Empowering a Non-Profit Through Cloud-First Transformation

The client is a charity assessment organization that evaluates charitable organizations in the United States, operating as a free 501 organization that accepts no advertising or donations from the organizations it evaluates. Their mission is to provide transparency and empower donors by offering unbiased, objective assessments of charity effectiveness and financial health.

The Challenge: Chasing Compliance & Connectivity

The charity assessment organization faced a series of pressing challenges that hindered their ability to operate effectively and scale in an increasingly digital world. At the forefront of these challenges was the need to comply with strict National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) security standards and controls. As a highly respected entity in the nonprofit sector, the organization needed to ensure that its IT infrastructure not only met these rigorous security guidelines but also protected sensitive data associated with the charities it assessed.

Another significant issue was the client’s outdated document management and task workflow systems. While essential for their operations, these systems were not integrated and lacked the ability to record data in a secure digital format. The organization recognized the urgent need to implement a more efficient document management system along with a task management solution that could streamline their processes, improve productivity, and ensure that all data was properly digitized and stored.

Compounding these difficulties was a critical operational issue that surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The existing Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) setup lacked a secure and reliable method for remote connections, which hindered productivity and created a significant security vulnerability. This issue was particularly concerning for the organization's Chief Information Officer (CIO), who was responsible for maintaining the integrity of the network and ensuring smooth operations, especially during such an unprecedented time.

These interconnected challenges—security compliance, digital transformation, remote work limitations, and inefficient internal systems—required a comprehensive and scalable solution to support the organization’s mission while ensuring the integrity of their data and processes.

The Solution: Datamatics Cloud-Powered Evolution

Datamatics implemented a multi-faceted approach to support the client in achieving their desired outcomes. The first step was defining the right architecture. Datamatics designed a resilient, multi-AZ architecture, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance. This architecture also included the creation of a DevOps pipeline to streamline release management for both development and production AWS accounts, enabling faster and more efficient application deployments.

To secure the AWS environment, Datamatics executed a rigorous environment hardening process using CIS scripts. This ensured the implementation of security best practices while setting up the cloud environment, safeguarding the client’s sensitive data and infrastructure from potential threats.

A key element of the solution was the adoption of a multi-account strategy. This approach separated the production and non-production environments, enhancing security and operational efficiency by isolating critical systems. In addition, AWS CloudTrail and CloudWatch were enabled, providing near real-time updates on security and operational events across the AWS environment. This allowed the client’s IT team to continuously monitor and respond swiftly to any anomalies or incidents.

To further bolster security, Datamatics integrated Amazon GuardDuty, a threat detection service that continuously monitors the environment for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior. This proactive monitoring mechanism gave the client peace of mind, knowing that potential security risks were being tracked and mitigated in real time.

With Datamatics’ strategic guidance and AWS cloud solutions, the client’s digital infrastructure was not only secure and scalable but also primed for ongoing growth and success.