American Council of the Blind is driven to support and advocate for all people who are blind or visually impaired. Yet its technology infrastructure held the nonprofit back. As part of its strategic plan, American Council of the Blind invested in Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365. With more reliable and secure technology, it advances its mission and serves more people.
“The server stayed lightning fast, without a measurable difference from day-to-day performance. [Azure] is costing us literally half of what we were paying with our other provider, but we’re getting four to five times the value in performance.”
Jeff Bishop, Board Member, American Council of the Blind
Increased Medicare coverage for the cost of prosthetic eyes. More accessible pedestrian signals at crosswalks. Improvements to the national census to accurately count the number of people who are blind or visually impaired. These are only a handful of recent resolutions voted on and adopted by the American Council of the Blind (ACB). Resolutions guide the advocacy efforts of ACB and how it partners with local, state, and federal government; transportation departments; educators and rehabilitation specialists; technology companies; and many more.
The resolutions may be varied, but they all add up to one goal: to increase the independence and quality of life of people who are blind or visually impaired.
The nonprofit, made up of roughly 70 state chapters and affiliate organizations, recently found that it needed to not only invest in technology but to fold this infrastructure into its long-term strategic goals. Why? Simply put, the organization needed up-to-date, secure, and efficient technology to best fulfill its mission and to adapt to meet the needs of people who are blind or visually impaired.
ACB chose Microsoft Azure to modernize its infrastructure.
Searching for a long-term solution
In 2019, ACB came to the conclusion it was operating on a shaky IT foundation. The on-premises servers went down almost daily, causing disruptions to staff and members alike. The IT team tried a Band-Aid solution on the environment it was using, but they knew they needed a long-term fix.
The servers, which housed more than 20 years of institutional records, were also experiencing data loss. “We were seeing actual corruption issues happening on discs that our data was stored on,” says Jeff Bishop, an ACB board member who is also now a Microsoft employee. “It raised the urgency of concern even more.”
That’s when ACB learned of Microsoft technology offers for nonprofits. Qualifying organizations may be eligible for discounted and donated technology. That benefit, combined with the nonprofit’s decades-long relationship with Microsoft, made Azure a natural fit for a cloud-based technology solution.
ACB completed its transition to Azure in June 2020.
“We feel more confident going forward as we modernize our infrastructure,” Bishop says. “Azure will continue to play a vital role.”
Sharing content that communities want and need
“There’s a thirst for the content we’re providing,” says Eric Bridges, Executive Director of American Council of the Blind. This content ranges from descriptions of events like a solar eclipse to tutorials helping parents support children who are blind or low vision during distance learning. “Folks are flocking to it. It’s our job to make it easy for people to access our programming.”
ACB provides a wide range of content: updates on its advocacy efforts, streamed stand-up comedy and music performed by artists who are blind, cooking shows, and more. Now that ACB houses its online presence in Azure, it can consistently share this content.
“We haven’t had any downtime after we got everything fine-tuned. And our performance infrastructure is lightning-fast,” explains Bishop.
Performance is always important, but especially so during the nonprofit’s eight-day-long annual conference. Typically, this is an in-person gathering, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed this year’s event entirely online. The migration to Azure wrapped up just a week before the conference began.
How did Azure hold up under the demand?
“People downloaded 10,000 pieces of digital content throughout the week—gigs and gigs of content,” Bishop says. They also streamed 108 live sessions and maintained quick download times. “The server stayed lightning fast, without a measurable difference from day-to-day performance. It is costing us literally half of what we were paying with our other provider, but we’re getting four to five times the value in performance.”
The 250 hours of content from the convention continues to be available on ACB’s website, along with podcasts and radio programs. ACB provides content in many ways—live streams, online radio, podcasts, and even a number to call and listen in.
This ultimately benefits the people ACB serves, Bishop explains. “This reliable infrastructure allows them to get our content in a way that meets their specific needs.”
Growing and modernizing
“Our web presence is our face to the rest of the world,” Bridges says. “That means the world to us because the work we do is so critical.”
That’s why ACB has focused on modernizing its IT infrastructure. To be seen as a professional organization capable of advocacy and delivering on its mission—and to continue to grow—it needed technology that helped, not hindered, its work.
The nonprofit is already scaling with the support of its modern technology infrastructure. Roughly 55,000 unique visitors use ACB Radio monthly, more than ever in the organization’s history.
ACB is also better equipped to communicate with its growing audience. It is an “email list–heavy org,” as Bridges says, so the new environment’s unparalleled uptime ensures it stays reachable.
That benefit proved to be important as ACB transitioned to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The nonprofit team uses Microsoft Office 365 on Microsoft Surface Pro, helping it forge ahead on projects like preparing for the annual conference and advocating for accessible voting stations, remote voting, and vote-by-mail options.
“These tools have worked beautifully,” Bridges says. “They allow me and my team to interact and maintain a high level of productivity.”
Protecting data long-term
ACB is a nonprofit with a foundation in democratic principles, which means that members have access to practically all its past data. From trainings and conference recordings to resolutions and operating guidelines, the nonprofit’s history must be available—and protected.
“To lose any of that information would be devastating to the organization,” Bridges says.
That’s why the specter of data loss under the nonprofit’s previous server solution felt so nerve-racking.
Azure provides infrastructure that is “more sustainable and reliable,” Bridges continues. “It’s vitally important we have a significant amount of redundancy in our backup strategy. We need the ability to protect our data at all costs.”
Luckily for the nonprofit’s budget, the financial cost of doing so proved to be significantly lower with Azure. The organization has found it affordable to back up decades’ worth of institutional data in Azure.
This confidence helps ACB not only share information with its members, but also track relationships with vendors, train new hires more efficiently, and draw from years of previous advocacy efforts.
Advocating for and contributing to accessible technology
“We are advocacy first,” Bridges says, and that goes for ACB’s relationship with technology providers.
That’s why the nonprofit has worked together with Microsoft for years to improve technology products and services.
“We have a long history with Microsoft,” Bridges says. “Some products have been good for us, and others not so great. We work closely with Office, Windows, and individual product teams to ensure they are and will be accessible moving forward. We’ve built a lot of trust.”
Collaborating to make tools like browsers and mail clients more accessible does enable ACB staff to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. But employees are also everyday users of technology. So the relationship between Microsoft and ACB creates ripples that improve the accessibility of tools thousands of other people rely on, too.
“The culture shift, the vision of accessibility, and the commitment to ensuring that everyone’s needs are met around the world are real,” says Bishop, an ACB board member since 2015 who became a program manager at Microsoft in 2017. “It’s exciting to get up every day to work for a company that’s truly changing the lives of people around the world. We’re living and breathing an accessible world.”
Technology is constantly evolving, and so are the needs of people who are blind or low vision.
“This is a journey we’re on because of the changing nature of technology: It’s not over, and it’s never going to be over,” Bridges says. “There will be bumps in the road. And it’ll be upon us and Microsoft to solve for those bumps. There’s nothing that will stop us.”
Find out more about American Council of the Blind on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
“We have a long history with Microsoft. We work closely with Office, Windows, and individual product teams to ensure they are and will be accessible moving forward. We’ve built a lot of trust.”
Eric Bridges, Executive Director, American Council of the Blind
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