Mirum Launches Online Humanitarian Platform Start Network

Digital agency Mirum has partnered with Start Network to launch a new online platform that will allow its members, donors and the public to monitor humanitarian alerts as they happen, follow how money is spent and see how many people have been helped.

Start Network’s innovative portal, which was designed and built by Mirum, was made available to the public today.

The portal means that every aid agency project supported by the Start Fund in crises around the world can be viewed and its outcome evaluated by anyone who visits the website.

Sean Lowrie, director, Start Network, says: “This is a radical exercise in transparency which will ensure that the Start Fund is open to real-time scrutiny, like no other fund of its kind in the world. It will help to ensure that we are accountable to donors – currently four governments, and ultimately their taxpayers – and, just as important, to the communities affected by crises whose needs we seek to serve.”

Ali Merifield, client services director, Mirum, adds: "We had a good working relationship with the Start team and looked at how the site could be innovative and support a new way of delivering humanitarian aid in line with their vision. It was very important to work with all the stakeholders from the Start Fund team to member agencies and measurement. The new platform delivers a marked step change in transparency, accountability, engagement and automation. This will enable the Start Fund  to handle more frequent crises through the network’s growing membership, ultimately on a far larger scale, using technology to offer more to more people while keeping the central team small."

The Start Fund is a pooled rapid-response fund.  It is run collectively by Start Network’s 42 aid agency members around the world. The fund has enabled members to intervene in 99 emergencies, helping more than five million people since April 2014. Details of current projects will be made available as they unfold in real time, and information about projects already completed will be easily accessible.