Industry guide: Nonprofits

This guide highlights sessions at re:Invent 2024 that help you dive deep on nonprofit content at re:Invent. Explore sessions, attend the AWS Nonprofit Tech for Impact event, and stop by the Impact Lounge for hands-on demos. And be sure to join us at the AWS for Nonprofits happy hour.

Allyson Fryhoff
Managing Director, Nonprofit & Healthcare, AWS

There’s a lot in store for nonprofits at re:Invent 2024, and in this guide the AWS for Nonprofits team has curated breakout sessions and lightning talks designed to inspire. You’ll hear directly from social-impact and nonprofit leaders moving their missions forward with AWS. We’ve also highlighted the builders’ sessions, chalk talks, and workshops where you can get hands-on with AWS services for nonprofit-specific use cases.

AWS is committed to collaborating with organizations, helping you identify and implement the right technology solutions for every mission area, no matter where you are in the cloud adoption journey. AWS re:Invent is the place to see examples of how technology—when applied purposefully—can be a powerful force multiplier in advancing social and environmental progress.

In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye out for AWS for Nonprofits re:Invent updates on LinkedIn and X, or contact a member of the AWS for Nonprofits team to help you get started.

Breakout session

IDE201 | AWS Amplify-hosted frontend for higher ed: Enhance student experiences

In partnership with Deloitte and AWS, UNCF launched HBCUv, a comprehensive virtual learning platform and ecosystem for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). This session explores how the HBCUv project empowered frontend developers by leveraging AWS technologies like Amplify, AWS Glue DataBrew, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS Step Functions. Learn about the strategy and innovative methods used to create a resilient, event-driven cloud infrastructure that enhances the frontend web development experience and supports a scalable, efficient higher education platform. Gain insights into Deloitte's strategic AWS alliance and the transformative potential of cloud technologies in higher education.

IDE102 | Dentsu and AWS: “Easy Reading” books for developmentally disabled

Dentsu Creative launched the pioneering AI tool “Easy Reading” to make reading more accessible for millions with intellectual disabilities. Developed using AWS, Easy Reading can translate any text into the internationally recognized Easy-to-Read format. Dentsu has partnered with Visit Portugal, an organization dedicated to literature, to allow people to “visit” the country through its literary classics. Using Easy Reading, Visit Portugal is providing free access to three renowned Portuguese works on easyreadingportugal.com. The program will be celebrated in Lisbon in April, with a campaign across Visit Portugal’s digital channels to promote the accessible reading platform.

IMP204 | Fortifying the news pipeline: AP's resilient media supply chain on AWS

The Associated Press modernized its mission-critical publishing platform using serverless patterns across multiple AWS regions. This cutting-edge platform helps the AP in its mission to produce fast, accurate journalism seen by over half the world’s population every day. Learn how the AP worked with AWS to review and strengthen the fault tolerance of their media supply chain platform. Explore the strategies and architectural patterns implemented to ensure uninterrupted news delivery, even in the face of regional outages. Gain insights into building highly available and resilient workloads on AWS, enabling your organization to maintain operational continuity and meet rigorous uptime requirements.

XNT316 | From Azure to AWS: One organization’s all-in journey with AWS

This industry-leading social good technology provider believes that placing a few high-impact, “all-in” bets on a highly selective group of technology partners will drive a marked acceleration in the pace of innovation. In this session, hear from this provider’s senior executives about the technical reasons it chose AWS for its all-in bet over Azure, how it rapidly migrated from Azure, and how it’s now working with AWS to cocreate next-generation solutions for global good. Attend this session to learn from the technology decisions this provider has made to support its mission to provide purpose-built software for the greatest social good.

IMP212 | Harnessing AWS for natural disaster early warning at scale

Learn how EarthScope optimizes natural disaster detection and response. Discover how EarthScope migrated the GNSS component of ShakeAlert, the US earthquake early warning system, from on premises to AWS to create a highly available, low-latency pipeline that processes real-time GNSS data to complement seismological networks. Also learn how ShakeAlert harnessed managed services and leveraged a serverless architecture to deliver near real-time, stream-processed products to government agencies and automated systems before damaging earthquakes reach people and critical infrastructure. Explore the benefits of cloud-native modernization and unlock the potential of advanced disaster preparedness in this insightful session.

