The Southwest Public Policy Institute Announces Strategic Partnership With Amazon

Phoenix, AZ (August 30, 2022) — This afternoon, Southwest Public Policy Institute (SPPI) announced its continued expansion in the American Southwest. SPPI is now better positioned to achieve its mission with the support of Amazon, the American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.

The partnership includes a grant from Amazon in the form of an annual Amazon Web Services (AWS) stipend, enabling SPPI to continue development of its digital assets, facilitating its big-data focus on audience outreach and education.

“SPPI is the first of its kind: a multi-state regional think tank with a foundational focus on big-data and artificial intelligence,” said Patrick Brenner, president of the Southwest Public Policy Institute. “Leveraging our digital assets to reach our ambitious audience engagement goals has just been made possible with the overwhelmingly generous support of Amazon. We’re pleased to be offered this opportunity for partnership and we look forward to producing great work together.”

Brett Kokinadis, Chairman of the Board of SPPI, applauded the collaboration. Combined with his private sector technology experience, the assets now available to SPPI will be fully leveraged to addressing the region’s unique challenges and opportunities.

Additionally, SPPI has been included in the AmazonSmile program. AmazonSmile is a simple way to support charitable organizations while shopping online at no additional cost. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of eligible purchases to a chosen charitable organization. To shop at AmazonSmile, simply go to smile.amazon.com or activate AmazonSmile on the Amazon Shopping app on iOS or Android.

AmazonSmile has delivered over $355 million as of June 2022 to eligible charities in the United States. You can find out more about SPPI’s participation in the AmazonSmile program here.