New social network for nonprofits launches at Nonprofit Center

The Helen Bader Foundation founded MKE123 as a way for the nonprofit sector to collaborate. MKE123 is now housed under the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee.
“The online platform is really designed to meet the needs of the nonprofit community in the Greater Milwaukee area,” said Matt Brown, project director of MKE 123. “What started as a collaboration tool designed for nonprofit organization has transformed into a way for organizations to reach other constituencies within the sector as well.”
According to Brown, friends of nonprofits as well as donors and other supporters as well as clients can be a part of MKE123, as well.
The platform is structured similar to Facebook, Brown said. It was designed that way to assist in lowering the learning curve for the platform.
“Individuals can sign up for personal accounts and can then create pages for various nonprofit organizations,” Brown said. “The key differentiation is that page designations are reserved for properly registered 501(c)3 organizations within the greater Milwaukee area. Our goal was to cut down on a lot of the excess noise traditionally associated with social media platforms.”
The platform officially launched on September 16.
Organizations have the ability to post password protected discussions including meeting agenda, board minutes, committee meetings or collaborative projects, Brown said.
“The same discussions can be made public if the organization wishes to warrant discussion from other organizations or MKE123 members,” he added.
There’s a community calendar where Nonprofit Organizations can post upcoming events and fundraisers as well as a marketplace where organizations can ask for or sell office supplies or services.
“By launching MKE123 we are not trying to encourage people to use this instead of Facebook and Twitter, we certainly encourage the support of those platforms as well,” Brown said. “We don’t want this to be one more thing to do. We’re really hoping this helps nonprofit organizations have fewer things to do.”
Brown is currently working with a team of developers to include tools too allow for increased integration with existing social media platforms, he said.
“We’re hoping to release the new integration tools very soon,” he said. “We know that resources are scared, particularly within the nonprofit sector. We are trying very hard to keep that as a central focus in developing this site.”
To sign up for free or to learn more about the social media platform for nonprofits visit www.mke123.org.