GiveInternet.org

More than four billion people (more than 40% of the population) around the world do not have Internet access. This includes a total of 1.1 billion students, 67% of whom are girls. Importantly, only 17% of the world lives in an area without Internet coverage, making lack of affordability the main barrier to access.

The digital divide reflects and widens socioeconomic gaps. People from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and minority groups are usually less likely to have Internet access or be able to use the web efficiently. Men remain 21% more likely to be online than women, rising to 52% in the world’s least developed countries. 

Today we live in a knowledge economy where Internet use has become a key factor in determining whether people succeed. The economic and social development of nations (especially developing countries) depends on how well they acquire, transmit and apply the available information. When we fail to connect these populations, we widen the existing inequalities and fail to benefit from their collective knowledge, talent and contributions to economic prosperity.

Access to the Internet provides benefits and opportunities to both individuals (academic outcomes, including outcomes at standardized test scores, cognitive skills, productivity, income, even health outcomes and mortality, etc.) and entire countries ( productivity, unemployment, economic growth, cultural integration, etc.). 

GiveInternet.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a goal to allow individuals to sponsor the Internet fees and computers for some of the poorest families with ease and transparency.

It takes as little as $1 and a few clicks to join GiveInternet.org. Donors can choose which country to support and how much funds to allocate to the administrative costs of the GiveInternet.org team. The website hosts all financial documents and costs, the story of every student and every project. Most importantly, each donor receives monthly updates with transparency reports, footage from the field and achievement stories of the students. 

Currently, GiveInternet.org serves disadvantaged students from Uganda, Bangaldesh and Georgia. 

In Uganda, GiveInternet.org donors can bring connectivity and devices to 16-21-year-old teacher trainees who hope to become primary school teachers after two years of training. During the COVID lockdown, as our partner tried to engage the teachers through online learning platforms and implement ICT learning, they discovered that none of the students owned computers and only 25% owned smartphones.

In Bangladesh, the project serves underprivileged youth who have been rescued from the streets of Bangladesh and who are housed in a permanent home for homeless and orphaned children.

In Georgia, we have brought connectivity to over 1700 students who receive financial aid from the government and who live in rural areas and settlements for Internally Displaced persons. 

We ourselves come from a developing country, witnessing civil war and collapse of the education system, access to the internet gave us a chance for a better life. To give this opportunity to others, we have been working on educational projects since 2015.

After years of localizing and implementing free educational platforms like Khan Academy and Code.org, the team realized that the students who lacked connectivity needed such free resources the most. In 2017, we created a Georgian version of the GiveInternet.org platform - Charte.ge. Since 2017, the team brought more than 2700 students online, supporting their laptop and Internet fees, resources, mentorship and training sessions. In a country lacking a culture of philanthropy, the platform’s success raised questions about the need for an international platform with the same goal. 

To scale in the US and beyond, our team needs to tap into new philanthropy markets through online marketing and peer-to-peer fundraising. This requires a larger network of supporters, advice from similar organizations, raising our profile and additional funding for product iteration, growth and PR. 

Thanks to Solve, our team will gain:

• Invaluable feedback and mentorship that will help our product iteration and marketing strategy;
• Additional funding for product iteration, expansion and legal fees;
• Insight into how similar organizations work;
• The chance to expand our international network and raise our profile which will benefit our future fundraising efforts.

GiveInternet.org is the only fundraising platform that aims to expand Internet access to the poorest communities in the developing world. 

Our model ensures that supporting connectivity through monthly online donations is simple, personalized and transparent. Each donor, partner, cost and the story of each student is documented on the website. It's a subscribtion based donation model (which totally makes sense for donors since internet costs are covered on a monthly basis). We hold ourselves accountable to the donors by sending them monthly transparency reports with detailed costs, student achievements and the impact of the project. The cause and the model resonates with next generation of donors, Millenials and Generation Z.

For the next year, we plan to fully connect our students in Bangladesh and Uganda. For the next five years, we plan to add and serve over a dozen new projects from around the globe. 

We measure the number of new and retained donors and the number of students connected.