AWS Public Sector Blog

How one nonprofit uses AWS to amplify citizen advocacy across Africa

This is a guest post by David Cole, senior director of digital innovation and insights at ONE.

ONE is a global movement to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030. Our goal is to create a world in which everyone, everywhere can lead a life of dignity and opportunity. We believe that the fight against poverty is not about charity—it’s about justice and equality.

Whether lobbying political leaders in world capitals or running grassroots campaigns in local communities, ONE encourages governments to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Our donors and supporters are crucial to our work. They come from every walk of life and from across the political spectrum. They take action daily – organizing, mobilizing, educating, and advocating so that people around the world have the chance not only to survive, but also to thrive.

Using AWS to deliver on our mission

Advocacy is about taking action in real time, so we need to reach people wherever they are. In Africa, that means using mobile devices. By the end of 2020, 495 million people subscribed to mobile services in Sub-Saharan Africa, representing 46% of the region’s population – an increase of almost 20 million from 2019.

To help us reach audiences across Africa, we launched a mobile chatbot built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This chatbot enables individuals to instantly learn more about ONE’s work, stay up-to-date with current advocacy campaigns, and find ways to take action locally and throughout Africa. Users can ask the chatbot for information about local campaigns and volunteer for opportunities in their area. Users can even play interactive games to support different causes, like the “Myth or Vax” quiz to help combat vaccine misinformation.

Specifically, we chose to use AWS for three main reasons:

  1. Scalability: With AWS, we do not have to oversee the scaling of resources or maintenance of code. Depending on the demand for the our chatbot, the bandwidth automatically grows and shrinks to meet our needs with no size limit or constraints.
  2. Affordability: Since the chatbot has periods of low usage interspersed with periods of higher usage, we save money by paying only for the cloud resources we use. This helps us avoid the risk of over-provisioning hardware infrastructure and paying for servers that we do not need. It is also helpful that there are no upfront costs or minimum fees for AWS.
  3. Security: The security of our users is a priority, so we utilize encryption at the physical layer to help protect our data. By using Amazon Cognito; Amazon DynamoDB encrypted tables; Parameter Store, a capability of AWS Systems Manager; and the Amazon API Gateway, we can make sure that all of our users’ data is protected from unauthorized access. This keeps our users information safe and secure, and helps us maintain compliance with regulatory data obligations.

How the AWS Nonprofit Credit Program helped us

With the chatbot fully up and running, we provide a 24/7 service to users across Africa in both English and French. The chatbot is actively being used to tackle misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines. The spread of vaccine misinformation is rampant across Africa, as it is in other parts of the world, in part due to powerful social media campaigns.

ONE partnered with celebrities and health experts to address misinformation with our #MythOrVax quiz. Using the mobile service, citizens can test their vaccine knowledge and see how many myths they can spot.

We took advantage of the AWS Nonprofit Credit Program, which offers qualified nonprofit organizations $1,000 each year in credit to cover eligible AWS service costs. We used the program to support our initial test phase of the chatbot, allowing us to keep costs down while developing our beta and learning how to improve the product. Now that the chatbot is live, this program continues to help us affordably scale and reach more people with our message.

Read more about ONE’s mission here.

Learn more about AWS for nonprofits

Nonprofits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world are increasing their impact with AWS. AWS offers multiple programs for nonprofits to get started on the cloud, including the AWS Nonprofit Credit Program, which helps organizations offset the costs of implementing cloud-based solutions. Apply for the AWS Nonprofit Credit Program to start your journey with AWS.

Read more stories about AWS for nonprofits:

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