World Refugees School is a US-based non-profit that offers the world’s first and only formally accredited K-12 education program for the global Refugee Community. To date, this .ORG educates more than 6,000 refugee children in one of the world’s most dangerous, politically complex regions in the world. In 2020, they expect to expand that reach to more than 100,000 children in the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region.

The winner for the 2019 .ORG Impact Awards Outstanding Volunteer goes to Zehra Abbas, co-founder and President of Studio.89, who created a space for grassroots initiatives to thrive, works tirelessly to build partnerships with over 80 organizations, and manages a network of over 300 volunteers to impact over 45,000 lives in the Toronto area. Through numerous events and programs, this individual helps refugees, under served youth, domestic violence survivors and those with disabilities.

With its “Empowering Children Through Skateboarding and Education” campaign, Skateistan leveraged a blog article series called “Skater Girls: Dreaming Big”, a video that highlighted the first Afghan girl to land a kickflip, and multiple social channels to generate more than 7,500 likes, an additional 1,000 Instagram followers, and a 52% increase in donations on International Women’s Day.

Teach for America’s winning campaign, “Teach for America Alumni and Staff Challenge,” featured a donation match that doubled the impact of alumni donations, as well as an internal awards program that rewarded regional development teams for meeting and exceeding specific participation goals. The campaign was wildly successful, increasing alumni participation by 13% and generating $2.5 million in funds.

This year’s award winner for Best Use of Partnerships/Celebrity Endorsements partnered with PayPal to unlock funding for global entrepreneurs who otherwise wouldn’t have access to affordable capital through an innovative cause-marketing campaign called “The Big Impact of Small Loans” that ran through October 2018. The campaign incorporated a credit offer to customers and reached more than 60 million PayPal customers globally.

The 2019 .ORG Impact Award for the category .ORG Community Group of the Year goes to Community Focus Group. Based in Kenya, Community Focus Group helps the community raise funds for mentoring programs that help teenage mothers. The organization also develops programs that assist with school fees for HIV Orphans and other vulnerable children in the Kayole community in Nairobi, Kenya.

City Mission truly showcased how they used #GivingTuesday  to power their mission forward. This .ORG has provided care and recovery services to the homeless in Cleveland and aims to help restore those in need back to independent living. This .ORG – through an impressive #GivingTuesdayCampaign – successfully funded Laura’s Home, a refuge for women and children.

Mayhew’s award-winning social media campaign, Home is Where Their Dog Is, generated awareness regarding the important part dogs play in the lives of those who are homeless. By sharing real-life stories from some of their clients, this .ORG was able to present the public with new information showing the bonds that dogs have with their humans, increase the brand’s social reach, push past the KPI goals that were set, and drive more people in the community that they serve to have more compassion for these loving (& so cute!) animals.

This award-winning leader – Diane Diamantis from Kelsey B Diamantis TS Scholarship Family Foundation/ Dollars for Tic Scholars – displayed a relentless commitment to encouraging students with Tourette’s Syndrome to attend college, providing these hopeful scholars with opportunities to pursue their futures and transform their lives.

The winner of this year’s Innovator Award goes to Alicia Weston from Bags of Taste, a community-based not-for-profit .ORG that helps disadvantaged people climb out of food poverty. Under Alicia’s direction, the .ORG implemented an innovative 4-stage behavior change program designed to help people cook healthy, homemade food from scratch while on a budget.

The winner of the Outstanding Website Redesign noticed the success of their redesign when they realized there was a “dramatic decrease in the number of people who use our contact form simply to ask us for help finding something on our site.” Post launch of the new website, the team was able to focus more on increasing resources and outreach to assist the community.