In the coming month, you’re going to notice some changes to the myggsa.co.za online community. After two years at the cutting edge of social networking for good, we are ready to roll-out substantial improvements to the free public benefit service we offer.

The most obvious change will be that all the latest requests, offers, projects, stories, reports and news will appear right up-front on the home page. We’re bringing all the activity so central to this community to the surface for all our visitors to see and engage with.

We believe this will increase and deepen connections between givers and causes, at every level. It will also help to draw in the tens of thousands who visit the site each month.

Easier and better

You will find your Cause Space or My Giving account much easier to use. For example, causes, givers and volunteer projects will be automatically mapped to Google Maps so you won’t have to fiddle around with setting your location. It means that givers and causes can connect with each other more meaningfully, around common interests and areas.

And there will be new things you can do, for example:

• Causes will be able to create volunteer and fundraising projects, complete with targets and a barometer, so that they can get the most out of campaigns like Mandela Day, Do It Day and other national events.
• Givers can create their own fundraising projects to raise money for the causes close to their hearts. They will also be able to share their likes and activities with their friends and family – the more people that know about the giving community, the merrier!
• For the first time, givers will be able to nominate organisations to join the GreaterGood SA community. All causes must go through the GreaterGood SA registration process which includes basic checks on their non profit status.

Connecting communities

We have also developed an exciting new connection mechanism to engage our corporate clients’ staff and customers in our online community. Called Community Connect, this tool allows companies and institutions to use the GreaterGood network to identify and engage with development organisations and brand it accordingly.

When users register on Community Connect, they become part of a greater giving community working towards the development of South Africa, for good.

Do It Day and beyond

With the renewed sense of national pride created by the World Cup, and a growing interest in community service around Mandela Day, we believe we have reached the tipping point for volunteer action in South Africa. To take Do It Day to scale, we are running it slightly differently this year. We are broadening our community of volunteers and causes using the enhanced giving community, myggsa.co.za.

Volunteers and causes who are registered on this community will be able to connect with each other directly, forging new and lasting relationships around volunteering. People who want to volunteer can find and sign-up for volunteer projects from all over the country on Do It Day. And our registered causes will get the benefit of thousands of hours of people power and goodwill. GreaterGood SA will also promote the day through a targeted public relations drive.

> If you have any questions about the changes, please email sophie@ggsa.co.za