Results of the PurpleAir Donation Program (April - July '25)

PurpleAir Donation Program Selected Donees
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As this round of the Donation Program comes to a close, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated and supported the initiative. This has been our largest and most engaging program to date, with nearly four times the number of applications compared to previous rounds, and an incredible level of community interaction through likes, comments, and votes. We’ve been both surprised and deeply grateful for the enthusiasm and energy this round has generated. We’re already looking ahead with excitement to what future editions may bring.

A Note on Voting Integrity

Before we share the final results, we want to address an important matter regarding the voting process. Many of you noticed that vote counts were significantly higher than in past rounds, and several community members raised concerns about the potential for inflated or inauthentic votes. We take these concerns seriously, and in fact, we had similar reservations ourselves.

After a thorough investigation, we confirmed that a substantial number of fake community accounts were created solely to participate in the voting process. These accounts had no other activity beyond casting votes in the polls, and were largely generated using known spam email domains. We have since identified and removed these fraudulent votes from the final tally.

At this time, we believe we have successfully flagged all such accounts, and their influence on the outcome has been fully removed. The final results below reflect only what we believe to be legitimate, community-driven votes. Importantly, we found no conclusive link between any specific donation application and the fake accounts involved. Manual adjustments were made where appropriate, but in the interest of fairness, no further action will be taken for this round. Moving forward, we will implement enhanced security measures to prevent similar incidents in future programs. Additionally, in the case that a future instance of vote manipulation is explicitly linked to an application, that application will be disqualified immediately, and the submitter permanently banned from the community.

This behavior is deeply disappointing and goes against the values we as a company aim to uphold. We remain committed to maintaining a fair, transparent, and trustworthy process.

The Results

With that out of the way, congratulations to the top four applications, each of whom will be receiving sensors!

  1. Silvia Mardegan — Respira Amazônia Coalition
  2. Richard Muraya — The Demography Project
  3. Boudewijn Sterk — Smart Air Bangladesh
  4. Chris Hammond — The Shaghaf Team

Thank you once again to everyone who applied, voted, shared, and supported. We’re honored to help further your work and look forward to seeing the impact you’ll make!

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We’d like to express our heartfelt thanks and sincere gratitude to @Kieran and the @PurpleAir team for their generous donation program and creating this wonderful opportunity. We’re also deeply grateful to everyone who took the time to support us during the voting process. We worked hard to create social media content focused on raising awareness about our initiative and we were thrilled to receive the response we did from our supporters across Iraq, Canada, Europe, US, and around the world.

In Kirkuk, we face persistently high levels of ambient air pollution largely driven by anthropogenic emissions across the city. These elevated pollution levels are a serious risk to public health and the environment, contributing to high levels of morbidity and mortality. With virtually no monitoring in the city at present, these air quality monitors will be put to good use as they allow us to quantify fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations and expand our spatial coverage, filling a critical data gap.

By quantifying PM2.5 concentrations in Kirkuk, the data recorded with Purple Air devices will contribute to research identifying pollution sources and exposure patterns. This data will serve as a foundation for evidence-based advocacy, enabling us to promote sustainable and equitable air quality policies while holding polluters accountable.

Thanks again everyone for your trust and support.

Chris, Shayan, and Shadan
Shaghaf Team

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Thank you Purple Air team! Congrats to the winners!

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Congratulations to all recipients, and best of luck with your projects! I was so impressed and amazed by all of the applications and requests. There were so many worthwhile causes, and it is heartening to see communities come together to do better for the people and environment. Thank you to PurpleAir for making this happen.

If it’s not too bold, I would like to make a suggestion to PurpleAir to offer some type of discount code for purchasing sensors to all applicants to make our projects more cost-effective and widespread. Or, if anyone knows of other grant programs that could be shared here to help make air quality monitoring more affordable and available, please post here! Thank you again, and I wish you all the best.

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