Nanhi Kali Launches iSite, Reinvents How Non-Profits Use the Web

Nanhi Kali is a leading global non-profit organization that saves the

lives of girls in India by paying for them to stay in school instead of

having them remain housebound, exploited as child laborers or

prostitutes, or married off at the age of 10.
For as little as $65 (U.S.) per year, donors can keep an Indian girl in

school instead of in the street or worse.
Nanhi Kali (which means "small bud")

has relied on paid advertising to generate awareness and donations. That

led to a marketing challenge: how to raise awareness while minimizing

the cost of paid media in the global marketplace. For an organization

where every penny truly counts, this was a crucial issue.
"The answer lay in social media and the

creation of a most unusual virtual guide," said Sheetal Mehta, Executive Director of the Nanhi Kali organization.
"We have seen the power of social media and

social networking as a global marketing and media revolution, and we

decided to take advantage of that power," Mehta said. "Most non-profits are stuck in the

traditional advertising age, spending precious money to buy media. We

thought in the age of Google, Facebook and Flickr there must be a

better, smarter way.
"We developed the Nanhi Kali iSite "“ a truly innovative Internet 2.0 site to generate donations and awareness

without having to waste money paying for ads," Mehta said. "We created a virtual girl named

Shreya. When you type in http://www.girlsmiles.org

Shreya comes to life on your screen and guides you through the Internet

in a simple, human way."
To bring its vision to life, Nanhi Kali turned to StrawberryFrog, one of

the world´s leading innovative communications firms.
Scott Goodson, founder and chief creative officer of StrawberryFrog

called Nanhi Kali "exactly the kind of brand

we wanted to collaborate with: modern, intelligent and a social

activist. All of us here at StrawberryFrog are so very proud to be a

part of this work for such an incredible cause."
"We set out to make this iSite a model of

marketing innovation," Goodson said. "Shreya

is alive, human -- an embodiment of the Nanhi Kali organization. She

guides you through the World Wide Web where all sorts of information

content, images, films, communities, people and contacts relevant to

Nanhi Kali live -- and also places for you to make donations and keep an

eye on your student. The future of the Web is about organizing

information in a way that is simple and human -- like our Girlsmiles.org

iSite."
The Nanhi Kali iSite was launched recently on Facebook and other social

media to opinion formers across the globe. To bring Shreya to life

StrawberryFrog collaborated with AlbertKen, a branded utility technical

firm in Sweden.
"It´s a totally new way to think of the Net," said Martin Stadhammar of AlbertKen. "It lets

you experience the Nanhi Kali movement through the eyes of different

sites."
Mehta, of Nanhi Kali, said the iSite "has

been brilliantly executed and already has been very effective. The Nanhi

Kali iSite has already created thousands of new leads, and hundreds of

new donations from across the globe, which has led to new financial aid

for the young girls that Nanhi Kali supports."
Nanhi Kali is a sponsorship program that supports the education of less

privileged and disadvantaged girl children in India. It currently

supports over 37,000 girls in urban rural and tribal parts of India. http://nanhikali.org/
StrawberryFrog is a leading independent global convergence agency, known

for its innovative work for Heineken, Frito Lay, Morgan Stanley

Mahindra, Microsoft and Asics Onitsuka Tiger. www.StrawberryFrog.com AlbertKen is a Swedish-based, digital presence branded utility expert.