Mumbai, 29 April, 2008: K.C. Mahindra Education Trust and Naandi Foundation’s joint special project Nanhi Kali will now be promoted in a very innovative way online. The leading global non profit brand has developed an internet 2.0 site to generate donations and awareness about its activities without having to spend revenue for advertisement expenses. 

For many years, Nanhi Kali has relied on paid advertising to generate awareness and donations. The marketing challenge was how you raise awareness while minimizing the cost to purchase media in the global marketplace; especially for an organization where every penny truly counts.

"Several months ago, we saw the power of social media and social networking as a global marketing and media revolution and decided to put all our efforts into becoming the most admired not for profit brand on the world. Most non profits are stuck in the traditional advertising age, spending precious money to buy media. We thought in the age of Google, Facebook, and Flickr there must be a better, smarter way," says Sheetal Mehta, Executive Director of the Nanhi Kali organization. "SHREYA - a robot girl was created.

"To bring our vision to life, we turned to StrawberryFrog, one of the world's leading innovative communications firms. We have worked closely with them during the past few months. They are amazingly creative and connected into this new social media world said Mehta.

"Nanhi Kali is exactly the kind of brand we wanted to collaborate with; it is modern, intelligent and a social activist. This is our first work for an Indian brand and we wanted it to be really innovative. All of us here at StrawberryFrog are so very proud to be a part of this work for such an incredible brand. When StrawberryFrog was asked by Nanhi Kali to collaborate with it's top management to bring Sheetal's vision to life, it was quite a challenge indeed said Scott Goodson, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of StrawberryFrog.

The Nanhi Kali iSite was launched recently on Facebook and other social media to opinion formers across the globe. The name of the iSite is Shreya. Shreya is a little girl who guides these leading cultural figures through all the social networking and content sites already existing on the web. Shreya guides them to Wikipedia for background. She guides them to Youtube for documentaries; to changethepresent.org for easy donations and to Google, blogs, Digg, Flickr, Facebook, Myspace for content and community.

Instead of a complex expensive website, we spent our time using the technology that already exists on the web and spent our money on developing Shreya as a human evolution of the internet. To build this digital robot, and bring Shreya to life, StrawberryFrog collaborated with a branded utility technical firm in Sweden called AlbertKen. It's a totally new way to think of the net. Why build a lot of custom content housing technology when you can use the best stuff in the world out there that's open ended and its free. What's more, it all let's millions of people across the globe connect, share, create and play with our brand. It’s a new world and Nanhi Kali is the best example of a leading edge modern brand maximizing the potential of the social media landscape for an important cause."

Sheetal Mehta, said "StrawberryFrog's idea has been brilliantly executed and already it has been very effective. The Nanhi Kali iSite has already created thousands of new leads, and hundreds of
new donations from across the globe, which has led to new financial aid for the young girls that Nanhi Kali supports."

Nanhi Kali is a sponsorship program that supports the education of less privileged and disadvantaged girl children in India. It currently supports over 37000 girls in urban rural and tribal parts of India.

StrawberryFrog is a leading independent global convergence agency. It is known for its innovative global work for Heineken, Frito Lay, Morgan Stanley, and Microsoft and Asics Onitsuka Tiger.

About the Nanhi Kali Project
Established in 1996, Nanhi Kali is a special project jointly managed by the K. C. Mahindra Education Trust (KCMET) and Naandi Foundation, aimed at providing 10 years of quality education to the underprivileged girl child in India. This national girl child sponsorship programme provides both academic support and direct material support in the form of uniforms, clothes, note books etc. The project currently supports the education of over 36,000 underprivileged girl children across 8 states in India and aims to support 1,00,000 girl children by the end of 2008.