Milkywire was founded by entrepreneur Nina Siemiatkowski (pictured), based on her experience working with non-profits in Kenya, where she learned the challenges they’re facing — including the lack of digitalization.
— We want to create modern solutions to solve the planet crisis, aiming to bring you closer to the impact, Jacob Sievers, head of engineering, explains.
Less than three per cent of global donations go to environmental work. Milkywire focuses on four of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; #6 (Clean water and sanitation), #13 (Climate action), #14 (Life below water), and #15 (Life on land). The donations support reliable, locally-rooted civil society organizations. A special app allows users to explore, directly donate to, and follow the progress of grassroots projects over time, through weekly video updates from the people in the field. Personal charity pages allow anyone to set up a customized charity page to show people what they care about and raise money for it.
So far, Milkywire has had 15.000 donors and 30 corporate partners. After today, on Earth day, these numbers will hopefully become even higher, since Apple has chosen to highlight the company as the App of the day in App Store, reaching millions of potential changemakers across the world.
— I’d say that our mission is to support the causes you care about, Sievers concludes.