Research backed innovations

At Azana, we believe humanitarian aid systems could use some innovation. We are disrupting the donation industry by amplifying the needs of small nonprofits through a digital bridge that connects nonprofits to companies.

Small and medium-sized nonprofits, grassroots organizations, and community leaders are best positioned to serve their communities, including distributing aid and product donations. Because they are on the ground working closely with communities in need, grassroots leaders understand exactly what supplies are needed. The problem is that these small groups often lack the connections, resources, and paid staff of larger NGOs.

We dove into conversations with experts in the “Helping Industry,” including nonprofit founders, humanitarian aid workers, social workers in refugee camps, supply chain managers with the United Nations, supply chain scholars, government workers, those with lived experiences accepting aid, and companies wishing to donate products.

During our research, we found that many small nonprofits and grassroots organizations lacked the connections needed to amplify their communities' needs. In contrast, every time news and social media highlighted a new “disaster,” communities were flooded with unnecessary and even unusable donations from well-intentioned companies. The phenomenon of nonprofits receiving useless donations is so common that the oversupply of un-needed donations is often referred to as “the second disaster” in these spaces. Up to 60% of humanitarian product donations cannot be used and end up in landfills.