Passageways Wins 2020 Tech Cares Award for COVID-19 Response

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This has been a challenging year for everyone. With confidence, I can say that I could not have predicted the simultaneous challenges we face as a world, nation, business, or as individuals.  Yet, in the midst of all of that, I continue to see the best in humanity.  Whether its communities rallying around people displaced due to economic or environmental disasters, or the small acts of kindness I see on a personal level, this year has proven that our common humanity unites us all.

Here at Passageways, we call our corporate culture sahyog. It is a Hindi word derived from the concept of “culture of togetherness” and it embodies who we are and how we serve our customers. One of our culture’s values is “Be a Genuine Partner”. I couldn’t be more pleased that our commitment to be a genuine partner to our customers has been recognized.

I’m honored and humbled to announce that Passageways has earned a 2020 Tech Cares Award in recognition of our work to help frontline teams during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the Award

The 2020 Tech Cares Recognition “celebrates companies who have demonstrated their service, consideration, and compassion to their professional, local, and global communities in 2020.” It is awarded by TrustRadius, a trusted review site for B2B business technology. A total of 116 Tech Cares awards were given this year, and we’re humbled to be in some impressive company like Accenture, Cisco, Microsoft, Sage, Zoom, and more. The TrustRadius blog has all the details here.

What We Did

While we normally wouldn’t go about tooting our own horn, we feel it important to detail out some of our actions so as to provide context for this award.

• To help frontline teams during the crisis, we offered unrestricted access to our OnBoard virtual board management solution for five months to nonprofits and select government bodies. We made a similar offer of unrestricted access to AGB OnBoard, a version specially developed for higher education. To help other frontline teams, we offered unrestricted access to our OnSemble employee intranet solution to healthcare services and select government bodies.
  
  Over 1000 organizations took advantage of this offer. We saw an outpouring of appreciation from all these organizations that benefited from our experience and platform. Internally, I have never seen such pride in supporting so many organizations through such unprecedented times!

• We made all offers 100% unrestricted. That meant no disabled features, no questions, no credit card, and no commitment. Our objective was to empower these organizations with the tools and focus they needed to help the people they serve. Details could be sorted out later.

• We also invested time, energy, and resources into producing freely accessible content and resources that leveraged our almost two decades’ worth of experience working in virtual meetings. Our objective was to help educate and inform organizations of all types how to make the transition from in-person, physical meetings safely and effectively.
  
  This free content and resources included:

• COVID-19 Resource Center: a collection of free resources on transitioning to virtual meetings and helpful links to vetted and verified health information.
  • Virtual Meeting Toolkit: the definitive guide that provides executive leaders and board members – especially those new to working virtually – with best practices and insights on running effective and productive virtual board meetings.
  • Guide to Virtual Meetings Using OnBoard: Best practices, tips, and guidance for using OnBoard to lead a virtual board meeting, make decisions, provide strategic guidance, and keep communication channels open.
  • Remote & Virtual Meeting Legal Database: An exclusive, interactive database for all corporations and nonprofits looking at virtual meeting laws across every state.
  • COVID-19 & Virtual Board Meetings – Is That Even Legal? A step-by-step guide for boards to examine and amend their bylaws and articles of incorporation to legally hold virtual board meetings.

For us, none of this was ever considered a Public Relations exercise. We were overcome with a sense of solidarity because we were already deeply embedded with and serving these industries. We didn’t need to watch the news to hear about the challenges and uncertainty they were facing because we were hearing it first-hand.

Today, we are all too keenly aware that the pandemic isn’t over. We still have a lot of work to do. But I do want to express my heartfelt appreciation to our customers, partners, TrustRadius, and its reviewers for their confidence and trust in us. I am confident we will continue to find ways to give back and be of service.

Namaste,
Paroon Chadha
Co-Founder & CEO
www.passageways.com