From Three Needs in Greece to Global Reach, NeedsList to Scale our Crisis Response software to Ukraine and beyond with Google.org Support.
Five years ago on World Refugee Day, our team at NeedsList launched the beta version of our very first software product to support local organizations working with refugees in Greece. We featured three needs from local partners: diapers, shoes, and sanitary napkins. We may have started small, but we dreamed big. We envisioned a new model of aid — one that was collaborative, dignified, local, and powered by cutting-edge technology.
Today, on World Refugee Day, 2022, we’re incredibly proud to announce that NeedsList will be receiving a one million dollar grant and a pro bono team of software engineers from Google.org to scale our platform globally. Google Fellows will initially be working closely with us on a software deployment to address the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and bordering countries. Engineers will incorporate AI solutions, cloud optimization, and add multilingual support to initial work in Ukraine response and to the free, public version of the software for future crises that is set to launch later this year.
We built our software, RespondLocal, to power a faster, more efficient, sustainable model of aid. Since we founded the company, we have witnessed an alarming growth in climate-related disasters, conflict, and of course a global pandemic. The humanitarian sector needs innovative solutions to support more efficiency in aid, especially at the local level. Local organizations consistently do most of the work on the ground before, during, and after crises, but historically have received very little funding or support from the international community.
In Ukraine, new reports from Humanitarian Outcomes show that only 0.003% of the billions of dollars of relief funds have gone to local organizations. One consistently cited reason for the lack of investment in local organizations is not being able to easily identify key stakeholders. Alex Diaz, Director of Crisis Response at Google.org explains,
“Knowing what’s needed where, who is doing what, and how to help is vital during times of crisis. Real-time information helps organizations reduce waste, improves collaboration, and gets people what they need quickly.”
With support from Google.org, NeedsList will be able to supercharge the reach of our software, making it completely financially and linguistically available for use by any organization in the world. We are proud to work with Field Ready, a long time partner, as the fiscal sponsor of this initiative. If you would like to join us in transforming the future of aid, please be in touch.
