Impact

Apps4Cities Champions Open Data in Ukraine

In Ukraine, an open data ecosystem has the potential to spur massive social and economic progress. Open data can be used to transform business models or help public agencies boost efficiency in areas such as procurement, education, and local governance. In fact, Kyiv School of Economics estimates that open data can potentially contribute between US$746 million and US$903 million to the economy.

Apps4Cities is a project created by TechSoup Europe in cooperation with Civil Network OPORA to close the open data gap. Its mission is to empower everyday citizens to harness open data to build a better life for their communities. Launched in 2015, the project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Dani Mist project team from TechSoup Europe, and the GURT Resource Center.

Each year Apps4Cities invites teams of citizen activists from 35 major cities in Ukraine to come together with local NGO leaders and public officials to collaboratively engineer digital solutions that use public datasets. Projects are judged by an online public vote as well as by a panel of data experts. Each solution presented at each Apps4Cities competition showcases the power of engaging communities from the ground up.

In FY 2021, The Kolomyia Project created a web portal featuring detailed information on upcoming educational activities and events. Diagrams, graphs, tables, and other interactive elements distilled vast amounts of data into an accessible format. Originally available for municipal schools only, TechSoup supported the Kolomyia city council to extend the Kolomyia Project to kindergartens.

The Lutsk Project sought to create a snapshot of local air quality via automatic data collection and real-time alerts. The team developed a two-part digital solution, featuring a web platform that gathered data from various pollution sources. The second part of the project was a chatbot offering insights into pollution levels and advice for managing potential health impacts.

TechSoup Earns Gold Certified Microsoft Partner

During FY 2021, TechSoup became Gold Certified Microsoft Partner in Cloud Productivity and Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions. This is a competency level that demonstrates our Network’s role as a partner that has “best-in class” capabilities in Microsoft cloud solution areas.

In April, three TechSoup team members (US, LATAM, and APAC) became Microsoft certified in the MS-100 exam, allowing us to achieve this milestone. Gold Certified Partners have access to additional cloud product allocations (for free), specialized and prioritized support for us and our customers, and incentive payments.

What this also, and most importantly, demonstrates is that TechSoup has the experience and expertise to help our nonprofits as a trusted cloud partner. Increased technical capacity was identified in our go-to-market planning as a core objective; therefore, TechSoup invested this year in training our team members on core Microsoft cloud technologies.

Helping People with Disabilities Thrive

Since it was established in 1966, Mirridong Services has been dedicated to providing individuals with disabilities with opportunities to thrive and live independently. Based in Yarram, Australia, services include education and training, pre-employment and employment, and supported accommodation.

Until it began using Cisco, Mirridong Services used a network of Wi-Fi repeaters and connections to provide Internet to each of its residential and day buildings. This was highly inefficient: The Internet was poor and dropped out regularly.

In 2020, Mirridong began using Cisco for its networking services. It built two new houses to accommodate an additional seven residents and included network cabling and optical fiber in the plans. This joins the new and existing properties together and allows them to make full use of Cisco's networking services.

Thanks to the Cisco donation through TechSoup APAC, Mirridong has been able to deliver reliable Internet access to its residential properties and day center. Access to the Internet allows residents greater independence, which is a large part of Mirridong's mission, and means that residents can easily keep in touch with friends and family. For the staff at the center, this change saves time and allows them to access workplace resources from anywhere on site. They also save resources and manpower previously spent on the Internet, as the Wi-Fi provided through Cisco's services is far more reliable.

A dependable and effective networking service allows all at Mirridong to carry out their work more efficiently and independently, while also saving time and money.

TechSoup COVID-19 NGO Recovery Supports Nearly 2,400 Nonprofits Worldwide

The COVID-19 NGO Recovery Fund launched in the summer of 2020 thanks to a broad coalition of generous donors and the tireless work of TechSoup staff across many teams. The fund focused on helping small and medium-sized NGOs adapt to the pandemic. It provided tools to enable remote work and service delivery so organizations could continue to provide support in their communities during this difficult and uncertain time. In FY 2021, TechSoup delivered software, hardware, and cloud-service subscriptions worth US$1.8 million to more than 2,000 organizations worldwide.

