Case Study: Access Now streamlines 1,800+ proposals and 500+ sessions with OpenWater

HowAccessNowusedOpenWatertostreamline 1,800+proposals andcoordinate 500+ sessions

Access Now, an international human rights organization behind the global RightsCon summit, was struggling to manage a growing call for proposals. As submissions increased to more than 1,800, the team’s manual process in Google Forms and spreadsheets made it difficult to assign reviews, track feedback, apply conditional logic, and manage diversity data at scale.

Access Now implemented OpenWater to centralize proposal intake, review, and communication for RightsCon. With OpenWater, the team automated scoring and workflows, coordinated 80+ committee reviewers, and managed related programs in one system. The result was a 125% increase in proposal intake without adding staff, 90%+ of reviewers saying the process was easy, and improved reporting accuracy with less risk of data loss.

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