Announcing the 2024-2025 AWS IMAGINE Grant winners

The year 2024 was filled with both excitement and thoughtful consideration in the nonprofit sector as the world seeks to understand and apply transformative cloud technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance impact and increase productivity. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is privileged to work alongside organizations in the social sector who are using these tools for the benefit of people and our planet, and who are leading conversations about how to do it responsibly. We’re proud to announce that many of those organizations are AWS IMAGINE Grant winners, representing our largest cohort of recipients to date.

With many firsts in 2024, including the launch of the Pathfinder Generative AI award, our focus on children’s health and the IMAGINE Grant’s expansion to Ireland, notable themes emerged. We continue to see nonprofits focus on data first, getting their data into the cloud so that it becomes usable and actionable. Another theme for this cohort is that they want to unlock silos across researchers and sectors, underscoring the power of data when it’s securely shared. And finally, nonprofits of all mission areas recognize the potential of AI and generative AI to analyze their data, surface insights, and forecast predictions, and ultimately get resources into the hands of their beneficiaries more quickly and less manually. These insights allow organizations to work more efficiently, optimizing their resource allocation and maximizing their impact in the communities they serve. Underpinning these efforts is a demand for generative AI tools that use an organizations’ trusted data sources responsibly, a capability that AWS allows

The three IMAGINE Grant award categories highlight nonprofits in all stages of their cloud adoption journeys across a variety of mission areas. Each organization receives a combination of unrestricted funding, AWS computing credits, expert technical guidance, and more. Read on to learn more about their impactful projects.

Winners of the Pathfinder Generative AI award

The winners following of the Pathfinder Generative AI award, receive an engagement with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center:

• The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is developing the first-ever generative AI suite of tools for nature-based science to bring conservation data to life — dynamically extracting and summarizing scientific literature so that researchers, and citizen scientists, can put that data into action in support of our planet.
• Baptist Health South Florida is developing a patient cohort-retrieval application using advanced technologies, including generative AI and information retrieval techniques. This application, powered by large language models (LLMs), identifies and retrieves patient cohorts from both structured and unstructured EHR data. The system aims to enhance clinical decision-making, optimize resource use, and advance personalized care across their entire health system.
• RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is using AWS Generative AI to create on-demand crisis hotlines and additional support mediums. This solution will integrate RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline directly into social media, gaming, and social networking sites. By doing so, RAINN aims to expedite access to trauma-informed support and resources for sexual violence survivors of all ages, delivering critical interventions where people already communicate.
• The Lieber Institute for Brain Development is using generative AI to design new medications for complex disorders such as schizophrenia. Their approach aims to correct abnormal gene expression patterns using advanced techniques such as diffusion models and reinforcement learning. By using their extensive brain research data, they seek to overcome major drug design challenges in psychiatry and broader healthcare.
• Candid is developing an AI assistant to help nonprofit staff and fundraisers access vital funding data, learning resources, and research. This tool will unify Candid’s extensive multimedia resources, allowing users to quickly find relevant, location-specific content to improve and scale their work, benefiting the entire nonprofit sector.

Winners of the Go Further, Faster award

The winners of the Go Further, Faster award include:

