Partner Success with AWS / General Public Services / Spain
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Save the Children Spain Cuts Costs and Improves Campaigns with Devoteam’s AWS-Powered Data Solution
Learn how Save the Children Spain partnered with Devoteam and AWS to create a scalable data-lake solution, enhancing donor insights and campaign effectiveness while reducing operational costs.
€12,000
reduction in annual costs
10%
improvement in campaign performance
147.5 million
data records migrated in 5 months
Overview
Save the Children Spain, part of a global NGO protecting children’s rights, faced challenges with its on-premises data management system. Unable to effectively integrate and analyze information from multiple sources, it struggled to personalize donor outreach and optimize fundraising. Partnering with AWS Premier Consulting Partner Devoteam, it implemented a cloud-based data-lake solution using Amazon Web Services (AWS). This transformation enabled seamless data integration, enhanced donor insights, and improved campaign effectiveness. The new system streamlined operations, reduced costs, and allowed Save the Children Spain to redirect more resources to humanitarian projects, benefiting children in need worldwide.
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Opportunity | Fragmented Data Hinders Outreach Effectiveness
Save the Children, a leading international non-governmental organization, has been at the forefront of protecting children’s rights for over a century. Operating in more than 120 countries, the organization reaches over 55 million children annually, focusing on humanitarian emergency aid, education, health, and nutrition. In Spain alone, Save the Children serves more than 5,000 children and families across six regions, striving to break the cycle of poverty through education. Despite its significant impact, Save the Children Spain faced challenges in managing its vast data resources. An on-premises solution with limited scalability hindered the organization’s ability to process and integrate information from multiple sources effectively. With data scattered across various platforms, including Salesforce CRM, Marketing Cloud, Google Analytics, and numerous websites, Save the Children Spain lacked a unified view of its operations and donor base.
This fragmentation of data posed a critical obstacle to the organization’s mission. It limited its ability to gain comprehensive insights into donor behavior, personalize outreach efforts, and optimize fundraising campaigns. The need for a more robust, scalable, and integrated data solution became increasingly apparent as Save the Children Spain sought to enhance its operational efficiency and maximize its impact on children’s lives worldwide.
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The proof of concept Devoteam provided was impressive—we quickly realized how our capabilities could be transformed.”
Raúl González García
Application Area Manager, Save the Children Spain
Solution | A Cloud-Powered Data Lake Unlocks Data Access and Insights
To address its challenges, Save the Children Spain partnered with AWS Premier Consulting Partner Devoteam to design and implement a cutting-edge data-lake solution using AWS services. AWS introduced Save the Children to Devoteam, selecting the partner for its expertise in data integration solutions and proven track record of delivering scalable and efficient data platforms. “The proof-of-concept Devoteam provided was impressive—we quickly realized how our capabilities could be transformed,” said Raúl González García, application area manager at Save the Children Spain. Aiming to centralize data, enhance analytics capabilities, and streamline operations, the solution architecture incorporated a suite of AWS services, each playing a crucial role in the data integration and processing pipeline.
At the heart of the solution, a data-extraction process using Amazon AppFlow automated the ingestion of information from Salesforce and other sources to ensure a constant flow of up-to-date data. This raw data found a secure home in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which provided a scalable repository capable of handling information from various sources. To process and transform this data efficiently, the solution leveraged serverless compute capabilities from AWS Lambda, eliminating the need for infrastructure management. The system’s reliability was further enhanced by incorporating Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) and Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), which orchestrated message queuing and notifications, creating an event-driven architecture that ensured smooth data flow.
For complex queries and reporting needs, Amazon Aurora for MySQL served as the central database, offering high performance and scalability. The solution incorporated intelligent automation through Amazon EventBridge, which managed various processes, including cost-saving measures such as automatic shutdown of services during non-operational hours. To facilitate the transition from the existing on-premises infrastructure, AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) and its schema conversion tool played a critical role. These solutions ensured a smooth migration of data from the on-premises SQL Server to Aurora, maintaining data integrity and compatibility throughout the process. Implementation took approximately five months, during which Devoteam worked closely with Save the Children Spain to transfer over 147 million records, each containing up to 400 fields. “The massive data migration required careful planning and execution to ensure data accuracy,” noted González. “Devoteam made the process simple for us.”
