The Zendesk Foundation Announces First Inaugural Impact Awards Recipients

The Zendesk Foundation announced that 25 nonprofit organizations will receive a share of $US 500,000 in cash grants, as well as free Zendesk software, through the Foundation’s first global Tech for Good Impact Awards. Four nonprofits were awarded the highest grant amount of $US 50,000 each. The combination of cash grants and technology is designed to empower a range of social impact initiatives to scale operations in order to further help communities and people in need.

“We believe democratizing access to technology is a key part of creating a more equitable society,” said Adrian McDermott, CTO of Zendesk. “If we can help drive social change by giving nonprofits access to technology that’s easy to use and implement, we want to make it widely available.”

Over 600 nonprofits from around the world sent in applications in which they demonstrated how Zendesk’s suite of customer support solutions would empower their organization’s mission and improve operations. Applicants were scored based on their potential to scale using Zendesk software, and finalists were selected based on their fit with the Foundation’s mission of promoting resilience, fostering community, and increasing access to careers in technology.

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“We believe democratizing access to technology is a key part of creating a more equitable society”

The four largest grant recipients of the 2022 Tech for Good Impact Awards demonstrated a direct need for technology that would help them scale despite limited staff time and financial resources, and will work with Zendesk to further causes from environmental action to immigrant rights.

• Rare, an international conservation organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia specializing in social change for the environment, will use Zendesk tools to support a community engagement approach to driving behavior change and increasing climate action globally.
• Using Zendesk, Mobile Pathways will send informational messages over SMS and WhatsApp, informing approximately 500,000 immigrants about their legal rights. Based in Berkeley, California, Mobile Pathways’ mission is to simplify immigration law, and to share that knowledge with the immigrant community via mobile technology.
• Globally will leverage Zendesk to develop and scale its Refugee Upskilling Program (ReUP), a workforce development program that matches Afghan refugees with jobs in the technology sector. Since 2004, Globally has been the go-to organization for developing emerging leaders in global affairs. Its network spans 80 countries and reaches more than 30,000 emerging leaders, headquartered in Washington DC.
• Current Tech for Good partner Spring ACT developed and launched, Sophia, the world’s first messaging chatbot empowering survivors of domestic violence. The grant will help Spring ACT, headquartered in Bern, Switzerland, scale significantly in order to expand its reach to many more people in more languages.

“In partnership with Zendesk, we’re proud to continue building a community of resilient immigrant advocates who are unlocking access to justice via mobile phone technology,” said Poesy Chen, Co-Founder and Innovation Director, Mobile Pathways.

Tech for Good, Zendesk’s product donation arm, was launched in 2018 to provide free solutions and implementation support to nonprofits working to solve urgent social problems, and currently supports more than 70 organizations* around the world.

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