How We Flap Started

Over the years, we have had the privilege of being constantly amazed by the fantastic development work that is undertaken by the many Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that we have interacted with across the world. At the same time, we have always been surprised by the fact that very few people seem to know about these NGOs. So, we embarked on a small experiment to determine how much people actually knew about social development.

We spoke to people in several countries, and asked what areas of social development they were most passionate about. We received many answers – child literacy, women’s empowerment, HIV education, poverty reduction, etc. We then asked the same people if they knew of NGOs that worked in those fields, and if they could name a few for us. But typically, we never got an answer to that question. We wondered why more people did not know about NGOs that worked for the causes that they were interested in.




We came to the conclusion that most of us have an interest in being good and the impulse to want to help social issues. However, there are factors that prevent us from becoming involved with these social causes. Some of them are –

• We don’t know enough – In spite of online search engine tools and a plethora of other information at our disposal from various sources, we find it difficult to get a quick snapshot of the NGOs that work on the social causes that we feel passionately about. Moreover, how do we trust that the information is valid? How do we know that the information is not out-dated, but is actually current?
• We’re too busy – Most of us don’t have time to manage our day-to-day lives. We have got used to information being available instantly, and therefore, if we can’t find answers to meet our needs in a minute or two, we abandon our efforts. How can we then become involved in social causes if it is difficult to learn about them? How we can help NGOs, if it requires us to dedicate a lot of time to search for them – time that we don’t have?
• We never hear about most NGOs –Most NGOs do not do a good job of building their brand and getting their name out. This is usually because they do not have the resources to promote their work to a large audience. So, if the NGOs don’t promote themselves, how can we ever learn about and then eventually, help them?
• We need peer-validation –Very often, we get involved in helping an NGO if someone we trust is also helping that organization. Where can we find a place that allows us to collaborate with a network of friends, who we trust, to help NGOs as one team of people with similar interests and passions to help solve social issues?
• We need more options to help –We find that people are getting used to having many options in every decision-making aspect of their lives. However, most of us usually only have 2 ways in which we can help NGOs – 1) Send them money, or 2) Volunteer with our time. Why should philanthropy be any different? Why can’t we choose how we want to help an NGO? Why aren’t we being given various options that describe the needs an NGO?

In the summer of 2008, We Flap was started as a non-profit initiative to help individuals and NGOs that wanted to help various social causes. Our mission is to be the largest and most trusted online philanthropic community to learn about, interact with and help NGOs across the world. Our goal is to enable individuals to engage with and assist various NGOs, thereby democratizing the process of philanthropy.

The name – We Flap

The butterfly effect is a phrase that is often used to explain more technical notions of a prominent field of study in physics called chaos theory. One famous talk on the subject of chaos theory was titled "Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" The main premise of chaos theory suggests that in any dynamic system, small variations in its conditions may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.

Along the same lines of the butterfly effect, when we were planning our strategy for our new organization, we had a fundamental belief that many people want to collectively help address various social issues in some small way. And this collective help had the potential of creating world-changing development. However, the present conditions and requirements to be philanthropic, prevented most of us from tackling social causes, and therefore, we had to change these conditions.