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The infrastructure for private humanitarian funding doesn't exist. We're building it.

The Aid Cloud builds the accountability infrastructure that gives INGOs and national NGOs a standardized channel to private and corporate capital — the funding source their existing infrastructure was never built to reach.

The humanitarian sector committed to channelling 25% of funding directly to local organizations. Nine years later, the figure remains below 5%. The barrier is not capacity — it is infrastructure. The systems for routing bilateral donor funding exist. The systems for routing private and corporate capital to local organizations do not. The Aid Cloud is building them.

The Challenges

No Infrastructure for Private Funding

The systems for processing government bilateral grants, UN pooled funds, and institutional donor requirements have been built over decades. No equivalent infrastructure exists for the $300B+ corporate ESG market or for private supporters who want their contribution to reach local organizations accountably. Without that infrastructure, the private funding category remains inaccessible at scale

INGOs Cannot Reach Private Capital

Existing INGOs have the local partnerships, field presence, and programmatic capacity to deliver on the ground. What they lack is a standardized, accountable channel to private and corporate funders. Their infrastructure was built for bilateral donors — not for corporate ESG procurement or individual supporters who need a product transaction, not a donation

The Funding Gap Is Growing

362 million people need humanitarian assistance. The funding gap reached $32 billion in 2024. Institutional funding stagnates while corporate ESG budgets exceed $300 billion—but lack credible channels for direct local impact.

An Operational Framework, Not Just Software

Aid Cloud provides implementers/ support agencies with a complete framework for supporting local organizations—combining operational models, financial architecture, and technical infrastructure that enable direct funding at scale.

The framework includes the proven mechanics for how funding flows, how accountability works, how local organizations maintain authority while accessing professional systems, and how risk is managed across portfolios of projects.

It is the accountability and marketplace infrastructure for private humanitarian funding — adaptable to different connector agencies and geographies, built on the structural principles that make private capital accountable at scale.

What The Aid Cloud Provides

Marketplace — the platform through which private supporters and corporate ESG buyers discover and fund projects across all connector agencies

Accountability framework — vetting standards, milestone-based disbursement verification, and project close-out reporting that makes projects fundable by private capital

Ledger services — read-only access to connector project accounts; AC is the authoritative record of all financial activity

Funder dashboards — real-time project status visible to supporters and corporate partners

Standardized pricing model — $50K and $100K project sizes enabling right-sized support and transparent 30% intermediary cost

Platform intelligence — aggregated and anonymized data across the connector portfolio

For INGO and National NGO Connector Agencies

The Aid Cloud gives INGOs and national NGOs a standardized channel to private and corporate capital — the funding source your existing infrastructure was never built to reach. Joining the platform does not replace your bilateral programs. It runs alongside them.

What you bring: established local organization relationships, field presence, and programmatic capacity.

What AC provides: the Marketplace that connects your projects to private supporters and corporate ESG buyers; the accountability framework that makes those projects fundable; and the ledger infrastructure that gives funders real-time visibility into how their money is used.

Every connector operates at the same fixed 30% intermediary cost — no negotiation, no variable rates. The standardized project amounts mean your support team can be right-sized precisely, eliminating the overhead estimation that drives traditional INGO costs to 45-55%.

Onboarding requires opening a dedicated project account at an AC-approved institution and granting AC read-only access. AC is the authoritative record of all financial activity. You disburse — AC verifies and records.

The platform is agnostic on funding mechanism. INGO connectors with charitable status can receive tax-deductible donations or corporate gifts through their existing registered charity infrastructure — AC’s Ledger Services and funder dashboards work on top of whatever funding mechanism the connector uses.

SoH uses a product-sale model (photobooks) because of its for-profit structure. Both models use identical AC infrastructure. The funding mechanism is the connector’s decision, based on their legal structure and their funders’ needs. To discuss whether AC is the right fit for your organization, contact us below.

Aid Cloud's shared marketplace enables supporters to discover projects across all connectors/ support agencies, creating network effects that benefit all participants.

More Funding Reaches Communities

Aid Cloud's infrastructure-as-a-service model delivers 15-25% better cost efficiency compared to traditional INGO intermediation:

Traditional INGO Model: 45-55% operations and indirect costs

Aid Cloud Model: 30% for connector operations + platform infrastructure

The difference: 15-25 percentage points more funding reaches direct implementation.

On a $100,000 project, that's $15,000-$25,000 more impact in communities. Across a portfolio of 30 projects, that's $450,000-$750,000 additional humanitarian assistance.

How?

Shared technology infrastructure, standardized $50K/$100K project pricing, and consolidated financial management — eliminating the HQ, regional office, and per-grant compliance layers that drive INGO costs to 45-55%. Standardized pricing is the operational mechanism: because every project is the same size, support personnel can be right-sized precisely rather than estimated per custom grant. The 30% covers field operations and AC's shared infrastructure only — no institutional overhead.

