Got Milk?

Milk Interactive, a Zurich design agency, donated something as valuable as money: their expertise.
The result is a mobile app for our recipients.

It all started small. One of the employees at Milk Interactive, a design agency in Zurich, was already a regular donor to Social Income. That personal connection grew into a full collaboration, and into one of the best examples we have of how a company can give more than money.

Milk Interactive took on the design of our mobile app for recipients and worked directly with Karin Berg, Mikołaj Demkow, and Verena Zaiser, lead mobile developers in our open source community, to build it. They also handled the finer details, right down to a nicely animated version of our logo:

Why a mobile app?

The app lets recipients with a smartphone confirm their Social Income payments, fill out surveys that help us measure impact, and keep their contact details current, so no payment ever goes to an old phone number. Small things on their own, but together they are the steps that keep the whole program running smoothly, month after month.

Every routine task the app takes over is one our staff no longer has to chase by hand. That frees up our country offices for the work that actually needs a human: checking in on someone who has gone quiet, sorting out a payment that did not arrive, being there for the cases that need personal care.

How many people have a smartphone?

More than you might think. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where we work, roughly half of all mobile connections are already smartphones, a share GSMA expects to keep climbing over the coming years. From what we see on the ground, plenty of people in urban areas own one, usually older devices running old versions of Android. And that is exactly the challenge: the app has to run on these phones and use as little data as possible. Our app does both.

What about people without a smartphone?

They receive their Social Income just the same. The money arrives through mobile money, which works on every phone. In these cases, our field staff stays in touch with recipients directly by phone. A smartphone is not a prerequisite for Social Income, it just makes the routine steps easier.

A model worth repeating

Financial donations remain essential. But professionals who share their skills can multiply impact in ways money alone cannot. When a company makes room for its employees to contribute what they know best, everyone wins: the company, the project, and above all the people it serves.