The situation

By the war's first anniversary an estimated 18 million people inside Ukraine needed humanitarian assistance. The international response mobilised at scale — food, shelter, generators, blankets, hygiene kits — through governments and large NGOs.

Underneath it sat something those flows could not see. Ukraine had hundreds of local organisations before February 2022 and more than 10,000 grassroots organisations operating afterwards, delivering legal aid, temporary shelter and the rest of what a displaced population actually needs. They knew where the need was. They could not be found, funded or supplied at the speed the situation demanded.

What ran

In December 2022 we launched RespondLocal, supported by Google.org, to route between the two. Local organisations posted what they needed. Suppliers and international agencies posted what they could provide. The platform matched them continuously, in both directions.

Within two months it had connected 41 local organisations with suppliers and moved over US$270,000 of aid. It made local groups visible to funders who could not previously see them, and it cut procurement from weeks to days.

What it produced

SpivDiia, a Ukrainian volunteer organisation on the platform, runs humanitarian aid alongside psychological support, employment assistance and legal aid through a network across the country. Since the invasion it has assisted nearly 300,000 people, with 6,000 volunteers.

Large NGOs and donors have been instrumental at providing huge quantities of aid for millions of Ukrainians, which has been a vital lifeline. But local organisations in Ukraine have been the bedrock, supporting communities in a way that is timely, informed, and led by people that are known to them.

— Kat Sellers, Chief Strategy Officer

What it shows

Coordination failure in a fast-moving displacement crisis is not a shortage of goodwill or of goods. It is a routing problem. Where the routing is infrastructure rather than a sequence of phone calls, local organisations stay at the centre of the response instead of waiting at the end of it.

This is the same platform that later ran North Carolina's hurricane response. It was configured for Ukraine, not built for it.