The Public Interest Registry (PIR), the people behind the .ORG Family of Domains, has announced the winners of the 4th annual .ORG Impact Awards, that honor and celebrate outstanding mission-driven organizations and individuals working to make the world a better place. A record 947 organizations and individuals submitted entries this year from more than 68 countries across seven award categories:

• Community Building

• Quality Education for All

• Environmental Stewardship

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

• Health and Healing

• Hunger and Poverty

• Rising Stars (leaders, under 25, making a difference in their communities)

...and the winners are:

.ORG of the Year – Food Rescue Hero  Donation Amount: $35,000

Purposefully designed to automate the time consuming and variable coordination of food recovery, Food Rescue Hero enables scalable impact on food waste, food insecurity, and climate change. Since 2016, the Food Rescue Hero network of 14 partners in the US and Canada, and a growing community of 34,000 volunteer drivers, have diverted 100 million pounds of perfectly good food from landfill and mitigated 54.3 million pounds of CO2 emissions. With Food Rescue Hero, coordination between food donors, non-profit partners and volunteer drivers is reliable, timely and transparent, and yields greater food waste prevention and shrink real time data transparency and greater overall impact. Food Rescue Hero is also the winner of the 2022 .ORG Impact Award for Hunger and Poverty.

Community Building – Kageno Worldwide  Donation Amount: $10,000

Kageno Worldwide’s mission is to transform impoverished communities into places of hope and opportunity. They believe there is no single solution for communities living in poverty, but that there must be change across multiple sectors, to effectively transform an impoverished community. This is why Kageno works with community leaders to develop programs in four key areas of Education, Healthcare, Income Generation, and Conservation. Their programs operating in Africa address the diversified needs of each community. Kageno is a big picture non-profit, with boots on the ground able to provide the infrastructure, resources, and knowledge needed to develop education initiatives, stronger infrastructures for community health, diversified economies, and a healthier environment. 

Quality Education for All – Hello World  Donation Amount: $10,000

Hello World's paradigm-busting solution to the education deficit tackles the twin injustices of lack of educational resources in remote and last-mile communities and the digital divide. Hello World is helping solve the lack of global education by working with the most marginalized communities to build state-of-the-art, Solar Powered Internet Hubs and bridge the digital divide. Each “Hello Hub” provides free internet access and world-class educational software to over 1,000 people, giving children and adults an education and a voice in the global community. Hello Hubs are built by the community for the community across Uganda and Nepal. Each one provides everything needed to get online and further education. 

Environmental Stewardship – TIP Sessions  Donation Amount: $10,000

TIP Sessions focuses on a combination of gender-sensitive response​ to climate change, and technological intervention with lingual and regional context to achieve climate and gender justice. They achieve this through a three-pronged approach of community-led climate action, culture for climate programs and economic empowerment of rural women. Their programs are action-driven and give local communities—particularly, women and youth—the platform and voice to impact their world. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – Pro Mujer  Donation Amount: $10,000

Pro Mujer has been working to advance gender equality in Latin America for over 32 years. It provides underserved women with financial inclusion, skilling opportunities and health services in order for them to reach their full potential, become agents of change and improve their living conditions.

Health and Healing – Limbitless Solutions  Donation Amount: $10,000

Limbitless Solutions Inc. (LSI) is a University of Central Florida-based, non-profit dedicated to empowering individuals by creating access for children—and soon adult first responders and veterans—to personalized, high-functioning and expressive prosthetic arms without financial burden, using technology and interdisciplinary efforts to address accessibility issues to increase access and inclusion. They work to empower confidence and increase accessibility in the limb difference community through art-infused bionics and combine engineering and art to promote access and engagement in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) education for a more inclusive future.

Hunger and Poverty – Food Rescue Hero  Donation Amount: $10,000

In addition to receiving the awards for .ORG of the Year, Food Rescue Hero is also the winner in the Hunger and Poverty category. Food Rescue Hero is able to use their highly functional app to reduce waste and deliver food to hungry people in 16 cities involved in their network. They have recovered over 122 million pounds of food, equating to nearly 100 million meals. This also means 66.2 million pounds of carbon emissions have been mitigated through their work.

Rising Star – Mathias Charles Yabe, AkoFresh  Donation Amount: $10,000

AkoFresh is a green Agritech organization that is offering sustainable agricultural services leveraging climate smart solutions for improved food security and ensuring ecosystem resilience in local communities. The innovation for AkoFresh is a mobile solar powered cold storage preservation technology that extends shelf life of  perishable crops from the usual 5-day period to 21 days to reduce post-harvest losses and ensure improved livelihood of smallholder farmers. Projects implemented by AkoFresh prioritize the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions especially from food waste, conserving environmental resources, alleviating poverty in small-holders' farming communities by boosting the local economy, and creating decent employment opportunities for women and the youth.

Congratulations to the award winners and a thank you for all that you do!

(Posted November 15, 2022)  

*****