After healthcare and law, Box wants to serve non-profits
Although its initial public offering is somewhat on the backburner at the moment, Box isn't slowing down at all as far as its targeted business strategy is concerned.
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The Los Altos, Calif.-headquartered unveiled Box.org, a new initiative intended to serve global non-profit organizations.
The program is slightly skewed from Box's previous industry-specific offerings given that Box.org was designed with the ethos of delivering social change based on the potential and power supported by the cloud.
Eligible non-profits that apply to Box.org will be given up to 10 Box licenses, guaranteed to be free forever. Organizations that require more support can apply for discounts up to 50 percent Box's existing pricing scheme.
Box touted it already has more than 1,000 non-profits on its customer sheet, including the UN Foundation and Teach for America.
Karen Appleton, Vice President of Business Development at Box, highlighted the opportunity for the cloud in this arena in a blog post on Wednesday, citing a Nonprofit Technology Network study that 87 percent of non-profits lack a dedicated IT department.
Appleton offered a few examples as to how current non-profit subscribers are using cloud technologies for furthering humanitarian work:
Take, for example, the World Bank Group, a vital resource for financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. With Box, the World Bank is helping employees – from Baghdad to DC – securely share files with partners in the government and private sector, easily collaborate with colleagues, and access their files and folders from anywhere in the world, on any device.
Box has been tackling the business world, one industry at a time, in bringing new customers to its cloud collaboration platform. The first target was healthcare, starting when Box became certified HIPAA-compliant more than a year ago.
That was followed up by ensuring the storage service was secure for the legal world. In March, CEO Aaron Levie mentioned on stage at South by Southwest 2014 that the entertainment industry was next on the docket at that time.
Box has been busy expanding geographically as well, most recently deploying its service in Japan, which the cloud company has been dropping hints about since BoxWorks in September 2013.
Interested non-profits can apply to the Box.org program starting today.