Letter from the CEO
This past fiscal year was like no other.
It was a time of great need. Like many times before, NGOs around the world stepped up for their communities: responding to public health issues, adjusting to restrictions on gathering, safely providing food, and pivoting to remote work. The TechSoup Global Network delivered more goods, services, and resources to more civil society organizations at a higher rate than ever before. And our donors and partners delivered. This powerful network connected 178,000 NGOs in 236 countries with more than US$2 billion in resources last year. The TechSoup Global Network remains a vital, resilient supply chain for philanthropy, focused on improving the value it brings to communities.
Digital enabled new ways of connecting, communicating, and collaborating -- bringing emotional support, information, and resources – for service delivery. In response to social distance, the TechSoup Global Network held more than 1,600 online events with more than 54,000 participants around the world. We launched TechSoup Courses in Spanish and Portuguese and now reach more than 67,000 learners in 180 countries.
Thanks to a broad coalition of donors partnering with TechSoup, 2100 small and medium sized NGOs around the world who are focused on addressing immediate human needs benefited from the nearly $2 million COVID-19 NGO Recovery Fund. Their needs were echoed in a survey, funded by Okta, that reflected 11,700 nonprofits across 135 countries in 41 languages: Communications and collaboration tools are the most desired digital solutions. A quarter of them have a defined strategy for achieving digital readiness, while only half of respondents have the resources to implement their strategy.
NGOsource saw a 60% increase in requests for Equivalency Determinations to support grantmaking from the US to civil society organizations around the world. We celebrated when vaccines became available, knowing that we had played our small part by enabling eight funders to more quickly collaborate and fund vaccine development through the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
We continued to invest in our resilience, made possible with a portion of the $9.3 million we had raised over two years through our Growth Capital Campaign and Direct Public Offering (DPO), 80% of our 3-year goal of $11.5 million, through corporate partners who donate products through TechSoup as well as 343 individual investors, foundations, and donors. In June, we were a delighted recipient of an unrestricted grant from MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett. It was magical-- not just for its size but also for the trust, recognition, and feeling of total support that came along with it. We will invest this support in our five strategic initiatives, NGOsource, and new NGO digital capacity building programs.
We gathered to improve. We held the first virtual TechSoup Global Network Summit, over two weeks, to learn together about the hard problems facing civil society and to explore how to better support the individuals solving them. With 600 people participating, including stakeholders from companies, foundations, and civil society organizations, this summit was our largest and most inclusive to date.
Looking forward there is uncertainty ahead. The world is getting more complex, and the challenges we face continue to be interrelated, requiring all sectors-- businesses, civil society, and governments-- to work together. We will remain focused on strengthening relationships, systems, and our ability to collaborate. In this way, we can deliver greater impact, continuously enhancing value. For every hard problem facing the communities we serve, our collective strength and ability to generate equitable solutions depends on our ability to lead for resilience, together.
