AWS Public Sector Blog

DoSomething’s journey with AWS brings efficiency, scalability

This is a guest post written by an Amazon Web Services (AWS) nonprofit customer.

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DoSomething is the leading hub for youth-centered impact and service, boasting 1 million-plus members and a 30-year legacy of mobilizing more than 8 million young people in every US area code and 189 countries. We fuel young people to change the world, specializing in transforming civically curious young people into civically committed leaders. Our actions and programs educate and equip young people, ages 13–25, to create solutions for the issues that matter most to them.

With our unique mix of technology, youth culture, and creative peer-to-peer engagement, DoSomething members have completed more than 94,000 hours of service, and have registered nearly 420,000 young people to vote since 2018, with a 62 percent turnout rate—more than 12 percent higher than the national average. Additionally, we have awarded nearly $2 million in scholarships since 2010 to young people committed to doing good in their communities.

Achieving our new mission has not been without challenges. Our previous digital infrastructure was large and spread out, which made it difficult for us to be agile. This prevented us from helping our members take collective action and curate their own journeys. So, we needed a more streamlined and scalable solution to support our bold strategy to transform civically curious youth into civically committed leaders.

We decided to build a new platform from the ground up, focusing on simplification and scalability. AWS emerged as the optimal solution due to its robust support for nonprofits and comprehensive suite of services.

Re-architecting with AWS

With the support of the AWS IMAGINE Grant, in the fall of 2023 our engineering team re-architected our solution using several AWS services which provide efficiency and scalability:

These enhancements allowed us to consolidate from multiple providers to a single, integrated AWS ecosystem, significantly reducing complexity and operational costs.

Embracing the future with AI and ML

As we prepared to launch the first phase of our new platform in June 2024, we sought to intentionally integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to further our impact. Our forthcoming initiatives include:

  • Generative AI: To analyze members’ aspirations and recommend actionable pathways.
  • ML: To track and support members’ journeys from curiosity to commitment to impact, providing insights into their engagement patterns.

These innovations will be underpinned by an AWS Data Strategy diagnostic to assess our organizational preparedness overall and target where we might need to make enhancements to follow data-use best practices.

Transitioning to AWS has been transformative, offering a centralized, scalable infrastructure that positions us for long-term growth. The support from AWS engineers has been invaluable, particularly in complex decision-making processes such as database selection.

Engage the experts early

For organizations considering a similar transition, we recommend engaging with AWS experts early in the decision-making process. Their support can help navigate challenges and leverage technology to its fullest potential.

DoSomething’s partnership with AWS marks a significant milestone in our journey to equip rising generations to change the world. By taking advantage of advanced technologies, we are better positioned to achieve our mission and inspire the next generation of leaders. Learn more about our community of changemakers at DoSomething.org.