Eligible U.S. organizations were able to access microgrants of up to US$2,000 each to subsidize software, hardware, and cloud subscriptions. The grants enabled them to not just survive during the pandemic, but in many cases thrive and be better equipped to operate well beyond the pandemic. To date, this program has served nearly 1,500 NGOs in the U.S. alone.

In order to address the unique pandemic-related challenges faced by NGOs in different regions of the world, we partnered with seven of our Global Network partners to deliver programs that took into account the local contexts. Each was unique, but all revolved around a theme of building capacity and building resilience around the use of new technologies. These projects have delivered services totaling over a half million dollars in 17 countries to nearly 600 NGOs.

The fund is now closed, but those wishing to contribute to building nonprofit digital resilience, please contact DRP@techsoup.org.

Techsoup's Global Research Study Shows the State of Nonprofits in Digital Transformation

During FY 2021, TechSoup released the findings from the largest global research study of civil society organizations ever fielded. Its purpose was to understand the data handling practices and digital readiness among nonprofits and to identify ways that organizations like TechSoup can help advance nonprofits' digital transformation journeys and enhance sector impact.

The study — commissioned by TechSoup and supported in part by a generous grant from Okta for Good — surveyed 11,758 civil society organization technology decision-makers in 135 countries and across 41 languages. Survey distribution partners included the TechSoup Global Network, BoardSource, Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy, Civicus, Institute for the Development of Social Investment, Technology Association of Grantmakers, RNW Media, Transparency and Accountability Initiative, and WINGS.

The study, fielded during the summer of 2020, queried organizations on IT resources, digital readiness, data management, and the impact of COVID-19. These were the key findings:

• Tech Budgets: IT budgets are typically low but are expected to increase within the next two years. Most IT product and service decisions are made at the staff level, with a median purchase size of $375 requiring approvals. The number of employees working on an IT team is limited, and volunteers are frequently used.
• Transition Readiness: A quarter of nonprofits have a defined strategy for achieving digital readiness. Top barriers to digital adoption, digital improvement, and data management are cost and staff training and availability.
• Data Handling: Most organizations collect beneficiary, donor, and finance data. Across data types, cloud-based data storage is now the most frequently used option.
• Killer App: Organizations rely on spreadsheets in all aspects of data handling, including collecting, storing, and sharing data.
• Pandemic Pivot: The large negative impact of COVID-19 affected workstreams across the organization — prompting rethinking of how they work. Most program delivery, fundraising, and marketing were negatively impacted, while internal communications improved. COVID-19 prompted digital adoption mostly in cloud-based apps, followed by hardware and desktop apps.
• Nonprofit Needs: The adoption of cloud-based services, cybersecurity tools, and other digital resources could be accelerated by increased funding, access to IT consultants or staff to facilitate digital transformation, staff skills or training, and increased awareness of digital tools available.

You can access a copy of the TechSoup Data Handling and Digital Readiness Global Study here.

Hotspots Help Families in Internet Deserts Face the Digital Divide

When the pandemic hit, schools across the country moved to online learning and exposed a massive digital divide across the United States. Soon teachers reported that fewer than half of their students were regularly participating in online classes. There was clearly not nearly enough home broadband to go around.

This is when many turned to mobile hotspots to fill the gap. Hotspots are small devices that provide Wi-Fi broadband Internet connectivity for multiple computers or Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones and tablets. Hotspots are usually the size of a pack of cards and are super easy to use.

TechSoup and Mobile Beacon's device donation program is a unique partnership of two nonprofit organizations that supplies the lowest-cost mobile broadband to charities and libraries in the nation. This broadband is fast enough to stream Netflix or to enable students to participate fully in virtual classes.

Since the program began in 2012, TechSoup has received requests for nearly 63,000 hotspots. Since January 1, 2020, we've received more than 16,600 hotspot requests — over a quarter of the total.

Thousands of libraries, including those in Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, have been using them to loan out the Internet to patrons. All they need is a library card. Hotspots are affordable enough for the smallest rural libraries to circulate them to patrons.

The Mobile Beacon Connect for Success grants are available to schools in eligible cities that are interested in starting a mobile learning lab, a program to help close the homework gap, or a program to aid in professional development for teachers. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.