The First Connector: Story of Helping

Story of Helping (SoH) is The Aid Cloud's first connector agency — deliberately founded to activate and test the private funding infrastructure before making it available to the wider INGO market. SoH funds local humanitarian organizations through documentary photobook sales. The marketplace is live with 22 projects from 14 local organizations across Myanmar and the Thailand-Myanmar border regions.

The Aid Cloud (Singapore) owns the Marketplace and provides the accountability infrastructure. Story of Helping (Thailand) operates the Marketplace under license from AC as its first connector agency. When a second connector agency joins, the Marketplace migrates to AC's own branded infrastructure — the moment the platform model becomes visible at scale."

Every aspect of Aid Cloud is being built, tested, and refined through Story of Helping's real operations:

SoH dedicated project account with AC read-only access — AC records and verifies all transactions without holding funds

Compliance and risk frameworks operating in real crisis contexts

Campaign mechanics with real supporters and funding goals

Accountability infrastructure serving real local organizations

Content production coordinating real documentary work

Marketplace infrastructure for project discovery

This isn't theoretical. We're building the framework by doing the work, learning what works in actual operating conditions, and developing the platform that others can use.

Additional Early Partners:

A Ukrainian connector agency is in advanced discussions to join the platform, bringing an estimated 20 additional projects — demonstrating the multi-connector platform thesis.

Infrastructure Built by Humanitarians

The Aid Cloud was co-founded by Nandar Hlaing and Jose Ravano. Nandar Hlaing is a 2023 Asia Pacific Obama Leader with 16+ years of humanitarian leadership in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. Jose Ravano brings 15+ years of senior INGO and Red Cross experience, including serving as USAID Chief of Party for a post-coup program in Myanmar. We are not tech founders trying to understand humanitarian work. We are humanitarian practitioners building the infrastructure we wished existed when we were doing this work — infrastructure designed by people who have been on both sides of the local organization relationship.

"Beyond USAID" — accepted for publication in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Our viewpoint of why the infrastructure gap — not political will — explains the failure of humanitarian localization commitments.

Visit Story of Helping

Additional Benefits

Connectors Can Specialize by Sector

Aid Cloud enables connectors to build deep expertise in specific humanitarian sectors—water and sanitation, health, education, agriculture, protection—creating powerful alignment with corporate funders whose business relates to that impact area.

A water-focused connector can partner with water utilities and technology companies. A health-specialized connector can engage pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers. An education connector can work with EdTech companies and device manufacturers.

This sectoral alignment enables authentic corporate partnerships, deeper employee engagement, and more credible ESG reporting—while connectors build genuine expertise that benefits local organizations in their sector.

Data Insights No Single Organization Could Generate Alone

As connector agencies use The Aid Cloud platform, every project contributes to growing platform intelligence — insights that no single INGO could generate from its own portfolio alone. All analytics are aggregated and anonymized: you contribute to platform intelligence while your individual project details remain confidential. This aggregated data enables all connectors to access insights impossible to generate independently—turning individual experience into collective knowledge.

What Connectors Access:

Cost efficiency benchmarks across sectors, geographies, and project types

Campaign performance patterns showing what drives funding success

Risk indicators based on portfolio-wide data and early warning signs

Best practices identified from hundreds of projects and implementations

Sector-specific metrics for health, water, education, agriculture, and protection outcomes

This comparative intelligence helps new connectors learn from established ones, enables continuous improvement through data, and builds the evidence base for direct local funding effectiveness.

Data Privacy: All analytics are aggregated and anonymized. Individual project details remain confidential to the relevant connector. You contribute to platform intelligence while protecting your relationships and proprietary information.

The Infrastructure Gap Is Solvable. Now.

Nine years after the Grand Bargain committed to 25% direct funding, less than 5% reaches local organizations. The gap was never about political will — the commitments were real. It was infrastructure: the systems that exist were built for bilateral donors, and no equivalent exists for private and corporate funding.

Infrastructure-as-a-service solves the category gap: organizations access a private funding channel immediately, the approach scales across connectors without proportional cost increases, and local autonomy is preserved through structural design — fixed overhead, cost-anchored disbursement, full programming control retained by local organizations.

The bilateral funding collapse of 2025 makes the timing urgent. The Aid Cloud is operational.

Technical Documentation

For detailed technical architecture, operational workflows, and system specifications, download our comprehensive white paper.

This document covers:

Complete workflow from project submission through payment execution

Financial architecture and account structures

Multi-tenant platform design and marketplace infrastructure

Security, compliance, and risk management frameworks

Sectoral specialization and corporate alignment opportunities

Checkpoint mechanics and portfolio management

Comparative analytics and platform intelligence

Development roadmap and approach