World Vision Canada reimagines transparency and accountability with a Microsoft data ecosystem

When M. was just 13, he joined a militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The boy became a bodyguard to the group’s commander, witnessed killings, survived a gunshot wound, and lived through imprisonment by a rival militia. He later found Rebound, a program that provides mental health support, vocational training, and other services to former child soldiers and survivors of sexual abuse. Now 17, M. hopes to use the carpentry skills he gained there to help other children from his home village. “I don’t want to repeat the same life,” he says.

Rebound is just one of hundreds of programs run by World Vision Canada across the globe. The nonprofit advances the well-being of children through emergency relief, development support, and advocacy, especially in the world’s most fragile areas, including the DRC. Through close partnerships with children, their families, and their communities, World Vision delivers sustainable, systemic change to address the root causes of poverty and injustice. 

In addition to this vital work, World Vision aims to change how the nonprofit sector operates. “For decades, the charity world has operated with the outlook of, ‘Just trust us with your money.’ But we are moving into an era of accountability, where we must transparently and accurately demonstrate to donors the proven impact for those we serve,” says Josh Folkema, Vice President of Product at World Vision Canada. 

Yet hard-to-access data from hundreds of program areas, more than 90 countries, and multiple years, siloed in spreadsheets and documents created piecemeal by different teams, prevented a unified portrayal of the nonprofit’s on-the-ground impact. “Our partnership with Microsoft and its technology allows us to better manage our infrastructure and data, which is instrumental to driving collaboration and providing a holistic picture of our impact,” Folkema adds.

World Vision created a centralized data management system that relies on Microsoft Power Platform, Dynamics 365, and Azure AI. Called Real Impact^TM 360, the technological ecosystem compiles, processes, analyzes, and shares cohesive data for the entire organization. With this unified source of evidence-based insights, World Vision is reimagining transparency and accountability in the nonprofit sector. 

Managing mountains of data

In just over a decade, World Vision has more than doubled its rating from the independent evaluator Charity Intelligence Canada, which aims to provide donors with the information they need to make giving decisions. Over the course of a decade, World Vision bumped its rating from 87 to 207, compared to the average of 111. “Its score was so high that it broke our back end. Until World Vision, we had never seen a charity score above a 200,” says Kate Bahen, Managing Director at Charity Intelligence Canada. “World Vision’s data quality and its level of accountability surpass any standard I’ve ever seen.” 

That improvement stems in part from thorough reporting, made possible by Real Impact^TM 360. When building the data management pipeline, World Vision started with the platform to house and process all program data—oceans of information flowing from more than 700 projects annually. World Vision leveraged Microsoft Power Platform to avoid bottlenecks around technical expertise. 

“This low-code, no-code solution enabled our tech-savvy team to build systems in the most effective and efficient way possible,” says Selby Mong, Chief Information Officer at World Vision Canada. 

World Vision staff, who were already familiar with the Microsoft suite of technology from the nonprofit’s use of Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, approached the project with a learning mindset. “Power Platform’s low-code infrastructure makes it easy to do things quickly and prove a concept,” explains Monique Strassburger, Director of Impact Product at World Vision Canada. 

The journey included some bumps. For example, the team first built a canvas app within Power Apps before realizing a model-driven app better suited project specs. Ultimately, the team built a robust, customizable platform to seamlessly house and organize vast amounts of disparate data.

The platform currently processes and connects information gathered in the field. Power Apps connects to World Vision’s external data warehouse to seamlessly access needed information stored there, without the time and compute power to move all that data into Microsoft Dataverse.   

The Microsoft Power Platform-based data management system enables the up- and downstream pieces of Real Impact^TM 360, which perform collection, analysis, and external communication functions within the data management pipeline. “It’s at the heart of the entire ecosystem,” Strassburger says.

Measuring impact worldwide

World Vision helps children and their families overcome poverty via diverse programmatic areas, from education and health to food and creating sustainable economies. The nonprofit has altered how it reports on this work, shifting from only detailing activities (building a well) to also include human-centered impact (change in waterborne illness diagnoses). Microsoft-based platforms within the Real Impact™ 360 ecosystem facilitate this lens, leading to reporting that reflects the nonprofit’s true value. 

Within the analytics section of Real Impact™ 360, a system built on Azure infrastructure enables World Vision to connect the dots between activities, outputs, and outcomes. As part of a broader ecosystem that manages indicator data, Azure Machine Learning powered the first version of the automated system that now also supports deep learning scripts. This system is used to generate deeper insights and clearly communicate program participation (such as the number of nutrition packets distributed) as well as outcomes (number of malnourishment cases). It also enables World Vision to correctly measure participants, avoiding double-counting people who engage with a project in multiple ways—say, by receiving food assistance as well as farming training. Building on this foundation, the charity now aims to further enhance the system by leveraging new AI advancements.

These indicators plug into Python scripts run in the data warehouse, as well as offline calculations, to measure real-life outcomes. That way, World Vision can demonstrate impact in terms such as increased life expectancy. This throughline between inputs and outcomes empowers individuals to choose the best recipient of their financial support, based on nonprofits’ actual performance. 

Personalizing reporting for deeper trust

Most nonprofits, including World Vision, publish an annual report that details the previous year’s finances, efforts, and outcomes. World Vision is taking this practice a step further by providing individual donors with a personalized accounting of how the organization used their financial support. “We owe donors a receipt, essentially. We should tell them what their hard-earned money was spent on,” Mong says. While World Vision is still finalizing aspects of this objective, it has built the underlying system that will serve supporters individualized content and reporting. 

To support this goal, World Vision is integrating program data, media, and stories—elements that have traditionally lived in separate systems—into a unified, AI-powered experience. Built on its Microsoft Power Platform-based data system and Azure-enabled analytics pipeline, a new Azure AI service now automatically connects project results with related visuals and narratives stored in the external data asset management system. This replaces the previously time-consuming manual process, greatly improving efficiency and allowing content teams to deliver timely, personalized reporting. The result is a richer experience for donors—one that combines precise data and inspiring storytelling. 

The next stage of the personalization journey will be tying this content to World Vision’s donor platform. A solution that partly relies on Dynamics 365 Customer Service will connect each donor’s individual giving to the program they fund. It will also articulate the personal “return on investment” in terms of tangible impacts, such as increased life expectancy or improved literacy rates. Those preferences will connect to tags in the content and communication system, so donors are shown stories related to their areas of interest and funding. 

What’s more, World Vision is using this system to communicate the precise use of each donor’s donation—such as the number of people reached through a specific program in a particular country. To enable an even deeper level of impact information sharing, World Vision is now building the infrastructure that will allow it to pinpoint exactly what each donor’s money supported. For example, if an individual donates $50 for food distribution, this system will track how much food that gift bought and where it was distributed. Strassburger compares it to tracking a shipment when you shop online. “It’s like documenting where your donation is and when it is received, which takes personalization and transparency to the next level,” she explains.   

Mong hopes these practices set an accountability benchmark for other nonprofits, too. He says, “Donors are investing in changing the world. We feel we owe them an accounting of the good that was created out of that donation.”