by NURUL SUHAIDI / pic credit: wikiimpact.com

A SOCIAL enterprise has come up with a platform that can connect donors with recipients in case of a crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic, where resources are often mismatched with needs.

The Wiki Impact platform addresses problems like unequal distribution of aid and under-funded aid organisations.

Deborah Chan (picture), co-founder of Wiki Impact, said the lack of data disclosure and synergy among social services prevents them from growth.

She said the platform aims to address the funding obstacles to enable change-makers to upscale and respond to community needs.

She said the company not only provides data, but presents them in a digestible manner and actionable for the change-makers.

“This will allow them to optimise the data, understand the ground problem, do the right thing and plan their impact work further,” she said during a special interview with The Malaysian Reserve.

The company’s centralised platform connects change-makers with contributors for a funding opportunity.

“There are countless organisations that have a fund allocation, but don’t know where to channel their money. With Wiki Impact, the contributor can go the extra mile to empower the change-makers to create greater impact with better longevity,” Chan said.

“The change-maker will be able to achieve even more by working closely with each other to unlock the social and economic opportunities that aim to improve the vitality and resilience among their local communities.

“With a centralised platform to connect them, they can look into advancing their service and implement betterment,” she added.

“It is a matter of seeing the needs and meeting the needs. In short, there is a need for collaboration for the industry to close the gap and income disparity among societies.”

On the local front, she said we must continue to provide social protection and access to education to close the learning gap as this is the key to ending the poverty cycle.

“When we talk about poverty, it is no longer confined to rural poverty anymore, we are now also referring to those struggling especially among B40 (bottom 40%) folks in urban areas, youth and single mothers with low and unstable income with high living cost,” Chan said.

According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia, as many as 20% or about 580,000 households from the middle 40% households with incomes between RM4,850 and RM10,959 have shifted to the income limit of the B40 group in 2020.

The government on the core front should shift its focus, look at spending power and increase consistent support to really strengthen the community financially.

“This can be reflected by implementing them in the upcoming Budget 2022 as we need to end the cycle as soon as possible and provide employment opportunities with good social protection,” she said.