Join us for the San Francisco Net Tuesday on September 9:
Involver: How Nonprofits Can Create Video Campaigns for Social Networks.
Following the return of democracy to Nigeria, there has been an explosion of Non-Governmental organizations. We want to employ the social web to build needed credibility and visibility for those NGOs who are honestly committed to making change.
What we want to do is employ the social web, to over a sustained period built much needed credibility and visibility for the most effective of the hundreds of youth NGOs in Nigeria; those ones who are honestly committed to making change. Because Nigeria is still at the infant stage of technological advancement on the average, only the basic web tools can be used - therefore we will be using a website and then a network of blogs.
What we intend to do is to identify those NGOs that are really committed to their goals and get them together. We would work with them towards creating blogs where they will be able to - without any cost to themselves obviously - communicate the ideals of their organizations, continuously state their needs to people who can support, and most importantly, constantly update with activities and programmes they have been involved in and the impact they are making.
More importantly however, rather than a blog aggregator, we will design a highly functional, very attractive website with up-to-date technology (to attract young people) where we will constantly take the very important news and information from these blogs and update weekly. We will not be republishing content from feeds; we will first refine them and re-present them. This website will be the central point for all the blogs, and it is this website that will be massively publicized. In it, there will now be a blog roll where people can link to each specific NGO.
They also get to synergise and engage regularly so that they can as often as possible work together for common goals and as a combined force. Most importantly, this puts them under the much-needed pressure to be pro-active, as they are now in a highly visible network, as well as open to the scrutiny of a larger and very informed audience.
The basic strength of our financial model is that the cost of doing these - both for the coordinators and the NGOs - is put to the barest minimum. For the NGOs, in fact, since they are working through blogs, there is no cost burden.
Also, once the website is designed initially and up and running with all the frills, updating can be done in-house.
The major cost in fact will be the initial meeting and then the initial media-based publicity for the website; however after these first two cost-based activities, the ongoing publicity will be on 'autopilot' (i.e. self-sustaining) and largely online-based.
Subsequent meetings will also be online.
As the site becomes popular, especially amongst young people, we propose to allow it generate income through advertising from companies/organisations who want to reach the readers.
Getting everyone together for the periodic review and strategic meetings
Distance
Cost of media-based angle of publicity
Building a relationship with the popular Nigerian websites where they give gratis publicity to our site.
A highly creative and up-to-date website (with forums, interactivity, flash etc) A strong media network
Communication equipment i.e. phones etc
Funds:
To monitor the NGOs and get the crucial feedback
To organize an intial meeting to brief the selected NGOs and to organize periodic web meetings For initial publicity of website, after which publicity will be on 'auto-pilot'
To maintain the website content
A list of the most popular Nigerian blogs and website for online-based publicity of websit
Week 1 - 2: Research and draw up definitive list of the NGOs to work with
Week 3: Do a physical meeting with the leaders of these NGOS
Week 4 - 5: Work with them to create their blogs
Week 6: Finalise the building and then launching of the website
Week 7 - 9: Massive online and media based publicity for website
Week 10: Do first online review meeting (via forum) with the NGO leaders
Following the return of democracy to Nigeria, there has been an explosion of Non-Governmental organizations; unfortunately a lack of regulatory organism as well as inherent duplicity has led to a lack of trust and respect for many of the NGOS, which means that many of them have neither the desired, crucial impact nor get the exposure and visibility they need - which usually means they do not reach their target audience, including those who would love to support their goals. What we want to do is employ the social web, to over a sustained period built the much needed credibility and visibility for those NGOs who are honestly committed to making change. Because Nigeria is still at the infant stage of technological advancement on the average, only the basic web tools can be used i.e. a highly functional website and then a close network of blogs. Our target audience are the youth NGOs, who are usually the most disadvantaged.