How CEC Impact built a digital apps factory without writing code

“Baserow allowed us to move from tool chaos to structured experimentation. We can test, launch and evolve apps continuously”

Antoine Moulière, Product Builder CEC Impact

CEC Impact replaced a fragmented mix of spreadsheets and siloed platforms with Baserow to act as its central data backbone. By doing so, their small core team built a digital factory of no-code apps to coordinate 400 global contributors, track enterprise impact, and scale their regenerative economy programs without relying on custom development.

Industry

Non-Profit / Sustainability

Organization Size

Mid-Market (30 Core Staff, 400+ Global Contributors)

Region

France

Platform Capabilities

• Centralized Database
• No-Code Application Builder
• Cross-Initiative Data Collaboration
• Scalable Relational Data Modeling

About CEC Impact

CEC Impact is a fast-growing nonprofit helping enterprises transition towards a regenerative economy. In just four years, the organization has expanded from a core team of 30 people to a global network of 400 contributors working across 20 initiatives.

To support this growth and enable effective collaboration, CEC Impact needed a new approach to data management and internal tool development. By adopting Baserow as its central no-code data platform, the organization has successfully unified its operations and launched multiple dedicated applications without relying on custom development.

Scaling collaboration in a distributed nonprofit

CEC Impact’s mission is ambitious: to guide enterprises through transformation programs that embed regenerative practices into their business models.

As their contributor network expanded rapidly, operational complexity grew just as fast. Most contributors support CEC Impact only 1 to 1.5 days per week, which meant time for training, development, or maintaining complex systems was extremely limited.

The organization needed tools that were fast to implement, easy to learn, flexible enough to support evolving initiatives, and scalable for hundreds of contributors.

Challenge: fragmented tools and data silos

Before adopting Baserow, CEC Impact relied on a mix of platforms, including Monday, Airtable, and spreadsheets. While each tool solved a specific need, together they created significant data silos and operational inefficiencies.

Key challenges included the absence of a centralised source of truth, difficult cross-initiative collaboration, manual data duplication, and limited visibility into enterprise impact and program performance. This increasing complexity, as initiatives multiplied, made it feel like everyone was reading from a different script.

CEC Impact realized they needed a single data collaboration platform with apps that could connect teams, initiatives, and workflows.

Solution: Baserow as the central data backbone

CEC Impact chose Baserow to build a centralized database that would serve as the foundation for all internal applications. Rather than building one large system, the team adopted a modular strategy:

“We wanted to create many small, dedicated apps that connect to one central data model”

Antoine Moulière, Product Builder, CEC Impact.

This approach allowed them to move quickly without custom coding, empower contributors to participate in building solutions, maintain governance and consistency through a shared database, and adapt tools continuously as programs evolve.

Building a digital factory of no-code apps

Today, a core team of five part-time resources, the equivalent of 2 full-time employees, manages CEC Impact’s internal “digital factory.” Using Baserow, they have already launched five operational applications that support over 400 active users. These tools cover a wide range of operational needs.

They built an enterprise candidate tracking pipeline to manage and follow up with enterprises interested in joining CEC programs.

For coordination, they use an event management tool to handle workshops, transformation programs, and community events across initiatives.

Financial operations are handled through a finance management app that tracks invoices, expenses, and collections in a structured and transparent way.

Additionally, they built tools for prospecting follow-up to support outreach and partnership development activities, alongside an impact metrics and KPI tracking system to monitor the transformation progress and measurable impact of each enterprise participating in CEC programs.

Results: faster execution and unified collaboration

By consolidating their data and building no-code apps on top of Baserow, CEC Impact has achieved a single source of truth across all initiatives. This has led to the faster launch of operational tools, reduced dependency on technical development, improved visibility into enterprise impact, and scalable collaboration for a distributed contributor network.

Most importantly, contributors can now focus their limited time on creating real regenerative impact instead of managing fragmented systems.

Enabling the future of regenerative transformation

CEC Impact continues to expand its ecosystem of initiatives and enterprise programs. With Baserow as their central platform, the organization is confident it can launch new operational apps rapidly, maintain consistent data governance, scale its contributor network globally, and measure and accelerate real-world impact. They are now focused on expanding their app ecosystem and extending Baserow for enterprise impact measurement and task follow-up.

“Our mission is systemic change. Having a flexible data platform means our operations can evolve as fast as our ambition”

Antoine Moulière, Product Builder, CEC Impact.