Announcing our 2022 Box Impact Fund Grantees

Today is a very special day at Box – it’s Global Impact Day, our annual company-wide day of service where Boxers come together across the globe to give back in their local and global communities, and engage with causes they are passionate about. We are humbled by the opportunity to work alongside inspiring nonprofits today and learn more about their critical work.

Boxers will be volunteering by planting in a preserve with The Nature Conservancy, writing letters welcoming refugees with the International Rescue Committee, creating gift kits designed by CASA organizations for foster youth, as well as engaging with other organizations including Hands on Tokyo, Hackney City Farm, Jardin du Piqueur, Girls.js and many more.

Our theme for the day this year is #ImpactFromAnywhere. This means that regardless of a Boxer’s location in the world--whether they work from the office or remotely, we have a volunteer activity for them to join.

This year, we are also incredibly excited to announce our 2nd cohort of Box Impact Fund grantees on Global Impact Day! We launched the Box Impact Fund last year, and were thrilled to select four grantees doing critical work in child welfare and crisis response. This year, we’ve expanded the Fund to six grants of $25,000, and added the area of environment. Once again, we had an incredible response, with hundreds of applications from over 50 countries, and from organizations ranging from fully volunteer-led orgs to large NGOs. The projects were inspiring and profound to read through.

Our 2022 grantees include organizations doing innovative work to protect our planet, keep children safe and supported, and connect refugees with critical services during times of transition. These projects will impact individuals and communities around the globe and we’re excited to see the impact they will create.

Congratulations to our 2022 Box Impact Fund grantees:

Child Welfare

ChildFund Mexico connects children, adolescents, and youth in Mexico, living in situations of deprivation, exclusion, and vulnerability, with everything they need to grow up safe, healthy, and educated.

"We will use this grant to improve the communication experience between our sponsors and their sponsored children. It will evolve our current postal letter system into the digital world. By developing a multi-device application, we will provide them with a virtual space to exchange messages (text and video), drawings, photographs, and postcards. This will strengthen their bonding. Children will share their magical moments in a more impactful way. For us, it will represent a tremendous time saving, which we will reinvest in innovating the management and cultivation of our sponsors, and designing the scaling of our operation.” -Alejandro Guerrero, Sponsorship Manager

ITWILL BE seeks innovation and technology as a solution to major social challenges at a global level.

“The Box Impact Fund grant will allow us to improve Child PPa technology and be able to scale after the pilot that we already did. In addition, we will train the social workers involved in the project in digital skills to guarantee success in the implementation. ChildPPa is a very innovative project. For the first time in humanitarian aid, we use palm vein recognition which has been proved much more accurate in children. This grant assures us that we can continue working with the aim of find an effective solution to give digital identity to minors at risk and allows us to be a solid use case to share with other NGOs that may replicate the project in the future.”  -Arancha Martínez, IT WILL BE Founder and President

Crisis Response

HERA Digital Health helps refugees access healthcare in their locality by a simple, open sourced mobile platform, regardless of where they are in the world.

“As a digital health organization, growth of our technical capacity directly influences our potential to reach more refugees and ensure they have access to healthcare. Digital transformation grant helps us achieve just that by increasing our in house tech talent.” -Aral Surmeli, MD MPH, Founder and Chief Executive Officer HERA

Mobile Pathways is the bridge connecting immigrants to advocates and services via trusted mobile technology. ‍ The organization partners with immigration-based nonprofits and attorneys to reach the vast and diverse population of marginalized immigrants.

"Everyone has the right to choose their own path and future. Being a global leader, the U.S. has the obligation to get to know those who are knocking on its door, and adjudicate their request in an appropriate and timely manner.  Thanks to Box.org, Mobile Pathways will continue to digitally transform immigration advocates to scale their reach and ensure every immigrant can get fair access to justice," - Poesy Chen, Innovation Director, Mobile Pathways

Environment

Wastezon provides a digital solution that powers manufacturers and consumers with real-time mineralogical traceability data to inform effective material reuse, repurposing and recycling.

“The Box Impact Fun will catalyze our user base growth while also simultaneously allowing us to scale our climate impact. This is a great boost to our vision of championing a circular and climate-resilient economy in Africa.” -Ghislain Irakoze, CEO at Wastezon

Replate is a technology-driven nonprofit that aims to reduce food waste and counter climate change in California and beyond. The platform enables businesses to donate surplus meals to nonprofits serving communities experiencing food insecurity, and provides tools designed for food waste prevention through source reduction.

“This grant will allow us to further our work in the community by enhancing our food waste reduction tools, which aim to create behavioral change in how businesses address food surplus. During 2022, we revolutionized our approach to food recovery by building a source reduction tool that measures and tracks trends in businesses’ food surplus. These insights can be used to inform practices that reduce food waste over time. Our goal is to expand upon this product in order to further measure, track, and evaluate its success, and increase our impact on the environment. -Maen Mahfoud, Founder & CEO, Replate

We are thrilled to play a small part in the journey of these organizations working to solve challenging issues.  Their daily focus to empower and enable individuals and communities around the world is truly inspiring.