• Vision Ireland is developing a vision assistant tool that uses generative AI to provide detailed image descriptions for the blind and visually impaired community, allowing users to independently access and interpret visual information, enhancing beneficiaries’ interactions, independence, and participation in various aspects of life.
• Mental Health Innovations is merging data from its Shout text support service and The Mix youth environment to create the UK’s largest community mental health dataset. By analyzing this anonymized information, they aim to improve support services and better understand national mental health trends.
• Kent Wildlife Trust, in collaboration with Buglife, is expanding their Bugs Matter citizen science app globally. This initiative will collect vital data on insect populations, climate change impacts, and habitats. The project aims to enhance our understanding of the biodiversity crisis, engage the public in conservation, and promote human-wildlife coexistence.
• STOP THE TRAFFIK is enhancing their Traffik Analysis Hub, the world’s largest accessible set of information on human trafficking. This will increase the quality and accuracy of the data points, expand language capabilities, and integrate open-source datasets to drive action, inspire collaboration, and combat human trafficking.
• The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is revamping their data architecture to boost donation revenue and fund health equity initiatives, especially in underserved communities. This digital transformation will unify data sources and use artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to understand constituent behavior, enhance experiences, and develop effective fundraising strategies.
• Credit Union Executives Society, Inc. is building a personalized learning recommendation environment for credit union leaders. This solution delivers targeted content to enhance member engagement, leadership development, and career progression, while using advanced data analytics and AI to drive business intelligence.
• Geisinger Genomics is integrating population-scale genomic information into routine healthcare and democratizing the use of that data in precision health research. This integration will help to realize the potential of genomic information across the continuum of care, enabling more personalized and effective treatments for patients.
• National Audubon Society is developing a suite of AI, ML, and LLM-powered tools for integration with their mobile app. These tools aim to make bird identification by sight, sound, or photograph effortless and more enjoyable for a wider audience. By providing these resources, Audubon hopes to empower a new generation of birders who can contribute valuable data on the birds they see. This data will support Audubon’s mission to protect birds and their habitats, both now and in the future.
• OpenSecrets is using machine learning to enhance its political contribution database, revolutionizing donor matching accuracy and efficiency. This automated process overcomes data inconsistencies, providing partners with valuable insights into money’s influence in politics.
• United Ways of California is supercharging California’s 2-1-1 resource and referral centers using Generative AI. By applying this technology, 2-1-1s specialists are more informed and efficient, connecting people with urgent needs rapidly to resources, and California is more prepared to respond to disasters such as fires, floods, and earthquakes.
• Wildlife Conservation Society is developing Marine Ecological Research Management Aid (MERMAID), a machine learning and open data infrastructure powered by AWS to help scientists and citizen divers quickly analyze coral reef health from underwater images. This effort aims to close the coral reef data gap, supporting 100 governments in identifying and protecting the most climate-resilient reefs worldwide.
• HRS.health is enhancing ‘Anna,’ a health-focused AI orchestrator. Anna integrates generative AI, advanced data science, and geospatial intelligence into a conversational interface. This tool revolutionizes access to critical health risk insights, uncovers hidden risks, and empowers decision makers to preemptively address health crises and mitigate economic disruptions across industries.
• SSM Health Care Group is developing SmartECHO, an algorithm aimed at advancing cardiac imaging by improving quality, workflow, and communication. Although ECHO technology can now provide comprehensive cardiac profiles, its clinical application has not kept pace with these advancements. SmartECHO intends to bridge this gap between technological capability and practical implementation.
• Earth Genome is creating an AI-powered environment to allow anyone, anywhere to monitor the state of the environment using satellite imagery. By integrating generative AI, remote sensing foundation models, and petabyte-scale imagery, the service empowers journalists, indigenous peoples, and local stakeholders to quickly and accurately locate, monitor, and expose illegal logging, mining, and other emergent environmental threats.
• WestCare is confronting the urgent challenges of the behavioral health industry, including escalating substance use disorders, opioid and fentanyl epidemics, workforce shortages, and rising mental health needs. By integrating AWS AI and DevOps into their Electronic Health Record (EHR) environment, they aim to reduce administrative burdens to create more time for behavioral health professionals to focus on delivering life-saving care.
• The YMCA of Greater New York is developing a web-based service with modern frontend technologies and microservice architecture to optimize swim instruction tracking. This YMCA swim tracker will use AI/ML to predict trends, classify swimmer and instructor needs, and recommend personalized experiences. The goal is to help New Yorkers learn life-saving swimming skills more efficiently, enhancing water safety.
• Relief International (RI) is working to automate the digitization of handwritten health records in South Sudan, allowing health facilities to quickly capture, analyze, and act on critical data. This creative solution will enhance disease monitoring and treatment protocols for refugee and displaced communities, driving faster, data-driven healthcare decisions.
• Connecting for Better Health’s (C4BH)  Community Sandbox allows simulated data exchange in a secure cloud environment, where organizations can readily identify, test, validate, and share strategies. The Community Sandbox aims to increase data quality, promote transparency among and across social and health systems, and replace laborious, point-to-point testing and troubleshooting with an always-learning, agile testing network.
• The Rainforest Alliance is developing a system powered by AI to accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture and sustainable landscape management practices globally. This multilingual, app-based service uses ‘show me, tell me’ interfaces to support farmers on their sustainability journey in their local languages. It will help farmers easily understand and interact with the information, providing them with data and associated recommendations.

