andres schulz design and blog

Sometimes as global audiences we get inundated with “causes” that we ignore those “Donate” buttons because we see them over and over again.  Unfortunately for Non-Profits, the offline blindness they have to overcome has now really become the same issues online.  What’s worse is that some of these non-profits are getting bad advice about just starting up websites and “they willcome”.  I’m sorry to break this to the non-profits, just building astatic website anymore – won’t cut it.

Lilongwe Wildlife Center

Series of posters for Lilongwe Wildlife Center, Malawi. View all

Today I stumbled across the story of the Mara Triangle thanks to Twitter’s blog (see even when they are down, they are still good for something!). Mara Triangle is a wildlife park in Kenya which under the management of the Mara Conservancy helps to protect the wildlife from poachers.  Poachers are one of the biggest threats to the wildlife in this area, and with the conservancy in place, they are able to employ rangers to help protect the animals from these poachers.Up until last year, none of these rangers had likely even touched a computer.  Up until last year, the park solely ran off of the entrance fees to the park.  Up until last year, Kenya as a country was pretty stable. That all changed until this year’s election when political unrest erupted and put the entire tourism industry in Kenya into complete and utter chaos.  With no one coming to visit Kenya or the Mara Triangle, funds started to run out, fast.

Enter William Deed, prior to helping the Mara Conservancy, he lead what he pretty much terms as a “bored with his lot” life and started his own blog about Waiting in Line. That caught the eye of famed Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey andhis son-in-law, Emmanuel De Merode who run Wildlife Direct.  They tasked William with building blogs and getting the word out about the different wildlife projects under Wildlife Direct. In February Mara Triangle’s blog launched.  It was a slow build, but through word of mouth, news of this blog and what the rangers were doing started to spread.  The blog’s chief contributer is Josep hKimojino, a ranger in the park. He blogs just about every day, which is an amazing feat when you learn that he just click a mouse for the first time back in November. What makes this story even more compelling?  Joseph isn’t just blogging!  Joseph tweets on Twitter, he uploads photos just about everyday to Flickr, he loads videos to Vimeo and even helps to maintain the Facebook cause. Likely though what caught the eye of Wired magazineis the use of Twitter.  It’s also what caught my eye, and got me to click around and just be really amazed and excited.  There use of many different parts of social media just impressed me and made my jaw drop- photos like their’s usually tend to do that.  I felt compelled enough by the story they conveyed to give a monthly donation. Social media when used in the right way can convey compelling stories.

Whether its a blog, photos or even videos, social media allows emotions to be conveyed in ways no piece of paper or static website can.  Combining these powerful tools together can result intruly wonderful stories people just feel compelled to take up a causefor (or even buy a product or service). Are you telling your non-profit’s story in a compelling way?  Does your story touch your audience in a way like the Mara Triangle did me?

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