The objective of the prize is to popularize and support good practices of applying digital tools and new media in NGOs activities. The prize is in form of a PLN 40,000 grant for statutory operations and promotion in NGOs community all over Poland.
“This year, the Prize Committee decided to distinguish an organization which not only systematically and consistently implements more and more technological solutions to its operational, fundraising, and information activities but also applies opportunities offered by ICT to its work with beneficiaries, who are a very special group, that is seniors,” Polish-American Freedom Foundation Program Director and the Prize Committee Chairman Radosław Jasiński said.
About the Winner
The history of international activities of Little Brothers of the Poor goes back to 1939 but it fully developed 7 years later, already after WWII. The idea of the Association is to get young people involved in helping the poorest – seniors, singles living on their own. The Association of Little Brothers of the Poor has been operating in Poland since 2002. Nowadays it is present in Warszawa, Poznań, Lublin, Wrocław, Kraków, Łódź, Pruszków, Świdnik, Gnieźno, Tarnów and Legionowo.
The Association runs the PRESENCE program, that is an organized volunteering initiative consisting in regular visits by the volunteers to the living alone seniors under the care of the Association. These visits allow to build relationship between the volunteer and the lonely senior. In implementation of that program the Association uses modern technologies and digital tools, especially the following:
Strefa mbU Application – an innovative tool for communicating on activities of the Association’s volunteers. It allows the volunteers and coordinators of the Association to stay in touch when doing their everyday work. The application was created to meet the volunteers’ and coordinators’ needs to find an easy way of reporting on the volunteers’ activities.
Chatbot on Facebook Messenger – totally automated, it answers questions on activities of the Association. This way FAQs are answered 24/7 , as is given information on currently run actions, rules of volunteering, places where the Association operates and on seasonal campaigns.
CiviCRM – CRM data base that collects contact data of all people interested in the Association, donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries. Fully personalized as regards its functions, it’s a tool that complemented with the contact forms module makes distant cooperation more effective and improves efficiency of cooperation of the Association branches.
Dysk wspólny mbU (shared disc) – an economic IT solution allowing secure storage of the Association’s documents in archives and ensuring current documents availability for entitled users in the Association.
Sector 3.0 Prize has been awarded to Polish NGOs that use ICT in innovative ways for their operations and for achieving their statutory goals for ten years. The former winners of the Prize were the following: Visible Foundation (2013), Itaka Foundation (2014), Foundation Katarynka (2015), Foundation TUS (2016), We Give Children Strength Foundation (2017), Stowarzyszenie Inicjatyw Możliwych Rzeczjasna (2018), Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska (2019), Virtual Dream Foundation (2020), Demagog Association (2021), Homo Faber Association(2022).
The Prize Committee is composed of: Radosław Jasiński – Chairman (Polish-American Freedom Foundation), Urszula Krasnodębska-Maciuła (ngo.pl/Stowarzyszenie Klon-Jawor), Michał Jaworski (Microsoft), Jacek Królikowski (Information Society Development Foundation) and Dr. Konrad Ciesiołkiewicz (Orange).
The “Sector 3.0” program is an undertaking of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation managed by the Information Society Development Foundation.
