Twilio.org Celebrates 5-Year Anniversary, Reaches Goal of Powering 1 Billion Messages For Good

Twilio’s social impact arm, Twilio.org, is celebrating its 5-year anniversary and has announced it has reached its goal of powering 1 billion messages for good five years early, according to a company press release. In light of that, Twilio.org has set a new 10-year goal—to have social impact organizations worldwide use the platform to help 1 billion people every single year.

Twilio.org Impact Fund makes investments in social enterprises that use innovative communication technologies to help achieve their missions and demonstrate the potential to scale further technology, the release said. Last year was the first year that the organization launched its Impact Fund and, since then, it has award over $1 million in grants.

“The Twilio.org Impact Fund also makes investments in social enterprises ranging from $50,000 to $250,000, and we focus on funding on Seed or Series A funding rounds. Twilio.org has partnered with impact venture firms including Omidyar Network, Kapor Capital, Village Capital and Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, as well as Fast Forward Accelerator and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” — Erin Reilly, VP of Social Impact and General Manager of Twilio.org

In addition to recent investments in Cell-Ed, Edovo and Hustle, Twilio.org also is also making a $100,000 impact investment in Kinvolved, an organization using technology to help aid its mission of boosting student attendance through its KiNVO mobile app, and is awarding grants to Democracy Works and DoSomething.org.

By the end of 2018, Twilio.org and its donor-advised fund, Tides Center, intend to award up to $1 million to nonprofits.

For organizations interested in submitting an application, full details are available on Twilio.org.