‘The Social Town’ an online platform for community builders
With a lot of bad news coming your way in 2020, finally there’s a good news for all the changemakers! An online networking platform named The Social Town (TST), located in Ernakulam, Kerala, India is all set to connect organizations with services, volunteers, funds and resources and aid hardworking individuals and change agents in finding organizations to nurture them.
Not only will it help social innovators in skill-building but also teaching them through an online social learning platform by giving access to expert panel of mentors, consultants and gig pros. The idea of SCaaP – Social Change as a Platform was conceptualized by Neenu Rathin in 2013, an impactful social innovator who has been working in the community building and non-profit sector and fostering meaningful relationships in the non-profit field since then. The saddening COVID-19 situation paved the way for her to begin TST for everyone wishing and working to bring a change.
The idea is to make TST a platform where potential parties learn about each other’s work before they agree on working together to start a social initiative. The goal is to utilize 80% of CSR funds for the fight against coronavirus. TST will be a one-stop solution that can link all the participants in the social development sector and erase the gap between doers and funders. The volunteers will have profiles, where they can update their recent volunteering experiences, set of skills and time availability. Organizations can update their feeds about their recent campaigns and list their requirement for resources. Experienced mentors will reach out to these organizations for giving a helping hand. Corporates can fund projects with ease after scrolling through organization feed history. TST encourages corporates to offer their most essential commodity- Human Capital. For marketing it’s services and managing daily operational costs, TST hopes to create a Donor Community and accept any amount from individuals, retailers & businesses.
There are two upcoming plans of TST: SLATE – Social Learning Academy for Transformation and Empowerment (an online academy with industry focused learning programs for the social changemakers) and SAGA– Stories of Altruists, Givers and Agents of change (an online magazine which will feature crowd-sourced stories about social changemakers). TST will be the only technological space to bring all social stakeholders together by uniting them for their and the community’s benefit as a whole.
