Tag: NPO

The Poudre River Library District is a public library system in Larimer County, Colorado that serves approximately 177,000 patrons. When their integrated library system (ILS) vendor notified the Library District that the system could no longer run on their aging on-premises hardware, they were at a crossroads. After pricing out multiple options, the Library District opted to manage their own ILS migration to AWS. With an IT staff of four, the Library District completed a successful migration in six months with help from their AWS account team.

The nonprofit American Forests is focused on advancing social equity with a national reforestation movement. Trees provide significant benefits against heat related illnesses and climate change, and trees can help advance social equity when they are planted in the neighborhoods that need them the most. But the challenge of achieving Tree Equity across the country is immense. To address this, American Forests is leading a new national campaign through the Tree Equity Score, powered by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud.

For nonprofits, leveraging technology to achieve their missions can be difficult — but Amazon Web Services (AWS) is here to help knock down barriers to success. At this year’s AWS IMAGINE Nonprofit Conference, more than 700 attendees from more than 30 countries gathered to discuss the ways technology can help solve our world’s most pressing issues. Over 20 nonprofit speakers took to the stage to share their organizations’ stories and best practices learned on their journeys with AWS. The speakers and their ideas sparked conversations about the art of what’s possible and the AWS use cases for nonprofits.

IMAGINE: A Better World, A Global Nonprofit Conference brought together hundreds of nonprofits from around the world dedicated to tackling the growing challenges our world faces every day. From fighting climate change to finding cures to saving animals, nonprofits are seeking new ways to combine their passion and purpose with technology. Through the two days of keynotes, sessions, and networking opportunities, attendees uncovered opportunities to collaborate to make the world a better place.

At AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, Compassion International participated in the Nonprofit Hackathon for Social Good. People don’t usually connect the dots between cutting-edge technology and nonprofits, but this is where it’s needed most. Hackers were challenged to bridge the communication gap between those in need and empathetic people who want to help. No matter your origin or the language you speak, you can connect and meet the needs of a child in poverty.

After missing several elections as a graduate student living away from home, Seth Flaxman set out to build a reminder system alongside friend and classmate Kathryn Peters so no one would have to miss an election again. Energized by a vision to make voting a simple, seamless experience, Seth and Kathryn started Democracy Works, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the status quo. Democracy Works set out to build the tools needed to upgrade the infrastructure of our democracy and improve the voting experience for voters and election officials.

In June 2017, 56 years after the founding of the organization, the White House Historical Association collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to digitize nearly 20,000 White House photographs, many of which have been in storage for decades and never published until now. The goal was to memorialize their place in history and make educational materials more accessible to the public through the power of the AWS Cloud.

As we celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Day, we are reminded of the powerful alliance between creativity and innovation, and a third element – technology. Nonprofits and social impact organizations are increasingly looking to this combined approach for solving some of the world’s most pressing issues. Here are three nonprofits that are employing creativity and innovation for social good

Federation for Internet Alerts (FIA), the nonprofit whose mission is to get crucial alerts in front of the right people at the right time and place, recently received multiple Creative Media Awards for its life-saving technology. It’s also the second consecutive year that FIA has won the Shorty Social Good Award for Technology. And this is just the start.

The health of our oceans is vital to a sustainable future on Earth. However, due to the impact of climate change and other damaging human interactions, such as overfishing and land-based pollution, our oceans are in danger of failing to perform their critical functions.