At Fireworx Digital one of the ways we give back is through an organization called Y-Malawi. Y-Malawi is a groundbreaking model for partnership between churches in the US and frontline organizations in Malawi, Africa, providing community-wide sustainable development and transformation in the areas of water and food security, healthcare, education, evangelism & discipleship, youth programs, and economic development, including micro-finance.
What I love about Y-Malawi is the organic nature of its growth. Unlike many 501-c3 non-profts, it doesn’t have a big top down organizational staff. It’s largely run by volunteers. I’ve been active in Y-Malawi since its inception and together with my team developed their website www.y-malawi.org, marketing materials, an extensive 30-page “Giving Catalog”, and an online giving store. What’s really exciting though is I recently started a Ning community for Y-Malawi, which now has over 350 active members. What’s amazing is to see how these members are interacting with each other, posting their trips to Malawi, discussing new sustainability ideas, sharing stories and basically doing what you might expect a vibrant community to do. My daughter Jennifer was our third member, didn’t really know much about the organization at all at the time, and now she is leaving tonight with some of her friends for a 15 day trip to Malawi! Does that show the power of a social community?
I know I’m somewhat biased as a major social media proponent and consultant, but I don’t believe Y-Malawi would be seeing this organic growth without the interconnectivity that comes with the social networking technology of a site like Ning. It has taken Y-Malawi’s static web presence and put a real, live, transparent, personal face on it. This organization is in its infancy and we’re excited to see where it will go as we are adding all the other aspects of social marketing to further spark its momentum.
