Our review of similar development models was conducted by visiting the websites of organizations utilizing Web 2.0 models, searching academic journals and meeting with NGOs. Our research appeared to confirmed that community based organizations (CBOs), while vital to development and the health of their respective communities, remain relatively unsupported. While grassroots CBOs are “an essential cog in the development wheel” (Coetzee 2006), they remain difficult to support because of their low monitoring and evaluation (M/E) capacities. In otherwords, it is difficult for them to show donors/investors how they have grown. Most organizations have choosen instead to support projects where methods of monitoring and evaluation were already in place. The irony of this choice is that those organizations requiring the most growth and development are overlooked. M/E is ultimately our largest hurdle as much of the required infrastructure to monitor our CBOs will have to be formed locally or through partnerships. We choose to view this challenge of M/E is an opportunity to assist CBOs in capacity-building and foster greater transparency with donors/investors.
We are helping to meet an unmet demand, not overlap efforts. Despite the number of Web 2.0 platforms, there remain thousands of community organizations that go unsupported. By mobilizing our resources, we are creating a new actor to join a team of community-leadership-supporting agencies rather than a competitor among a field of aid organizations.