About the Kobo Organization

Kobo is an international nonprofit organization. We host and maintain KoboToolbox, the world’s most popular data collection tool in challenging settings. We are registered in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States, but our team is based around the world. Our mission is to provide highly usable tools for creating data-driven social impact. Read more about our mission and vision.

KoboToolbox is used by over 14,000 organizations around the world. Most of our partners are in the humanitarian, global development, environmental protection, and human rights sectors. We provide KoboToolbox free of charge to nonprofit organizations, giving projects around the world access to high quality data.

Our partners

Kobo works in partnership with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), through our affiliation with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and in cooperation with nonprofit organizations to improve humanitarian data collection methods worldwide.

Our team has partnered with and provided support to a wide range of organizations to improve data collection around the world, including: the International Organization for Migration (UN-IOM), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Save the Children, the African Development Bank, the World Bank Group, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), Education Above All, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC).

Partnerships and services

Kobo supports a large number of organizations through a wide range of services and partnerships. This includes setting up and maintaining standalone custom-branded KoboToolbox servers, creating new software features, providing user support and training, and developing innovative tools for collecting and analyzing data. Learn more about partnerships and how Kobo can support your organization.

Kobo is sustained financially through partnerships and service agreements with other organizations, as well as through grants from private foundations. Learn more about our financials.

We also depend on donations from our users and private donors to help keep KoboToolbox accessible to everyone. With your support, we can continue to provide reliable, secure, and high quality data tools to users around the world—especially organizations in low-income countries. Make a donation today.

Our history

KoboToolbox was founded in 2005 by Phuong Pham and Patrick Vinck, now faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In its early years, KoboToolbox became a tool of choice for survey researchers working in challenging environments, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Northern Uganda. As a result, KoboToolbox was quickly recognized by many humanitarian and development organizations as a more effective way to collect data than arduous paper-based methods.

In 2010, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) became the first major international organization to adopt KoboToolbox. UNDP used KoboToolbox to systematically collect all data related to disarming and reintegrating members of former armed groups in the Central African Republic.

In 2013, KoboToolbox—by then a project at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative as well as Brigham and Women’s Hospital—partnered with United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) and the International Rescue Committee to expand KoboToolbox into a comprehensive platform for worldwide humanitarian data collection.

In 2016, KoboToolbox began working closely with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to improve data collection for assisting refugees and internally displaced persons and to support UNHCR’s own KoboToolbox servers.

In 2019, Kobo was established as an independent nonprofit organization to ensure the long-term sustainability and growth of KoboToolbox, as well as to support open source data systems and technology for humanitarian action, global development, environmental protection, peacebuilding, and human rights.

As of 2022, Kobo has supported a large number of organizations through a wide range of services and partnerships including the International Organization for Migration (UN-IOM), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Save the Children, the African Development Bank, the World Bank Group, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), Education Above All, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC). Find out how your organization can work with Kobo.