Box teams with cloud vendors to launch coalition supporting crisis response groups

Box is extending itself to do more social good in the world. The company announced on Thursday that it has teamed up with NetHope, Team Rubicon, and other nonprofits to launch ImpactCloud, a coalition of cloud vendors that are offering support to crisis response organizations. Participating in this effort are DocuSign, Okta, Salesforce, Splunk, Tableau, and Twilio.

ImpactCloud aims to provide nonprofits with affordable access to conduct research, acquire, build, deploy, and fund cloud-based solutions into their organizations — built within Box’s platform, of course.

This program was created under the auspices of Box’s nonprofit foundation, which the company set up in 2014 to support social good initiatives. It enables organizations with fewer than 10 members to use Box’s starter package for free. For larger teams, there’s a 50 percent discount off the list prices. Now Box has joined with two nonprofits and six cloud vendors to help organizations leverage technology to respond to global crises.

It isn’t that surprising to see Box teaming up with some of the tech industry’s biggest cloud companies, since some, like DocuSign, Okta, Twilio, and Salesforce have already committed themselves to doing right by nonprofits through the 1% pledge.

Box said that ImpactCloud facilitates communication between companies and relief agencies to ensure that volunteers are able to collaborate with one another efficiently. It also helps multiple agencies share data with each other and supports fundraising efforts.

“The ImpactCloud initiative arms disaster relief groups with the innovative cloud technology they need to operate efficiently, organize volunteers, and reduce response times to disasters,” said Twilio.org head of strategic initiatives Erika Balbuena. “Twilio is proud to be the communications partner in the coalition and looks forward to continual support of this effort.”

Although crisis response is the current goal of ImpactCloud, the mission is likely to evolve as more nonprofits and tech companies participate in the program and fund development innovation.

Updated at 2:31 p.m. Pacific on Thursday: Added Tableau Software as another cloud partner of ImpactCloud.