TechSoup's mission is to build a dynamic bridge that leverages technology to enable connections and innovative solutions for a more equitable planet. We're dedicated to delivering on this promise because we believe that building the digital capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) at scale can produce tremendously positive outcomes in the name of safeguarding democracy, preserving our planet, and serving the millions of people that rely on services provided by our sector each day.
Most of the time, our focus is on the organizations we serve. Sometimes, though, we talk about the incredible people who make this focus possible.
Rebecca Masisak, TechSoup CEO from 2012 to 2024, is one of these people. During her 23 years at TechSoup, she has worked tirelessly to ensure that our vision of a better world becomes a reality, leading the development of a first-of-its-kind marketplace that went from serving roughly 10,000 nonprofits in 2002 to the current 1.4 million organizations worldwide. She announced this month that she is transitioning to a new role as TechSoup's Executive Chair. We are taking advantage of this moment to celebrate her, her leadership, and the impact she has made on the sector.
As an early architect of what would eventually become the TechSoup Marketplace, Rebecca oversaw the founding of the TechSoup Global Network, which expanded TechSoup’s reach internationally and now has 70+ NGO members that serve their local countries. Among her many other achievements, she envisioned and realized the first-ever direct public offering from an NGO and led TechSoup through the COVID-19 pandemic — a critical time when so many nonprofits needed to move to the cloud and mobilize on the ground. She continues to guide TechSoup as we navigate our own shift with the fast-changing tides of technology innovation so that we may remain resilient ourselves and can continue to stand alongside and serve the hundreds of thousands of nonprofits that turn to TechSoup each year.
Rebecca has served the sector, the civil society organizations and leaders we work with, and our own organization by bringing her deep business acumen to shape a global network for good. Her work has been acknowledged in many forms, including multiple invitations to speak on behalf of the sector at the World Economic Forum at Davos, an article in the New York Times, and being four times recognized as one of The Nonprofit Times' Power & Influence Top 50.
Rebecca speaking at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)
Here are just a handful of Rebecca's many contributions to global civil society and, of course, to our own organization.
Shaping the TechSoup We Know Today
Rebecca joined TechSoup in 2001, at a time when we were still operating as CompuMentor. Through her leadership, CompuMentor won the Yale School of Management National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations. The business plan was for TechSoup Stock, which provided a blueprint for the global TechSoup Marketplace. The platform launched in 2002 with three donors — Microsoft, Lotus Notes, and Web Gecko — and has grown today to include more than 100 long-standing relationships with leading corporations, including Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco, Dell, Intuit, and many others. Under her leadership in 2005, this program expanded to serve CSOs in Poland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Spain.
The organizing principle behind the TechSoup Marketplace is the "triple win model," which Rebecca first introduced in the Yale business plan competition. Corporations willing to donate their technology through TechSoup were offered the opportunity — at no cost — to outsource the outreach, vetting, education, and support of their in-kind philanthropy. TechSoup sustained the costs to operate the program through a small administrative fee to nonprofits. To nonprofits, the proposition was an online space created just for them to read articles, ask questions of experts, share best practices, and register their organizations. The organizations could browse a "one-stop shopping” experience for donated and specially discounted technology offers and check their eligibility for these offers. This saved time for nonprofits in having to negotiate donations and discounts and allowed them access to products at a fraction of retail costs.
This groundbreaking approach to corporate philanthropy and tech capacity building provided major partners such as Microsoft an early and lasting seat at the table in a global effort to bring NGOs everywhere up to speed technologically so that they may better serve their communities.
Forming a True Global Network
In 2016, Rebecca led the expansion of our marketplace to reach 236 countries and territories around the world, after working in the intervening years to bring as many partner NGOs (PNGOs) and corporate donors into the TechSoup Global Network fold as possible. Rebecca was instrumental in the configuration of the global network model, designing its operations to leave a large portion of any money transacted directly in the hands of local capacity-building organizations. To date, this marketplace has delivered US$2.3 billion worth of donated and discounted technology resources to CSOs across the planet. This innovative model continues to allow TechSoup to advocate for organizations everywhere, work with corporate donors to increase their giving programs, and focus on locally led development through our many PNGOs working on the ground to serve their communities.
Streamlining International Giving: NGOsource
In 2013, Rebecca was instrumental in launching NGOsource, a project founded and launched by the Council on Foundations and TechSoup that helps U.S. grantmakers streamline and save in their international giving. Many of the underpinnings that allowed us to embark on a project of this scale were built on the capacities that drove the expansion of the TechSoup Marketplace, including data and validation processes and the TechSoup member repository model. Over the course of its lifetime, NGOsource has served over 7,700 NGOs worldwide and has facilitated more than US$8 billion in funding to organizations everywhere.
Innovating Fundraising Through a Direct Public Offering
As TechSoup worked to continually evolve and invest in our marketplace of offers, Rebecca envisioned a new way to raise funding to deliver more impact for the sector. With a bold goal to raise US$11.5 million in just three years, Rebecca launched TechSoup's direct public offering (DPO) in 2018. Notably, the DPO was made available to any individual who wished to invest $50 or more. For every $100 invested, TechSoup was able to deliver $47,000 of additional resources to the nonprofit sector. Under Rebecca's leadership, the DPO also ushered in TechSoup's Five Strategic Initiatives, which continue to guide our operations and investment today:
- The NGO Technology Marketplace
- Global Validation and Data Services
- Apps for Good
- Improving Processes and Systems
- Developing Our Cooperative Technology Platform (CTP)
Responding to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented hardship to the modern world and presented NGOs with a unique pair of challenges: How do we continue to serve our communities during lockdown restrictions while rapidly transitioning our workforces to a remote working environment? Under Rebecca's leadership, TechSoup rose to these challenges internally, but also stepped up to provide the NGOs everywhere with the digital resources they needed to deliver on their missions under extraordinary circumstances. A large part of our ability to do so at such scale was due to the philanthropic supply chain powered by the resilient network of TechSoup Global Network partners that Rebecca had worked to establish years beforehand.
Planning for a Changing Future
Today, TechSoup finds itself at a pivotal moment akin to when Rebecca joined our organization, and equally as exciting. As corporate philanthropy itself is changing, so too are the technology needs of nonprofits — especially small, grassroots organizations operating with even smaller budgets. Against this backdrop, Rebecca has navigated TechSoup through an evolution toward a membership model designed to build greater digital resilience in the civil society sector. This shift in our own business model also builds more resilience in TechSoup itself, so that we can continue to serve our community now and for years to come.
Rebecca working alongside our client services team
Building a Bridge to a More Equitable Planet
Telling a story through the language of milestones can be tricky business. It's easy to miss the interlocking elements of character, grit, and compassion that laid the groundwork for the achievements themselves. In her over two decades of leadership at TechSoup, Rebecca has embodied all three of these qualities and more.
Today, we honor Rebecca and her years of service and are honored that she will remain on our executive team supporting us as we move forward, deepening our commitment to global civil society. We will be forever grateful for the foundation that Rebecca has built and for all her work toward creating a more equitable planet for us all.
