In the last several years social media has taken the world by storm. Not restricted to a particular age group or ethnicity, social media has succeeded in the allowing the world to connect in a way never seen before. Suddenly the world of communications has opened up surpassing geographical and technological barriers, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to take advantage of it.

But social media is possibly most advantageous to the corporate sector as it allows businesses a platform to spread their message, gain visibility and increase recall value amongst a massive audience.

NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) especially rely on social media heavily to gather support for their cause. Usually constrained by small budgets NGOs cannot spend heavily on advertising to spread awareness of their message and inspire donors to invest in their brand.

Social media has several distinct advantages for NGOs:

• NGOs use their free social media profiles as an additional platform to keep their audience up-to-date on the latest information regarding their organisation/cause, but in a more vivacious, interesting manner than their corporate website.
• Aside from illustrations and status updates, NGOs have also wholeheartedly embraced the powerful audio-visual medium to create inspiring and hard-hitting messages, that social media gives them a platform to promote.
• To non-profit organisations social media is a cost-effective yet the most extensive medium to promote news and updates, invite engagement, build an audience and petition for funding all in one place.
• Instead of needing to restrict their awareness campaigns to only one platform due to budgetary concerns, NGOs can tailor make their campaigns to suit multiple social media platforms like Facebook vs Flickr, reaching out to a diverse audience, across different interests, geographical locations and age groups.

With so much riding on the need to differentiate themselves from their competition, having a great social media strategy is crucial to a NGOs’ success. Today social media is on an upswing, with the world just discovering the many different ways it can be used to transform a business, propagate an idea, and above all incite change. In fact, with the advantages social media offers, it looks to be a god-send for the NGO industry.

The Joy of Giving Week (currently called Daan Utsav), is a period of great generosity, happiness and harmony. It is a time when people all over the country cross barriers of geography, culture, age, occupations and more to unite in the common cause of working towards the betterment of society. This week, the biggest philanthropic event of India, is marked by generous contributions in many forms to numerous worthy causes. But sometimes it’s hard to know which organisation to support, and how to go about it.

If you would like to make a contribution this Joy of Giving, some of the ways to support The Akshaya Patra Foundation are:

Monetary contributions: You can donate money to Akshaya Patra through an online donation or offline through a cheque or demand draft. You can also use your GPRS enabled mobile phone to make a donation using ATOM or mCheck.

Donate a vehicle: Help pave the way for a brand new vehicle to carry the tasty, nutritious mid-day meal to thousands of hungry children in your area. Well designed with a honey-comb structure to make sure the vessels are kept stable, these vehicles are insulated to keep the food hot till they reach their destination. Find out more about how you can donate a vehicle to Akshaya Patra here.

Sponsor a school for a year: Akshaya Patra provides the mid-day meal to 10,661 Government and Government-aided schools across India on every school day. Your support will make it possible for students in more schools to meet their nutritional requirements by enjoying these meals. Find out how you can sponsor a school here.

Sponsor a child for a year: You can make sure one child has access to Akshaya Patra’s tasty, healthy meals for an entire year with a donation of just Rs. 750. By providing a child with this regular supply of nutritious food you give him/her an incentive to attend school regularly and gain the education required. You can make a yearly payment to support a child through an ECS donation.

Sponsor kitchen equipment: The largest kitchen run by Akshaya Patra can produce upto 200,000 meals in five hours. The centralised kitchens are highly mechanised and equipment-intensive, to cater to the large demand for the mid-day meals. A donation towards kitchen equipment could help Akshaya Patra sooner reach its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020.

Be a part of the festival this year by bettering a child’s life. Make a donation and join in the Joy of Giving.