Cloudflare Impact Programs Reach $100 Million in Donated Services

Cloudflare's Impact programs have reached $100 million in donated services, marking a significant milestone for the company's 16th Birthday Week. This achievement reflects the protection of thousands of organizations, including journalism outlets, civil society groups, state and local governments, election management bodies, and public schools, from cyberattacks.

Evolution from Free Service to Mission-Critical Support

Cloudflare originally launched as a free service for developers and small businesses, using attack data to build sophisticated products. The company quickly realized that many free users were essential public interest entities facing severe attacks, prompting a shift in strategy. This led to the launch of Project Galileo in 2014, which now supports more than 3,500 domains in over 120 countries. In 2025, Cloudflare blocked over 38.5 billion cyberattacks against Project Galileo participants, averaging nearly 105.4 million per day.

The Impact programs have expanded to include:

• The Athenian Project (2017): Protects state and local government election websites, covering more than 440 websites in 33 U.S. states and election bodies in eight other countries.
• Cloudflare for Campaigns (2020): Provides free cybersecurity services for political candidates, now covering more than 530 websites across the United States.
• Critical Infrastructure: Extends protection to public schools, COVID-19 response efforts, the government of Ukraine, and public health clinics.

Adapting to the AI Era

Beyond traditional cybersecurity, Cloudflare is expanding its Impact programs to help public interest organizations adapt to AI. In September 2026, Cloudflare co-hosted a hackathon with Media Party in Barcelona, bringing together journalists and developers to solve problems related to AI-driven information landscapes. The winning team, AIdas, built a tool to study AI bias by comparing LLM responses across politically contested topics.

Recent and ongoing initiatives include:

• AI Crawl Control: Provided since last year, this offers free access to Bot Management and AI Crawl control for over 750 journalists and news organizations to protect content from unauthorized scraping.
• Non-profit Startup Program: Announced last year, this program offers more than $250,000 in Cloudflare credits to non-profits, with the first 30 organizations being announced this week.
• Human Rights Automation: Three new projects built by Cloudflare engineers for human rights organizations, announced this week, focusing on tracking transnational repression and digital rights legislation.

A 2026 annual report highlighted that civil society organizations are targeted more intensely than other customers, with Project Galileo participants facing vulnerability exploitation attempts at a rate more than seven times higher than the average user.