couldn’t confirm was that I was really connected to it. I’d applied from a personal Gmail address, and from where they sat, that could have been anybody. Fair enough.
So we did it the slow way. We set up email on our own domain and sent in signed bylaws, the board’s written actions, and a bank statement. Then we waited. On October 27, Google verified the Institute. This week, Google Workspace for Nonprofits went live for cdsi.click.
What it means in practice
It’s not glamorous. The Institute now has real email, shared documents, and video calls on its own domain, at no cost. For a standards body that publishes everything in the open and runs on almost no budget, that matters more than it sounds. When a researcher or a regulator writes to hello@cdsi.click, it lands in a real, permanent inbox, not a forwarding rule duct-taped to my personal account.
What it doesn’t mean
Google isn’t endorsing CDSI, our methods, or anything we publish. This is a program any qualifying nonprofit can apply for. It confirms we’re a real charity with a real person behind it. That’s all, and that’s enough.
Why I’m writing about something this small
Because the boring stuff is the foundation. Every step so far has been one of these: incorporation, the EIN, the IRS letter, the state registrations, SAM.gov, and now this. None of it is the actual work of testing hardware. All of it is what lets the work be trusted when it happens. Pay the lab, not pay to pass, only means something if the organization doing the paying is real, accountable, and on the public record.
Next up is the part I’m actually excited about: getting the Institute’s work in front of the people searching for it. More on that soon.
Matt Macosko is the founder of the Cannabis Device Safety Institute, an independent nonprofit standards body for cannabis consumption hardware. Everything CDSI publishes is at cdsi.click.