A key feature of the Devoteam solution was its ability to automatically create and rename tables and fields, allowing for the seamless integration of new data sources. This flexibility was crucial for Save the Children Spain, enabling it to adapt quickly to changing data needs and incorporate new information streams effortlessly. Throughout the implementation, Devoteam prioritized cost-efficiency, leveraging serverless technologies like AWS Lambda to minimize operational expenses while maintaining high performance. This approach aligned perfectly with Save the Children Spain’s mission to maximize resources for humanitarian efforts.
Outcome | Transforming Data into Action for Children in Need
The implementation of this AWS-powered data-lake solution revolutionized Save the Children Spain’s data management and analytics capabilities, yielding significant benefits across the organization. The centralized data warehouse now provides comprehensive views of donor behavior and preferences, enabling more targeted and effective fundraising campaigns. The automation of data ingestion and processing has dramatically reduced manual effort, freeing staff to focus on strategic initiatives rather than data management tasks. And with AWS managing the database infrastructure, the IT team can shift its energies from routine maintenance and system update tasks to more impactful projects.
By migrating from on-premises infrastructure to AWS, Save the Children Spain has achieved substantial cost reductions. The organization has realized annual cost savings of approximately €12,000, which encompasses both maintenance cost savings and decreased expenses from reduced Salesforce storage requirements. Furthermore, Save the Children Spain has experienced a 10 percent improvement in campaign performance, demonstrating significant enhancements in email campaign effectiveness due to better targeting and personalization. The new solution also allows Save the Children Spain to easily incorporate new data sources and adapt to changing needs, ensuring the long-term sustainability of its data strategy. And the move to AWS strengthened data protection measures by implementing features like multi-factor authentication and VPN access, which were challenging to maintain in the organization’s on-premises environment.
Perhaps most importantly, the cost savings and operational efficiencies gained through this digital transformation directly translate to increased resources for humanitarian projects. Every euro saved on technology and operations is a euro that can be redirected to Save the Children Spain’s mission of providing aid and support to children around the world. Looking ahead, Save the Children Spain will continue to work with AWS and use its services to develop innovative tools for social workers. These tools will simplify access to information about social benefits, potentially expanding the organization’s impact on families in need. As Save the Children Spain continues to evolve its data strategy with Devoteam and AWS, the organization is poised to make an even greater impact, turning data into actionable insights that will help improve the lives of millions.
About Save the Children Spain
Save the Children Spain is a non-governmental organization based in Spain that works in the humanitarian aid and child welfare industry. It focuses on protecting children’s rights, providing aid during emergencies, and supporting vulnerable children globally and in Spain. The organization operates in 115 countries, reaching 47.4 million children through international programs.
About AWS Partner Devoteam
Devoteam, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner with teams in France, Spain, Germany, the UK, Portugal, Belgium, and Sweden, has offered excellent know-how on AWS technologies since 2012. Its team of 450+ AWS experts helps customers reinvent their business through scalable infrastructure and innovative solutions enabled by the AWS ecosystem.
AWS Services Used
Amazon AppFlow
Amazon AppFlow is a fully managed integration service that helps you securely transfer data between software as a service (SaaS) applications such as Salesforce, SAP, Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and ServiceNow, and AWS services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Redshift in just a few clicks.
AWS Database Migration Service
AWS Database Migration Service is trusted by customers globally to securely migrate 1M+ databases with minimal downtime.
AWS Lamdba
AWS Lambda is a compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the compute resources, making it the fastest way to turn an idea into a modern, production, serverless applications.
Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora provides unparalleled high performance and availability at global scale for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and DSQL.
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