A one-stop destination for changemakers – The Social Town
With the growing importance of organizations working for social development and volunteers striving to receive support of such organizations, there is a need for a platform that can connect both of them. The Social Town (TST) , located in Kerala, India is an online networking platform for community builders that intends to fill the gap between organizations and services, volunteers, change agents, funds and resources.
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 of their interest after scrolling through organization feed history. TST wants corporates to share their most essential commodity- Human Capital. For marketing it’s services and managing daily operational costs, TST wishes to create a Donor Community by accepting small or large donations from individuals, retailers & businesses.
It is a great initiative by Neenu Rathin (Neethi), the founder and CEO of TST. She is a focused social innovator who has been working in the community building and non-profit sector while forming meaningful connections in the non-profit field since 2013. The COVID-19 situation pushed her to launch TST for the changemakers and the society. She hopes to make TST a platform where parties learn about each other’s work before they decide to work together for the society. The goal is to utilize 80% of CSR funds for the fight against coronavirus.
It will not only help social innovators in building their skills but also teach them through an online social learning platform by giving access to expert panel of mentors, consultants and gig pros. Unlike traditional learning, social learning is necessary for developing certain patterns of behaviors, actions, attitudes that will be beneficial for the common good.
TST is also planning to launch SLATE – Social Learning Academy for Transformation and Empowerment, which will be an online academy with industry focused learning programs for the social changemakers and SAGA– Stories of Altruists, Givers and Agents of change, which will be an online magazine that features crowd-sourced stories about social changemakers. By providing a one-stop destination to unite doers and funders, TST will be the only online space to bring all social stakeholders under one roof. It will be a SCaaP – Social Change as a Platform.