IMP203 | Harnessing generative AI for impact: Mapping pathways out of poverty

Discover how FINCA, a non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty, is harnessing the power of AWS and generative AI to revolutionize its research processes. FINCA's groundbreaking open source platform, AuRA, leverages AI to accelerate the creation of theories of change, enabling researchers to quickly identify relevant evidence, curate data libraries, and generate impactful pathways. Join this session to learn how AuRA's collaborative approach, combining AI capabilities with subject matter expertise, is driving operational efficiency, extracting insights from data, and scaling social impact across sectors. Explore the transformative potential of generative AI in tackling complex global challenges.

IMP206 | Saving lives with serverless: Modernizing transplant matching on AWS

In this session, learn how the NMDP transformed a crucial but mature application into a serverless, cloud-native architecture using AWS Lambda and Amazon Aurora. Discover how they overcame technical hurdles and adopted a more agile culture to modernize a life-saving bone marrow donor matching system, increasing efficiency and reducing costs—without compromising accuracy. Gain insights into their journey from new to power users of AWS Lambda, leveraging advanced capabilities to optimize performance and outcomes. Explore how this modernization enables rapid innovation as NMDP continues its mission of saving lives through marrow transplants.

DEV320 | Simplify, deploy, and scale an event platform: A community case study

In this session, learn how AWS built a website for an AWS Community event using a straightforward approach without needing deep cloud service knowledge. See how to set up user registration and call for papers (CfP) functionality, and learn how to manage speakers and sessions. Discover how to streamline deployment using infrastructure as code open source tools. Managing your event with a single tool simplifies the process and promotes community growth.

IMP103 | Transforming humanitarian aid with AI

Witness the transformative power of AI in humanitarian aid at this fireside chat with industry experts. Explore how ACAPS and Mercy Corps leverage cutting-edge AWS AI services to bridge data gaps, predict global crises, and enhance decision-making. Gain insights into AI Method Matcher (AIMM), which helps nontechnical users identify appropriate AI approaches, and SOPHIA, which helps organizations analyze crisis data to more efficiently prioritize response needs. Discover how AI technology is reshaping the future of humanitarian work, supporting resilient communities worldwide. Join this session and unlock the potential of AI for good.

IMP210 | Unleashing compassion: AWS for child protection & data governance

Discover how Compassion International harnesses the power of AWS to safeguard children and revolutionize data governance. From cutting-edge AI/ML-driven content analyses to fuzzy logic for data processing, learn how Compassion International enhances child development and safety. Gain insights into their data strategy overhaul, including migrating to an AWS data lake and implementing a data fabric for improved data accessibility and governance. Join this inspiring session that explores the intersection of technology and compassion.

IMP102 | Unlocking education equity with AI

Learn how AI is powering equitable education around the world in this inspiring session. Discover how AWS AI/ML services enable educators and learners to reclaim agency by automating routine tasks, personalizing learning, and providing data-driven insights. Explore real-world use cases from trailblazers Code.org and Scratch about cutting-edge AI solutions that tailor learning experiences to the unique needs of educators and learners. Reimagine the possibilities and unleash AI's potential to create equitable, personalized learning experiences that empower learners.

IDE203 | Using AI for good: AWS & Vasion creating safe global child sponsorship

Learn how Vasion and AWS are revolutionizing nonprofit donor communication management to empower diverse communities and promote equitable access to education. Vasion's SaaS platform enables organizations to digitize content and automate workflows. With integrated Amazon Textract and Amazon Comprehend for natural language processing and Amazon Recognition for image/video analysis, the platform is a scalable solution for managing donor-to-child communications and supports underrepresented NPOs like B.A.S.I.C.S. International, located in Ghana. AWS provided technical resources, funding, and GTM support to help Vasion develop and deploy the platform, which also automates content review to ensure transparency and safety in donor-child interactions.

Builders' session

IMP202 | Boosting member participation through enhanced digital experiences

Donor engagement and retention are critical objectives for nonprofit organizations. Consistently engaging donors through personalized gratitude communications and emphasizing the impact of donor gifts are effective methods in enhancing donor experience. In this builders’ session, discover how AWS machine learning and generative AI services can help you implement targeted and personalized messages. Leave this session with hands-on experience using AWS AI services that can help you enhance campaign effectiveness, and ultimately, build a stronger connection with your donors. You must bring your laptop to participate.

IMP303-R | Duct tape will only go so far: Making legacy workloads cloud-native [REPEAT]

We all have workloads we’re not proud of: they’re old, often brittle, but they keep the mission running. Nonprofits have limited time and resources, so how do you even begin to upgrade or replace a legacy workload? In this builders’ session, get hands-on to move a legacy mission-based application into a modern cloud-native architecture. Modernize the routing and database layers of an existing monolithic application, and learn how to gradually shift traffic to your new stack. Leave this session knowing how to modernize your legacy workloads with confidence. You must bring your laptop to participate.

