Soft Power Index

A living index of organisations using governance influence to solve hard, shared problems affecting billions.

What Is the Soft Power Index?

The Soft Power Index is a public leaderboard that ranks organisations by their demonstrated ability to use governance influence — not financial leverage or political authority — to change how other institutions behave. It tracks organisations that are solving problems markets won't touch and states can't solve alone, because those problems require commitments that cross borders, decades, and political cycles.

The index was created by Sophie Krantz. It is openly maintained: events, actors, and scoring disputes are submitted by contributors worldwide and curated editorially. Scores are judgment calls, updated weekly as events unfold.

What Does It Measure?

Organisational soft power: the ability of an institution to change how other organisations and governments behave through governance choices that others voluntarily adopt. Not reputation. Not stated mission. Demonstrated influence on external behaviour — whether others have changed what they do because of how this organisation chose to govern itself.

How Are Organisations Scored?

Each organisation is scored on three dimensions, each rated 0–10:

1. Soft Power (SP) — 45% weight

Demonstrated governance influence and norm-setting. Has this organisation made governance decisions that others adopted voluntarily? Has it exercised restraint or refusal at meaningful cost?

2. Hard Problem Fit (HPF) — 35% weight

Specificity and scale of the problem being addressed. Is the problem clearly named, measurable, and one that markets or states alone cannot solve?

3. Capacity (CAP) — 20% weight

Financial, operational, and institutional resources to sustain the commitment over time.

Composite Score Formula

Index Score = (SP × 0.45) + (HPF × 0.35) + (CAP × 0.20)

Qualitative Filters

Before being scored, every organisation must pass five qualitative filters:

1. Operates on a problem that markets or states alone cannot solve
2. Influence is exercised through governance choices others voluntarily adopt
3. Commitments are specific, costly, and verifiable
4. The organisation has demonstrated restraint or refusal at meaningful cost
5. The model is replicable — others can build on it

Who Curates It?

The Soft Power Index is curated by Sophie Krantz. It was sparked by Anthropic's decision in early 2025 to refuse a Pentagon request to relax AI safety guardrails — a moment that raised a larger question: which institutions are willing to spend their soft power on hard problems rather than narrow interests?

Current Organisations on the Index

As of March 2026, the following 22 organisations are profiled and scored. Scores are on a 0–10 scale. The Index Score is calculated as (SP × 0.45) + (HPF × 0.35) + (CAP × 0.20).

All 22 organisations are ranked by composite Index Score. Scores reflect editorial judgment as of the most recent weekly update.

More Information

The live leaderboard is available at softpowerindex.lovable.app. Full methodology is published on Substack. A self-scoring diagnostic tool is available at /diagnostic.