Transforming nonprofit impact: Highlights from the AWS Imagine Conferences in London and Sydney

Nonprofits of all sizes and mission areas around the world are creating high-value, tech-enabled solutions that disrupt traditional systems. And on June 24, 2025, we had the privilege of hosting parallel AWS Imagine for Nonprofits conferences in London and Sydney to celebrate their innovative work. We may have been separated by 10,000 miles, but the energy and shared sense of purpose among nonprofit leaders were palpable in both locations. In this post, we explore some of the stories shared by these innovators, which illustrate the transformative power of cloud technology when applied thoughtfully to address significant challenges and advance mission delivery.

Technology meets mission

Ray Cross, director of ICT, and Tom Saunders, lead software developer, from the Science Museum Group showcased an innovative project in London. The initiative utilizes Amazon Transcribe to make oral histories from Britain’s railway projects more accessible to researchers and citizens. By using a custom language model and specialized railway vocabulary, they transformed 240 hours of recordings into searchable, data-rich transcripts. The museum group’s collaboration with AWS represents a significant leap forward in making oral histories accessible and useful. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, they’re unlocking voices from the past and ensuring that these valuable historical accounts can inform, educate, and inspire future generations.

Chris White, CEO, and Sean Doran, CTO, from Vision Ireland then joined me onstage to discuss their vision assistant tool that uses generative AI to provide detailed image descriptions for the visually impaired. They described how cloud technology is like “rocket fuel” for mission impact, enabling their ability to scale to support quality of life for their beneficiaries worldwide.

The Power of Partnership panel on nonprofit engagement in London featured Peter Ward (Natural History Museum), Rachael Conroy (Movember), Lisa Felton (Vodafone Foundation), Corin Ashwell (Comic Relief), and Eugenie Teasley (Amazon Retail).

At the Sydney event, Louise Stigwood, managing director of the Australia and New Zealand public sector at AWS, hosted attendees alongside two keynote speakers. David Spriggs, CEO of Infoxchange, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering other nonprofits with technology solutions, presented insights into AI adoption in the nonprofit sector. He explained how the conservation nonprofit Earth Genome uses its Earth Index tool to combine satellite imagery, AI, and user-friendly interfaces, allowing them to detect illegal activities like drug trafficking and logging in indigenous territories and protected conservation areas within days instead of months. This intelligence empowers journalists, indigenous peoples, and local groups to quickly expose and combat illicit activities.

While Infoxchange research reveals that nonprofits widely recognize AI’s potential for social impact, many organizations lack the necessary resources for implementation. This gap prompted the creation of Infoxchange’s Asia-Pacific AI Nonprofit Learning Community, designed to build capacity across the sector.

Also in Sydney, Marcus Nance, director of community platforms at Movember, shared how the men’s health charity evolved from operating in two countries to becoming a global movement across 21 nations, engaging seven million supporters worldwide. Nance attributed their transformational impact to the organization’s commitment to cloud-enabled innovation and strategic partnerships.

These presentations powerfully illustrated both the technological challenges facing nonprofits and the remarkable outcomes possible when organizations successfully embrace innovation and collaboration.

Sharon Paulson (ECH – Independent Aged Care) and Damien Coyne (BJSS) answer questions during the Q&A of the ‘Creating Dynamic, Person-Centered Care Plans with GenAI’ session in Sydney.

Nonprofits are applying generative AI across diverse mission areas

A key theme at both conferences was the desire to explore generative AI as a tool to enhance mission delivery. At the London event, Vineet Bhalla, CTO of Cancer Research UK (CRUK) explained how the organization’s ongoing digital transformation journey was designed to support the charity in its mission to create a world free from cancer. Drawing from his extensive career in the commercial sector before transitioning to nonprofit leadership, Bhalla emphasized the importance of establishing a strong data foundation. By focusing on the data foundation, CRUK is building a unified data platform for donor information, resulting in an increase in fundraising revenue, a reduction in staff time spent on repetitive tasks, and improved supporter engagement through real-time consent management.

Bhalla’s advice on generative AI was pragmatic: embrace the journey. He encouraged nonprofit organizations to adopt a learning-oriented approach, leveraging trusted tech expert advisors like AWS for guidance.

In Sydney, Sharon Paulson, head of digital workplace services at ECH, a South Australian retirement living and in-home care services provider, and Damien Coyne, regional director of BJSS, technology implementation partner for ECH, told the audience how they are using generative AI to improve care for older people. Their Care Plan Generation System, built on Amazon Bedrock and Claude AI, has saved thousands of staff hours while maintaining high standards of care.

Back in London, Matt Wilson of the British Council shared how the council is using AI to support its mission to build connections and trust between the UK and countries worldwide through the English language. By focusing on productive skills – speaking and writing – the British Council has developed a new form of scenario-based teaching and assessment with the potential to make the English language more accessible to all. The organization’s AI tooling allows them to have a real focus on accuracy, consistency, bias mitigation, and interpretability, ensuring the British Council can successfully deliver while maintaining fairness and human oversight. This approach demonstrates how large-scale nonprofits can effectively harness AI while staying true to their mission.

Scaling digital services

Another issue at the forefront of every nonprofit leader’s mind was using digital tools to scale the delivery of mission services. Orygen’s digital mental health service MOST demonstrated how cloud technology is transforming youth mental health care delivery in Australia. Shane Cross shared how MOST leveraged AWS services to address the rising mental health crisis among young Australians, where disorder rates increased from 24 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2020-21. The implementation has enabled MOST to scale from two team members in 2010 to over 120 in 2025, now serving more than 18,000 young people across over 380 clinics in five Australian territories. The platform has achieved remarkable results, including a 44 percent improvement in anxiety and depression among users, a 93 percent recommendation rate, and 78 percent positive experience ratings, while maintaining 68 percent safety satisfaction rates. This successful digital transformation showcases how AWS infrastructure can enable nonprofit healthcare organizations to securely manage clinical records, scale nationally, and leverage data analytics for improved mental health outcomes.

Next steps for nonprofits

At AWS, we are dedicated to creating spaces where nonprofit leaders can engage with experts, network, and learn from each other about how to leverage technology to drive innovation in the sector—uncovering ways to reach more people, enact more change, and make the most of our precious resources. I encourage you to dive deep into more AWS resources for nonprofits, from grants and credits, to open data access and strategy, cloud training, and more.

I hope to see you at an Imagine for Nonprofits event in the future. In the meantime, explore our on-demand library of sessions from our flagship event earlier this year in Washington, DC or start a conversation with our dedicated teams today.