IMP303-R1 | Duct tape will only go so far: Making legacy workloads cloud-native [REPEAT]

IMP201 | Maximize mission impact with no-code ML & generative AI solutions

Join this hands-on builders’ session, tailored for nonprofits, to explore no-code machine learning (ML) and generative AI. Ideal for analysts and business leaders, the session covers practical AI solutions for nonprofit needs like donor engagement and program impact measurement. Learn to use Retrieval Augmented Generation for document Q&A and to build chatbots to improve service delivery. Integrate predictive analytics into workflows for financial health monitoring and behavior prediction to anticipate donor trends or program outcomes. Finally, use Amazon SageMaker automated ML to effortlessly build and deploy models that transform data-driven decision-making. Discover how these AI tools can revolutionize your organization’s data-driven strategies. You must bring your laptop to participate.

Chalk talk

IMP205 | IT transformation for nonprofits: Maximize impact with modernization

Nonprofits operate under budgetary and resource constraints that significantly hamper their ability to fulfill their mission. One such hurdle is aligning IT infrastructure with strategic goals and operational needs. IT transformation can deliver higher economic value, agility, and rapid innovation. In this chalk talk, business leaders and technologists learn modernization pathways, tools, and technologies to build a business case for prioritizing IT modernization. Presenters whiteboard use cases to move to cloud native architectures, containers, managed databases, modern DevOps, and open source. Attendees leave having learned repeatable patterns and practices for rapid modernization to lead to positive mission outcomes.

IMP304 | Modern data strategies with generative AI for next-generation missions

Nonprofits face numerous challenges in using their data to differentiate their missions and make informed decisions. In this chalk talk, learn how to build a modern data architecture on AWS. Bring your use cases, such as donor engagement, fundraising intelligence, omnichannel communications, mission branding, research collaboration, or others, to this talk to explore. See a whiteboarding session on architectures using scalable data lakes, purpose-built analytics, unified data governance, and generative AI. Leave this talk with a reference architecture for an end-to-end data strategy and a mental toolkit for becoming a thought leader ushering in a data-driven organizational culture that amplifies mission impact.

IMP305 | Revolutionize mission experiences through targeted digital engagement

Nonprofits face many challenges when engaging with members. Embracing emerging technologies and trends and promoting personalized and targeted messaging can simplify and scale mission outreach and impact. In this chalk talk, see a whiteboarding session on how digital engagement platforms built on state-of-the-art data and personalization ML services, generative AI, and omnichannel technologies can deliver targeted mission experiences. Bring your use cases, such as improving fundraising campaigns, retaining donors, increasing member outreach, enhancing member experiences, and others, to this talk to explore. Leave this talk with reference architectures, tools, technologies, and lessons learned from other nonprofits to help you become a digital thought leader in your organization.

IMP301-R | Your mission and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day [REPEAT]

Even with the best planning, hardware and software can fail, prized employees can leave, and the unexpected can disrupt operations. A disaster is often the time when it’s critical for mission-based workloads (such as credit union banking or fundraising solutions) to be available. How do you deliver on your mission when the unexpected happens? In this chalk talk, learn about ways to minimize workload impacts, including architectural practices, monitoring patterns, and gray failure detection, and discover how to build a culture of continuous resilience. Gain the knowledge necessary to deliver on your mission even when faced with a disaster.

IMP301-R1 | Your mission and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day [REPEAT]

Workshop

IMP302 | Generative AI for nonprofits: Low- to full-code development approaches

Many mission-based organizations struggle to advance generative AI. This interactive workshop is designed to help nonprofit builders develop generative AI applications with approachable low-code to full-code options. It focuses on an external-facing Q&A chatbot intended to improve member experience and reduce the communication burden on frontline staff. Choose to use low-code or full-code alternatives to get started, manage data, and deploy the Q&A chatbot to a custom website. Discover a variety of methods to develop generative AI applications that improve service experience and support internal staff. You must bring your laptop to participate.

IMP306 | Modernize application security and resiliency with AI-assisted DevOps

Nonprofits are faced with increasingly challenging security risks while continuing to push forward their missions. To meet this challenge, nonprofits must modernize their mission-critical workloads and build resiliency into their applications so they can continue to serve their members. In this hands-on workshop, learn the basics of application modernization through container technology, and explore how to use AI-powered AWS services to make your application more secure and resilient at all stages of the development lifecycle. Learn the skills you need to deploy modern, secure, and resilient applications that will help you maximize your mission impact. You must bring your laptop to participate.