# Donor Network

> Donor Network is mapped as the amplifier: it converts wealth, access, expertise, or organization into political voice.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:political-change:money-influence:donor-network` |
| Family | Money & Influence |
| Domain | Political Economy |
| Kind | mechanism |
| Archetypal function | The Amplifier |
| Epistemic status | synthesis; supported |

## Concrete anchor

Donor Network belongs to the **Money & Influence** family. It is treated as a specific political object, role, institution, tactic, event, ideology, or mechanism before any symbolic transfer is made.

## What it does

Donor Network converts wealth, access, expertise, or organization into political voice, changing who can act, what becomes visible, and which costs are distributed to others.

## Who gains and who loses power

The mechanism can increase the capacity of actors able to use Donor Network, while shifting cost, delay, risk, exclusion, or dependence toward actors with less authority, information, organization, money, or safe access. The distribution is conditional, not an essence of the node.

## Archetypal function

**The Amplifier.** Donor Network is mapped as the amplifier: it converts wealth, access, expertise, or organization into political voice.

## Gift

funds participation, information, campaigns, and durable capacity; through Donor Network, that capacity becomes available for deliberate use.

## Wound / Shadow

lets unequal capital become unequal agenda power without visible command; Donor Network can then reproduce the very arrangement it claims to change.

## Conditions

- scale and jurisdiction are explicit
- affected people and absent stakeholders are named
- time horizon and countermoves are considered

## Strategic meaning

Use Donor Network to identify the operative target, resource, dependency, decision forum, and likely countermove. Ask what would make the mechanism stronger, weaker, more legitimate, or less necessary.

## Divinatory meaning

The Amplifier enters through Donor Network. Read for the capacity seeking expression, the cost displaced from view, and the relationship that changes if the frame moves.

**Question:** What changes when Donor Network becomes the unit of analysis rather than background?

## Game function

**leverage.** Reveal one hidden dependency connected to Donor Network; another player names a countermove. Initiative 1.

## Relationships

- **mobilizes — Dark Money:** Dark Money mobilizes Donor Network by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **distributes costs to — Bundling:** Donor Network distributes costs to Bundling by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **distributes costs to — Universal Program:** Donor Network distributes costs to Universal Program by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_
- **translates into — Sudanese Revolution:** Sudanese Revolution translates into Donor Network by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_

## Countermaps and polarity prompts

- Read Donor Network from the viewpoint of the actor who bears its cost.
- Reverse cause and symptom: what if Donor Network is an effect of the system it appears to drive?
- Change the clock: what looks different over a day, an election cycle, a generation, and a century?
- Ask when the Gift becomes the Wound through scale, secrecy, intensity, latency, or unequal reciprocity.

## Epistemic and Sentinel note

Claim layers: synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory. Scope, jurisdiction, period, and source perspective may change the claim.
No node-specific Sentinel factors were recorded; ordinary source, audience, and context checks still apply.

## Visual direction

A text-free enamel expression of Donor Network: one dominant mechanism, one counterforce, raised warm-metal linework, midnight field, restrained civic red, teal, ivory, and amber. No party logo, national flag, sacred symbol, or recognizable person.

## Research / provenance

- [Understanding Ways to Support Federal Candidates](https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/understanding-ways-support-federal-candidates/) — Federal Election Commission, 2024. Federal campaign committees, independent expenditures, and contribution rules.
- [Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/) — Supreme Court of the United States, 2010. Majority, concurrence, and dissent on independent political spending.
- [Preventing Policy Capture](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/preventing-policy-capture_9789264065239-en.html) — OECD, 2017. Mechanisms and safeguards concerning capture of public decision-making.

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Engine Output version 1.0.0; generated 2026-08-24T00:00:00Z. Sentinel annotations are stored separately in `sentinel/handoffs.json`.