Winners of the Momentum to Modernize award

The winners of the Momentum to Modernize award include the following organizations:

• American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) is building a data lake and adding analytics capabilities to drive data governance, insights, and analytics. By elevating the visibility of their data, ASCP will expedite decisions that will improve patient care across the globe.
• The Institute for Systems Biology is building a cloud-based digital twin of the human gut microbiome to predict personalized responses to dietary and probiotic interventions. They aim to make this innovative tool accessible to individuals and healthcare providers to improve health outcomes for patients.
• Saint Louis Zoo Association is using advanced media intelligence to analyze wildlife behavior videos, promoting collaborative research and education. This addresses scientists’ need for larger datasets, overcoming limitations of small animal populations in individual zoos and the high costs of multi-zoo studies. The initiative aims to enhance both scientific research and public understanding of wildlife.
• Volunteers of America aims to integrate their data with the AI assistant, Amazon Q, and Amazon QuickSight to enhance business intelligence capabilities so that staff can get insights more rapidly by using natural language, democratizing data and improving productivity.
• Med Center Health (MCH) is creating a disaster recovery plan to maintain business continuity during natural or man-made disasters. This will ensure the nonprofit hospital system can maintain continuity of care and increase patient safety for individuals in the ten counties it serves.
• Humane Society of the United States is developing HSIApps, a global data management tool designed to improve dog and cat welfare programs by managing spay and neuter procedures, mass vaccinations, and access to care operations. This technology facilitates ending the suffering of companion animals by enhancing program effectiveness, supporting public health, and fostering sustainable and creative solutions for reducing human-dog conflict.
• Challenger Center for Space Science Education is transitioning to cloud-based services for its interactive STEM adventures. This move will improve operational efficiency, enhance cybersecurity, expand analytics capabilities, and allow regular software updates. As a result, Challenger Learning Centers will more effectively inspire students nationwide to pursue STEM fields.
• The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) plans to leverage AWS Clean Rooms to securely access real world patient data for the purposes of developing digital health care quality measures. By combining this data, sophisticated analytics, and machine learning, NCQA will be able to better predict patient outcomes and impacts to care quality.
• The Urban Institute is using advanced cloud technology from AWS to modernize its suite of micro-simulation models, addressing common challenges and accelerating the research-to-delivery process.
• Easterseals Southern California (ESSC) aims to transform disability and community services using an AI/ML data insights hub powered by AWS. This will securely analyze the nation’s largest private disability services dataset to uncover solutions that improve outcomes for more than 19,000 participants and the 61 million Americans living with disabilities.

AWS believes that technology, when it is used strategically, is a powerful force multiplier in solving social and environmental challenges. AWS continues to collaborate with nonprofit organizations around the world to identify and implement the right technological solutions for their mission areas, no matter where they are in their cloud journey.

The application cycle for the 2025 AWS IMAGINE Grant will open in the spring of 2025. Sign up to receive email alerts about the launch of the next cycle. Join us at our 2025 AWS IMAGINE for Nonprofits conference, where we will convene nonprofit leaders and technologists to explore these topics together.

About the AWS IMAGINE Grant

Since the launch of the IMAGINE Grant program in 2018, AWS has awarded more than $14 million in unrestricted funding, AWS cloud computing credits, and technical expertise to more than 130 nonprofit organizations. Learn more about past recipients and how nonprofits use AWS to advance their missions around the world at the AWS for nonprofits hub.