Jordan’s Nakhweh Relaunches as a Regional Hub for Social Ventures
Nakhweh has long been one of Jordan’s
darlings in the social entrepreneurship space, a scrappy NGO trying
to make volunteerism popular (or at least simple) for Jordanian
youth.
Now, the site is pivoting into an entirely new era, relaunching as
a comprehensive directory for social work in the Middle East and
North Africa.
Under its Organizations tab,
the site will list all social ventures (including NGOs, nonprofits,
social enterprises, and initiatives) in a searchable list, while
still offering its signature volunteer matching services. These
will also be upgraded, however; ventures will be able to post
opportunities and receive applications from volunteers in the
Nakhweh network, while a new and improved algorithm makes
suggestions for potential matches.
It’s a move that founder Kamel Al-Asmar has been plotting since he
discussed it with Wamda at the World Economic Forum in 2011,
saying he hoped to create “positive jealousy” among youth in the
region when it comes to seeing peers doing good and wanting to join
the community.
The new vision also stemmed from his constant goal to create
awareness about social work in the Arab world. yet the relaunch is
more than a romantic idea of what “better” means in today’s world;
it’s a data-driven decision. “Our experience at Nakhweh was
that it was tough to follow up and perform impact measurements on
volunteering,” he says. “Now we know how to deal with the situation
in a better way.”
One can’t help but notice the shift towards a more job portal-like
interface; the new service will, after all offer online search and
application functions, and will offer social ventures the ability
to approach potential volunteers directly on the site.
Al-Asmar reveals that the idea was, in the beginning, inspired by
his work at regional job search portal
Akhtaboot, an Endeavor company also based in Amman; he launched
Nakhweh when he realized that no site in the region was catering to
volunteers. While niche job search portals like
Laimoon and
Gradberry and skill search communities like Nabbesh
have cropped up in the past couple of years, along with new
algorithm-based matching sites like
Wuzzuf, Nakhweh is the first to own the feel-good niche.
Al-Asmar admits he looked to the structure of sites like
Idealist.org and Volunteermatch.org to set Nakhweh’s categories.
“We collected over 150 categories and then filtered them down to
82,” he says. Now potential applicants on the site can sift through
those to find what they want, also taking reviews into account.
The new Nakhweh is also even more social than
the previous iteration was. Opportunity seekers will be able to
“follow” a given social venture and receive its updates (which can
be manual or pulled in from existing social media channels).
Social ventures, on the other hand, will receive exposure not just
to potential manpower but also to potential funding opportunities
on the site and the ability to disseminate information to a
regional audience through Nakhweh’s social media and
newsletters.
Overall, the hope is that by creating a central resource, Nakhweh
will help social entrepreneurs and nonprofit managers make a name
for their ventures, as the site makes a name for social work in the
Arab world. Adopting a decentralized model, the new Nakhweh is
built to tap into the power of the crowd to drive its success.
“We look forward to building partnerships around the region,” say
Al-Asmar. Indeed, the success of the new Nakhweh will depend upon
its ability to add enough demonstrated value to NGOs (and enough
willing volunteers) to keep them logged in and searching. Hopefully
the NGO will continue to host offline events that bring its main
constituents into the fold.