TechSoup COVID-19 NGO Recovery Supports Nearly 2,400 Nonprofits Worldwide

The TechSoup Global Network convened our first virtual summit from June 16 to 30. In our largest and most inclusive gathering to-date, members of the TechSoup Global Network and our stakeholders, partners, and allies, totaling 650 from 63 countries, came together to learn and share and improve our work together. There, we reinforced connections and identified the capabilities to develop to tackle the increasingly complex challenges that face civil society and the communities in which they work.

We heard speakers from Accra, Medellin, Turin, Sofia, Taipei City, Seattle, and 39 other cities across the world. Content streamed in Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and Chinese as interpreters allowed for deeper engagement across our network.

Our theme, Engage Community. Create Resilience captures the way we all work together and, we believe, the heart of what will move us forward.

Collectively, we identified some of the hard problems we must run toward. We are synthesizing the important learnings that came from this powerful gathering of civil society voices and perspectives from every region in the world

This network is united in a common purpose to support civil society and to use technology and data to provide a fertile ground for innovations, accelerated delivery of services, and — most importantly — a more equitable world.

TechSoup Website Services Helps Nonprofit Increase Its Reach

One nonprofit from Wilmington, Delaware, is making headway on the issue of educational inequality in America. TechSoup's Website Services helped transform the organization's website so that it could better serve its communities.

4th-Dimension Leaders (4DL) has a small but dedicated team whose mission is to train, develop, and support leaders in education. Specifically, it aims to lift up those who serve socioeconomically disadvantaged schools in need of high-quality education and teachers.

"We had one website that wasn't that great. Looking at the website, I wasn't even 100 percent sure what our organization did,” said Krista Vandetty, manager of operations at 4DL. “There were also a lot of links that went all over the place."

Realizing that their organization needed a new website, Krista and Angela Harvey-Bowen, executive director at 4DL, connected with the Website Services team through a Website Wellness Consultation. Following an initial consultation, 4DL was presented with three different custom websites, each with a distinct design and layout. After reviewing and choosing a design, they met the team that would be building and designing their new website.

When the new site launched in February 2021, 4DL immediately began to see the rewards of an optimized and professional website. The biggest improvement? Krista noticed that the website was finally targeting the right audience. "We've had more people applying to the new job position we just posted that seem to align with our mission, where it wasn't like that in the past. I think that people being able to go on our website and get a clear understanding of our mission has helped."

Hotspots Help Families in Internet Deserts Face the Digital Divide

Globally, COVID-19 has a disproportionate impact on the poor. In Kenya, COVID has had a relatively low impact in terms of cases and deaths. However, the economic effects of COVID have been significant, especially on the 36 percent of the population already living below the poverty line. The most vulnerable group of all, preschool-aged lower-income children, were already suffering even before the pandemic.

Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Tiny Totos Kenya Limited enhances early childhood development by working with existing slum-based daycares in Eastern Africa. The organization’s goal is to improve the standards of care for children while enabling daycares to earn more for their work.

Tiny Totos’ received equivilancy determination certification with NGOsource, allowing funders like the David Weekley Family Foundation to support the organization’s holistic growth and innovation.

The biggest challenge Tiny Totos faced through the pandemic was that COVID closed almost half of the organization’s network of 100 childcare centers. Additionally, the added pressure of unemployed parents and social distancing forced Tiny Totos to think creatively about how it could continue to support its network in safe and meaningful ways.

During this time, the organization pivoted its focus to digital communication as a way to share information and build community. Through digital communication, Tiny Totos provided information about low-cost nutritional meals as well as mental support services to mothers, children, and families. The organization’s daycare and client networks continued to provide vital health care and nutrition support, including vaccination drives and the distribution and sale of affordable, nutritious foods. Tiny Totos also provided emergency loans and financing to families so they could access necessary items for clean cooking, as well as water filters and mobile phones. Tiny Totos’ innovative, accessible digital learning program was recognized by the mEducation Alliance, EdTech, the UN-ITC Equals Award, and UNESCO. The organization’s livelihood and clean energy financing program was recognized by Energy and Environment Partnership Trust for Africa (EEP).

Tiny Totos work is invaluable, and the ways in which the organization adapted to meet the challenges of COVID-19 display the agility and fortitude of the organization and its team.