Partner Success with AWS / General Public Services / Spain

February 2025
Save the Children
Devoteam

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.

The silhouette of the children holding hands, enjoying the sunset, a group of friends cheering and arms raised in the orange sky and the mountains behind Friendship concept

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.

kr_quotemark

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.

Learn more »

AWS Database Migration Service

AWS Database Migration Service is trusted by customers globally to securely migrate 1M+ databases with minimal downtime.

Learn more »

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.

Learn more »

Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora provides unparalleled high performance and availability at global scale for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and DSQL.

Learn more »

More General Public Services Success Stories

Showing results: 1-4
Total results: 72

no items found 

  • General Public Services

    The National Institutes of Health Works with Govplace to Accelerate Scientific Research and Analysis

    The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Portfolio Analysis (OPA) sought a more scalable and flexible IT environment to support applications including a research web database and tools for indexing and searching text-based data. To meet these needs, the organization worked with AWS Partner Govplace to create a new text-based indexing and search solution on AWS. Now, OPA scales in hours instead of months to support 10 times the compute capacity, helping researchers accelerate scientific research by quickly scanning millions of grants, journal articles, and patents.

    2025
  • General Public Services

    Bat Conservation Trust gets Better Bat Counts Using Lambert Labs to Build Scalable Solution on AWS

    The Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) is a UK-based nonprofit organization that is dedicated to the conservation of bats and their habitats. The BCT uses a variety of recording devices, such as the AudioMoth, to record bat activity at hundreds of locations across the UK. The recordings are then analyzed to identify the species of bats, their numbers, and their activity. This involves processing large volumes of data—one night’s recording of a single site can easily generate 30 GB or more, and this amounts to hundreds of terabytes when multiplied across many sites and dates. BCT needed a timely, reliable, scalable, and cost-effective way to ingest, analyze, and store its data. Working with AWS Partner Lambert Labs, it increased processing speeds, cut costs, and has been able to grow its coverage.

    2024
  • General Public Services

    Peak and DNX Help Nonprofits Drive Record-Breaking Donor Retention with AWS

    For nonprofits that rely on donors to support their charitable causes, fundraising efforts are critical. Built by fundraisers, for fundraisers, digital solutions from Peak Fundraising Systems aim to help nonprofits maximize their campaigns. The company’s platform provides key insights into the performance of fundraising programs so organizations can improve donor retention and sign up the right donors. To make sure Peak provides the best experience to its nonprofit customers, it collaborated with AWS Premier Partner DNX Solutions to create an automated system that uses near real-time data analysis. In fact, the new system helps nonprofits analyze their campaigns and find the insights they need 94 percent faster than before.

    2024
  • General Public Services

    COVU Reduces Call Abandonment by 20% with AWS and Reply

    COVU offers an AI-enabled platform that delivers support and services to insurance agencies. The company wanted to replace its legacy system to elevate its telephonic capabilities, as well as gain deeper insights into essential metrics, such as average wait times and abandonment rates. The new system would also provide a foundation for rapidly developing new artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and overcoming visibility and call-management limitations. COVU partnered with AWS Premier Tier Services Partner Reply to implement an AI-driven, cloud-based contact center solution built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). As a result, COVU has improved its customer experience and operational efficiency. COVU has reduced call abandonment by 20 percent, increased customer satisfaction by 10 percent, and boosted employee satisfaction by 250 percent.

    2024
1 18

Get Started

Organizations of all sizes across all industries are transforming their businesses and delivering on their missions every day using AWS. Contact our experts and start your own AWS journey today.