SoftwareOne case study

Ataxia disease awareness increased by Azure website performance

With a website speed increase of 90%+, Hope for Ataxia drives more engagement & impact

Hope for Ataxia must carefully conserve funds while maximizing its non-profit activities to promote awareness of Ataxia effectively. Its website is an essential anchor to growing awareness of the disease. But the site needed upgrading. It needed improved security and speed. A move to Microsoft Azure would provide the means for greater flexibility, functionality, and organizational growth.

Microsoft’s Tech for Social Impact provided the financial support for a website migration to Azure. SoftwareOne contributed no-cost technology services through its ONEImpact initiative assistance. The result provides Hope for Ataxia with an affordable, faster, more agile workspace to drive broader engagement, improved productivity, and more substantial mission impact.

Client: Hope for Ataxia
Industry: Nonprofit
Services: Website Migration to Microsoft Azure
Country: Canada

The combined support we received from the teams at Microsoft and SoftwareOne was beyond all our expectations. The new website has given our organization a tremendous lift to dedicate ourselves to the mission of creating global awareness about the rare and little-known disease of Ataxia.

Mark Desa
Director, Hope for Ataxia

About the client

Hope for Ataxia is a federally incorporated non-profit organization based in Ontario, Canada. Its mission is to make a meaningful and positive impact in the rare diseases narrative by raising awareness of Ataxia globally. Ataxia is a neurological/movement disorder affecting the nervous system of over 200,000 people worldwide.

The organization hosts virtual support groups, conducts aware-ness and fundraising campaigns, while sharing information through social media, webinars and blogs to strengthen the Ataxia community.

The challenge

As a non-profit, Hope for Ataxia must carefully conserve funds while maximizing its capacity to effectively promote awareness and serve the Ataxia community. Its website is an essential anchor to the overall mission to grow its presence in social media, raise overall awareness, increase fundraising, and improve the visibility of support groups.

But the site needed upgrading. It was mired in a collection of inefficient plug-ins and overall speed was unsatisfactory. Also, the site had been hacked causing further issues, e.g. with email communications. Registrations for online meetings via website and other interactive functions were also impacted.

A platform update to Microsoft Azure would firmly establish security and improve performance, while providing the means for greater future flexibility, functionality and organizational growth.

The solution

With only a few staff working hard to create support communities and awareness for suffering from Ataxia, the organization welcomed outside assistance. Participating in the Microsoft’s Tech for Social Impact program, provided financial flexibility to manage its IT needs, and SoftwareOne contributed with no-cost technology services through its ONEImpact initiative.

SoftwareOne engaged with Microsoft, and helped with website migration to Azure; leaving the organization with a much faster and more agile workspace capable of driving future automation for more engagement and impact.

The result

Team productivity and communications improvements foster greater collaboration using state-of-the-art technology
With a website speed increase of 90%+, the organization gained a much faster and more agile workspace, driving more engagement and impact and better user experience
Increased focus on core business and mission to raise Ataxia awareness globally by leveraging the website as its central reliable communications platform for members, partners and support network
Cost savings achieved by eliminated web hosting expenses
Improved site security through built-in Azure protections