Case Study

Josh Balser
Program Analyst at Global Communities 

Distributing developmental and humanitarian aid in the field can be an organisational nightmare. Global Communities program analyst Josh Balser found he could keep everything in line with droidSURVEY.

Non-profit organizations often find themselves operating in remote and rural areas. Internet access is never a guarantee. Paper documents get lost, misplaced, or damaged. Global Communities needed a data collection solution that is reliable, portable, and usable in any part of the world, in any conditions. 

For Josh, droidSURVEY was the answer. “We use it to identify our beneficiaries in the field,” he explained. “We can target their GPS location, and gather data across a wide variety of criteria to see if they qualify for our program or not.” In fact, he found droidSURVEY’s GPS tagging feature to be one of the app’s most useful. “From our perspective, the GPS location is one of the best. We’re able to overlay our assistance on top of a map, based on the people that we reach. That’s one of the best in terms of reporting on our data.”

The real advantage for Global Communities came from droidSURVEY’s remote survey assignments. From his office in the US, Josh was able to make changes on the fly, and send updated forms to any device, anywhere in the world. “Since it’s cloud based, I can, from the US, control the tablets that are based in south Sudan,” he said.  “They can just sync up at night.”

Most important, though, was droidSURVEY’s ease of use. “You don’t have to be a coder, or an IT specialist, or anyone really highly specialised in order to use [the software],” said Josh. “It’s just been a great system to use, and really quick to get off the ground.”

As for plans for the future? “We’re looking to test out iSURVEY to show people here at headquarters,” Josh said. “[We] all have lots of ideas for how it could be expanded for the larger humanitarian community.”

Organisation Snapshot

Global Communities is an international non-profit organization. For over 60 years, they have carried out international development and humanitarian aid projects all over the world to address development and crisis needs. Their mission is to create long-lasting, positive and community-led change that improves the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable people across the globe.