“... so how would we work with Ushahidi?”

How to Work with Us

I’m the Director of Business Development and Partnerships at Ushahidi and I spend a lot of time talking with potential partners. Some of the organizations I talk to may have heard our name before, or have heard about some of our major projects related to conflict and crisis, disaster response, elections, human rights, gender, the environment, civil society, and global health, in places like Kenya, Haiti, Nepal, and elsewhere.

But the question I get most often is, “... so how would we work with Ushahidi?” I’d love to try to answer that question in one clear and concise blog post. Fingers crossed!

Just to clear up any confusion... Ushahidi is a nonprofit, open source, software as a service (SaaS) organization, but we operate as a social enterprise. That’s a mouthful. So what does this mean?

We are both grant funded and revenue generating.

We build a replicable, scalable, and sustainable software platform called Ushahidi. (And a new emergency management check-in product called TenFour).

And finally, we sell hosted and maintained deployments of the platform to both grassroots organizations and international development and humanitarian agencies, but also make the code base to the Ushahidi platform available open source.

More specifically, here’s how we can engage with you depending upon the type of your organization.

Grassroots Organization:

We provide a self service option which allows you to demo or purchase a hosted deployment of the Ushahidi platform on a cost effective monthly basis. We also offer free self service plans to small grassroots organizations that have yearly operating budgets of less than $250k.

International Development, Humanitarian, University or Research Organization:

We can work with you through an Enterprise Partnership. We’ll still provide you with the Ushahidi platform as a service, but can also offer a catalogue of technical services: we can assist with the technical set-up, survey design, a variety of targeted trainings, metrics and analysis, programmatic management, ongoing technical support, and custom feature development. We want you to be able to focus on your project goals and impact and let us stress about the technology.

Foundation or Potential Funder:

We have loads of ideas for how to improve the Ushahidi platform - so let’s talk! From incorporating machine learning, automation, and new data sources, to making the platform more secure in high-risk situations and reaching last-mile users - we’re constantly working to improve our core services and functionality. Quick plug… we’re also always seeking core funding for sustainability from organizations who believe in our mission and impact.

Hopefully this helps to answer that question, “... so how would we work with Ushahidi?”

No matter who you are or where you work - if you’re interested in better collecting data from your stakeholders and responding to their needs, we can help you do just that.

Reach out to connect!