By Brittany Fugate, CEO at Cenetric

We’ve said it before (and we’ll never stop saying it): Our mission is to support our clients’ missions. That’s why we offer a free year of IT support to a nonprofit each year — so they can focus their attention and funds on improving our community instead of technology stress.

The nominees we saw to receive support in 2025 were all impressive — so much so that we couldn’t narrow it down to just one. We decided to extend our complimentary year of IT help desk, remote support, maintenance, management and server monitoring services to two amazing organizations. We think you’ll be as blown away by their efforts as our committee was.

Pathway to Hope

Pathway to Hope focuses on serving the personal and social needs of individuals and families arising from the experience of mental illness. Through a range of programs and services, they help people navigate the most complex and emotionally taxing parts of caring for a loved one with severe, persistent mental illness.

The organization offers counseling, support groups, occupational therapy case management, peer-to-peer support, education and training to help people feel less alone in their experience, build healthy communication skills, set boundaries, and prioritize self-care.

Tara Adler, the executive director for Pathway to Hope, shared that Cenetric’s IT support frees up the time staff members and leadership would normally spend troubleshooting tech issues that their team isn’t trained for or familiar with.

“Much of the services being provided this year are things we would just try to figure out or do without,” Adler said. “With Cenetric’s help, we can immediately pass off these items and have them addressed.”

Many small organizations — especially nonprofits — just “get by” with ineffective technology or processes when they don’t have the time, resources or expertise to manage them. And that’s Cenetric’s specialty.

“When Cenetric came on site the first time, their team was able to move a phone line to an office for a staff member that simply didn’t have one — because we didn’t know how to do it!” Adler shared.

If you’re struggling to support a loved one with mental illness, we encourage you to seek out help from the team at Pathway to Hope. Or if you’d like to support the valuable work they do, you can donate to help them continue their efforts.

You can also join them at Top Golf for a fundraiser on Thursday, May 8. Why not work on your swing while you help a worthy cause right here in Kansas City, right?

Kanbe’s Markets

Kanbe’s Markets is a nonprofit organization providing access to fresh, affordable and healthy foods to people experiencing food insecurity in underserved areas of Kansas City. We’ve shared their good work with you before, but their rapid growth and big goals for doing even more were too impressive to pass up, snagging the attention of our review committee.

By putting fresh foods in locally owned stores and bodegas, residents can access them more easily and make them a regular part of their meals. This also enhances the offerings of these small businesses and keeps a million pounds of food out of landfills each year. It’s absolutely a win-win-win situation.

Cenetric’s service comes at a crucial time for Kanbe’s Markets as they work to provide more than 4,000,000 servings of fruits and vegetables to local corner stores, food pantries, kitchens, and shelters.

“Our technological infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with our growth,” said Casey Claps, chief impact officer at Kanbe’s Markets. “As a small nonprofit, we’ve often had to cobble together makeshift solutions that, while functional, aren’t optimized for our needs.”

From solving device issues fast to advising on best practices for IT, Cenetric takes the technology worries off the organization’s plate so they can focus on their important work.

“As a rapidly growing organization, one of our most significant challenges was managing our expanding team’s technology needs,” Claps said. “Instead of our team spending valuable time manually setting up individual logins, managing permissions, and configuring access across multiple systems, Cenetric now handles these complex but critical tasks seamlessly.

“The timing of this partnership couldn’t be better,” Claps continued. “Just this week, we’re welcoming four new team members in different roles. Having Cenetric manage the technical aspects of onboarding means we can focus on integrating these new colleagues into our mission and culture rather than getting caught up in IT logistics. This partnership has quickly become indispensable to our operations!”

Kanbe’s Markets has set an ambitious goal of increasing their food redirection by 25% in 2025. If you’d like to create an immediate impact on food insecurity here in Kansas City, they welcome corporate and individual volunteers.

In just one two-hour shift, volunteers help the organization provide 160 meals to families in need. Volunteer to help today!

Cenetric is committed to supporting Kansas City nonprofits

Whether we’re out doing our best in a 5K or sponsoring a bike ride, Cenetric believes in doing what we can for our community. And since what we do the very best is IT services, that’s what we want to share.

Make sure you hear about next year’s opportunity to nominate a nonprofit by signing up for a notification!

Liked these stories? Read about our previous winners:

2024: ELIAS Animal Health and TVAX Biomedical

2023: BioNexus KC

2022: Cancer Action

Looking for IT support from a business that really cares about the community we serve? Cenetric has the experience and availability to meet all your IT needs. Tell us about your business and we’ll get back to you right away.