The Mission Impact Award is given to organizations that use operational excellence to drive measurable impact beyond their business. That impact shows up where it matters most — making services easier to access and strengthening the communities they serve.

This year, three finalists were selected for the difference they're making in those communities. Here's how they made it happen.

City of Newark

The Challenge

The City of Newark set out to improve how essential services reach the residents who need them most. However, delivering those services — across homeless placement, shelter access, procurement, and transportation regulation — depended on a single builder managing multiple critical applications across departments. Every request, every process change, every expansion ran through one person. That bottleneck slowed service delivery, limited visibility, and constrained the city's ability to respond to growing community needs.

The broader challenge is ensuring that vulnerable populations can access services quickly and reliably in a complex urban environment.

What They Built

Agbonlahor "Agbon" Edomwonyi, a Data Scientist and Quickbase Developer, removed that bottleneck by bringing those essential services into one shared system. Using Quickbase, the city built a unified operational platform that connects workflows across departments and enables real-time access to data.

Teams and their nonprofit partners now work from the same system, with a clear view of available resources and demand. That shared visibility allows the city to coordinate services more effectively and respond as needs change.

The Impact

The impact is visible across the city's operations and in the communities they serve.

City services now run with real-time visibility into shelter bed availability and resource allocation. Teams respond more quickly and coordinate across departments and nonprofit partners in one system. Procurement, inventory, and transportation systems run more efficiently, increasing the city's ability to scale services without adding complexity.

For residents, that means faster, more reliable access to essential services — whether that's finding an available shelter bed or someone needing ongoing care getting to appointments without navigating multiple systems. Fewer handoffs mean fewer gaps between need and response.

Newark is building on this foundation with geospatial mapping and integrated payment systems, giving teams a clearer picture of where resources are needed and the infrastructure to act on it faster. What began as an operational fix now shapes how the City of Newark serves its residents at scale.

Regional Transportation Collaborative

The Challenge

The Regional Transportation Collaborative (RTC) connects older adults, individuals with disabilities, and residents facing transportation barriers to medical care, essential services, and social support across a multi-county region.

As partnerships expanded and staff turned over, coordinating across independent nonprofit partners became more complex. Without a flexible, centralized system, RTC found it harder to keep workflows aligned, onboard new staff, and ensure residents could reliably get where they needed to go.

What They Built

Kristin Lam Peraza, Director of Regional Mobility Programming and Partnerships and Jessica Kelly, Collaborative Continuity Manager, built a highly adaptable Quickbase platform designed to support multiple partner roles, workflows, and service models.

The system gives each nonprofit what they need while maintaining consistent data across the network. Referrals, service requests, and updates are routed automatically to the right partners, reducing delays and removing the need for manual coordination. It also simplifies reporting, helping RTC secure the funding needed to sustain and expand its programs.

The Impact

RTC now has a coordinated system where nonprofits work together instead of operating in silos. A single request can trigger a response across multiple organizations, connecting residents to services faster.

A veteran requiring dialysis multiple times per week contacted the Mobility Center. With one intake, multiple nonprofits coordinated behind the scenes to ensure he never missed a critical treatment. His family didn't have to figure it out alone.

For the people RTC serves, that reliability is everything — making it possible to reach essential care, stay connected to support, and navigate the system with confidence.

Neighborhood Legal Services Michigan

The Challenge

Neighborhood Legal Services Michigan provides legal support and housing stability services to individuals and families experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. Before implementing Quickbase, the organization managed more than 2,000 active cases through paper files, spreadsheets, and fragmented manual processes. Client intake, case tracking, and reporting were slow and disconnected, making it difficult to meet strict HUD compliance requirements and limiting the time staff could spend directly supporting clients.

What They Built

Melissa Freel, Director of Application Development and Implementation, led the design and development of a centralized, fully customized Quickbase platform that digitized the entire case management workflow. The system automated intake, standardized case tracking, improved coordination across teams, and enabled real-time reporting, giving staff better visibility and faster processes so they could focus more on clients and less on administration.

The Impact

For people experiencing homelessness, speed is everything. Case managers now intake a client, track their progress, and coordinate housing placement without delays caused by paperwork or disconnected systems. The organization, now led by Executive Director Thaddeus Dean, has reduced rehousing timelines to as little as 30 days, accelerating access to stable housing for people in crisis. The system saves staff multiple full workdays through automation and integrations, ensures consistent, accurate compliance with federal reporting requirements, and has increased the number of clients the organization can serve effectively.

Recognizing the Work Behind the Impact

The City of Newark, the Regional Transportation Collaborative, and Neighborhood Legal Services are this year's finalists for the Mission Impact Award — helping people access the services they need. The winner will be announced live during the Day 2 keynote on May 20 at Empower 2026 in Houston, TX.

Haven't registered yet? Visit the Empower 2026 site for all the details.

Can't make it to Houston? Sign up for free access to the keynote livestreams here.