The Unvarnished Truth: ‘Radical’ Transparency Letter from the Founder

My name is Derrick Lancaster, and I am the founder of the Counterpart Support Network (CSN).

I am writing this because if I ever ask people to trust this project, then I believe I owe them a very clear explanation of what it is, what it is not, how it works, where the risks are, and where my own limitations are.

This is not a polished charity statement. It is a candid disclosure.

Why I started this

I have longstanding personal ties to Cuba through the Canada World Youth program and the relationships that grew out of it. These are not abstract “beneficiaries” to me. They are people I knew, lived alongside, learned from, and in some cases have remained in contact with over many years.

Like many people, I have often felt that I wished I could do more when I saw others struggling. For a long time I framed that in narrow financial terms: that because I am not wealthy, heavily indebted, and still trying to keep my own life and family responsibilities afloat, there was only so much I could do.

Over time I realized that was not entirely true.

I may not have endless cash, but I do have some things that can still be useful: persistence, relationships, logistical thinking, e-commerce experience, decent credit, and the ability to build systems. I know how to research, compare options, test processes, and communicate across different worlds. I also know enough about myself to know that if something is going to be sustainable, it has to be designed carefully. I burn out when things are chaotic, overcomplicated, or emotionally driven without structure.

CSN came out of that realization. It is an attempt to create a practical bridge between people here and trusted contacts there, in a way that is simple, transparent, and respectful.

What CSN is

CSN is currently a small, informal, founder-led grassroots support network. It is not yet a registered nonprofit. It is not yet a charity. It is not a large humanitarian organization. It is not an emergency relief agency. It is not a political campaign.

At its most basic, it is an effort to channel practical support from Canada to trusted people in Cuba through systems that already exist, rather than through grand promises or complicated bureaucracy.

The current model I am exploring is based largely on the use of third-party platforms that allow balances, goods, or services to be made available inside Cuba. My role is not to micromanage life on the ground. My role is to build a reliable, transparent pipeline and to stay accountable for how support is routed.

What CSN is not

CSN is not a registered charity, and contributions are not tax deductible.

CSN is not a church mission, political organization, or ideological project.

CSN is not a promise that I can “fix” structural conditions in Cuba, or that I can guarantee equal outcomes for everyone involved.

CSN is not me pretending to be an expert on other people’s lives.

CSN is also not a performative social media identity project for me. If anything, I have intentionally tried to move slowly and privately at the beginning because I do not want to create pressure, spectacle, or saviour optics around something that should remain grounded and real.

Why this is relationship-based

I am not starting with strangers. I am starting with people I know or have known through a meaningful shared history. That matters.

The network is being built through trusted contacts across different parts of Cuba. Those people are not staff. They are not under my control. They are not obligated to represent a brand. They are individuals with their own lives, families, and judgment.

That is one of the core principles of this project: local autonomy. Once support reaches someone, I do not dictate how they use it. They may use it for themselves, their family, or others they judge to be in greater need. That choice belongs to them.

This means the network runs on trust more than control. Some people will find that too loose. I understand that. But for me, that is more ethical than pretending I can remotely oversee every outcome from Ontario.

Why I am disclosing so much

Because there are legitimate reasons people may be cautious.

This kind of project can easily raise questions such as:

• Who is this person?

• Is this a scam?

• Is money being mixed with personal finances?

• Is this political?

• Is this paternalistic?

• Is this sustainable?

• What happens if things go wrong?

• What happens if the founder changes course?

• What if critics attack the founder personally?

I think those questions are fair.

The answer to most of them is not image management. It is transparency, documentation, modesty of claims, and clean boundaries.

My current reality as founder

I am not coming to this as a wealthy benefactor or seasoned nonprofit executive.

I am a person with multiple responsibilities, family ties, debts, business obligations, and a complicated real life. I help manage and build around a family resort operation in rural Ontario. I have small business and online sales experience. I have a strong instinct to build things carefully, but I also know I can get emotionally invested in ideas and then need to slow myself down so they become durable rather than impulsive.

That is part of why this project is being built in stages.

I am testing systems before making big claims. I am starting with trusted contacts before trying to scale. I am trying to build infrastructure before asking the public for money. I believe this is the responsible way to do it.

Financial honesty

At this stage, CSN is not structurally separate enough from me to pretend otherwise.

If public support begins before incorporation, funds may move through accounts under my control or through payment systems that I have set up. That is exactly why I would disclose it openly rather than hide behind vague language.

I do not think supporters should ever have to guess whether a grassroots project is formalized when it is not.

My intention is that funds directed to CSN would be used for:

• support delivered through legal, approved third-party systems

• payment processing fees

• platform fees

• basic infrastructure needed to run the project

• minimal administrative costs directly tied to operations

At this stage, I do not intend to pay myself a salary from the project or take a percentage of contributions. If that ever changed in the future because the project became more formal and required real administration, that change would need to be disclosed clearly and explicitly.

