Our vision was to spin off Panic Button from Amnesty International, allowing us to explore a wider range of revenue models that would permit the app to scale, evolve and localize to cater to a greater number of countries and languages over time. We were convinced that once up and running, we would be able to demonstrate the concrete need for Panic Button, thereby attracting further long-term funding and permitting us to hire a project team. If there is one theme of the last few years, it’s that there is still no functioning revenue model for funding sustainable and scalable technology in the social sector. This grant funded the beta version of the app and a global pilot with more than 100 HRDs in Central America, East Africa and South-East Asia. We were able to build off this a year later with £100,000 from Google as runners-up in the Global Impact Awards. With this, the organization hired a part-time post on tech and human rights, funded an open innovation challenge with OpenIDEO and built a first version of the Panic Button app. In 2012, the Ford Foundation provided Amnesty International with a grant of $125,000 to explore how we could use technology more directly in our work. However, if there is one theme of the last few years, it’s that there is still no functioning revenue model for funding sustainable and scalable technology in the social sector. When we started this project in 2012, there was a lot of excitement about “tech 4 good.” Lots of organizations in the social change sector were seeking ways to innovate, and the sector was awash with small grants for technology projects. The challenges we faced are interlinked, and by no means specific merely to us. We believe that diving into the challenges we faced, and sharing them with our communities is key to building similar – and better – tools in the future. Making the decision to cease support for the Panic Button app was not an easy one, but it was also not an empty one. This post is by Tanya O’Carroll, Adviser Tech and Human Rights, Amnesty International Danna Ingleton, Adviser, Human Rights Defenders and Jun Matsushita, Founder and CEO, iilab.
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