Finding long-term, successful solutions to poverty in Silicon Valley requires a complex approach to an age-old problem. For more than 62 years, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County has provided innovative programs to foster self-sufficiency and address the many ways that poverty persists throughout a lifetime.
Catholic Charities’ success depends on flexibility in providing services that are constantly changing with the community’s needs and according to best practices in our nonprofit sector. We are delighted to announce that Microsoft will help us reach our goals of responding to this changing environment with a $1,083,196.00 software grant to improve our IT infrastructure. This software grant will support an agency-wide Cloud migration, comprehensive data reporting, and software refresh.
From Catholic Charities’ administration and finance teams, to our program directors, to our kids in after-school expanded learning programs ﹘ all are using Microsoft software. “Our agency has a huge responsibility as one of the key social service providers in Santa Clara County. Over 38,000 people depend us each year. This grant will make a tremendous impact on the way we provide services through our 40 programs,” said Will Bailey, Director of IT at Catholic Charities. “We simply would not be able to do this work without Microsoft.”
Specifically, more than 500 staff and 1,000 volunteers will benefit from improved processes, system capacity, and reporting capability. Dozens of funding partners requiring impact reports will benefit from our improved reporting, which will inform their community initiatives. And dozens more community partners will also benefit from shared data and best practices discerned from improved reporting.
Most importantly, the vulnerable individuals and families who rely on Catholic Charities will be the greatest beneficiaries of the grant. The improvement will be seen in our programs, such as:
- Supporting grandparents who are raising their young grandchildren;
- Teaching reading skills to youth, preparing them for college and beyond;
- Providing afterschool programs to keep kids off the streets;
- Helping adults find jobs, or get right by the law and work legally;
- Providing immediate and long-term support to disaster victims;
- Resettling refugees from war-torn countries;
- Providing isolated seniors with nutritious meals and a friendly community.
Catholic Charities will always work to alleviate, prevent, and reduce poverty. New solutions like this grant provided by Microsoft will help us tackle the challenges of providing opportunities for our community members in need.
Find more information about Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County and on our website.
Will Bailey has 20+ years of experience supporting technology within nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco South Bay Area. He has worked in educational, financial, and social service environments, including Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County (CCSCC), where he has been in charge of the technology infrastructure since 1996. Will leads an IT staff of five supporting over 500 staff members who, in turn, serve more than 40,000 clients per year in 40 programs across 100 locations.
With Will’s guidance, CCSCC is now recognized as a technology pioneer and leader by its peers. Transforming the agency’s technology infrastructure over the years, CCSCC was an early adopter of server virtualization and cloud technology. Under Will’s management, the agency now of a mix of cloud and on-premise solutions from Cisco, Darktrace, Foothold Technology, Google, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, and Jive. Will continues is to improve CCSCC’s IT infrastructure while also actively pursuing innovative technology solutions for the region’s most compelling social problems.