What I can and cannot guarantee

I can guarantee honesty about the structure.

I can guarantee that I will not knowingly misrepresent the nature of the project.

I can guarantee that I will try to document flows, decisions, and limitations as clearly as possible.

I cannot guarantee perfect outcomes.

I cannot guarantee that every contribution produces an equal or visible impact.

I cannot guarantee product availability, uninterrupted platform access, stable policy conditions, communication reliability, or political calm.

I cannot guarantee that criticism will not come.

I cannot guarantee that all supporters will agree with this model.

Recipient Privacy: I guarantee that the personal identities and specific locations of households receiving support will remain anonymous to the public. While I will provide documentation of successful deliveries and fund usage to demonstrate accountability, I will not trade the privacy or dignity of my friends and counterparts for "proof of impact" photos or public recognition.

This is not because the project is fake. It is because the world is unstable, Cuba is complicated, cross-border support systems are imperfect, and human relationships are not spreadsheets.

Why I am not overpromising

Because overpromising is one of the fastest ways for a project like this to become dishonest.

I am not promising mass transformation. I am not promising to solve structural poverty. I am not promising that every supporter will receive a tidy dashboard of measurable impact. Some aid can be quantified. Some cannot. Some of the most meaningful forms of support are quiet, uneven, and impossible to package neatly for optics.

What I am promising is a genuine attempt to build something that is more useful than symbolic concern and more accountable than vague goodwill.

On dignity and “saviour” concerns

I take this seriously.

I do not want this project to become a story where Canadians feel noble and Cubans are reduced to recipients in someone else’s moral drama. That is not what I want to build.

The people in this network are not props for fundraising copy. They are not there to validate me. They are not there to perform gratitude.

My role is not to speak over them or define their needs from a distance. My role is to open channels, reduce friction, leverage tools available to me, and then step back enough that support can move with dignity.

If at any point this project begins to drift into ego, spectacle, or dependency theatre, then I would consider that a failure of values.

On politics

Cuba is politically charged terrain. I understand that.

Some people will assume any support to Cuban citizens is political. Some will assume any refusal to adopt a strong political line is itself political. Some will accuse a project like this of softening, enabling, resisting, or signaling all kinds of things depending on their ideology.

My position is simpler.

This project is about helping people with practical everyday realities through trusted relationships. It is not a campaign arm for any government, party, or movement. It is not a propaganda tool. It is not meant to adjudicate Cuba’s politics in public.

People are free to hold strong views. I am not free to turn this network into an ideological instrument if I want it to remain what it claims to be.

On criticism of me personally

If this project becomes visible, it is possible that people will look into my life and decide they do not like parts of it. They may attack my background, my businesses, my online presence, my lack of nonprofit pedigree, my tone, my politics, or other unrelated aspects of my life.

I cannot prevent that.

What I can do is keep the project’s structure clean enough that those attacks remain secondary to the facts.

The proper standard for judging CSN should be:

• Is the project honest about what it is?

• Are funds handled transparently?

• Are supporters misled?

• Are recipients treated with dignity?

• Is the founder benefiting improperly from donations?

• Are boundaries between personal activity and project activity clear?

That is the standard I would want applied.

Why I am moving slowly

Because I care more about building something real than something impressive.

There is a temptation, especially online, to name something quickly, brand it beautifully, launch publicly, and let the emotional energy carry it forward. I understand that temptation well. But I also know that a project like this can be damaged by moving faster than its structure can support.

So I am deliberately taking the slower road:

• testing systems,

• talking to contacts,

• checking assumptions,

• building wording carefully,

• and making sure the skeleton exists before I ask anyone else to trust the body.

Long-term intention

If CSN proves viable, I may eventually formalize it into a proper nonprofit structure with stronger governance, dedicated accounting, clearer reporting, broader range of recipients, and greater institutional separation from me personally.

If it never reaches that stage, I would rather remain honest about its modest scale than inflate it into something it is not.

Growth is not the only sign of integrity. Sometimes restraint is.

Final statement

If you support CSN, I want that support to be grounded in clarity, not sentimentality.

You should know that this is a founder-led, early-stage, relationship-based project. You should know that it is informal. You should know that it involves trust. You should know that I am trying to build it responsibly, but that I am still building. You should know that I am serious about keeping it transparent, and equally serious about not pretending it is more established than it is.

If that level of honesty makes the project feel too uncertain for some people, I understand.

In fact, I would rather lose support because I was too transparent than gain support through ambiguity.

That is the spirit in which this project is being built.

Derrick Lancaster

Founder

Counterpart Support Network