Going Digital Counts: Two Supermoms Share their Stories at Mashable Social Good Summit

The Mashable Social Good Summit kicked off today with an impressive lineup of speakers. Fundly folks were happy to be in New York among some of today’s leading social and digital pioneers at the annual event that was streamed live to more than 1,000 plugged-in participants. The message of the day was clear: digital innovations are connecting people and doing good around the world.



In one afternoon session supermodel-turned-maternal health advocate Christy Turlington Burns discussed her work with Every Mother Counts, a non-profit she founded in 2010 to advocate for maternal health. Turlington Burns, whose 2010 film No Woman, No Cry documents the journeys of mothers around the globe joined renowned “mommyblogger” Heather Armstrong in conversation about two things that unite us all: stories and women.

The session, moderated by UN President and CEO Kathy Calvin, began in Turlington Burns’ own delivery room with the opening sequence from No Woman, No Cry.  In the clip, Turlington Burns narrates that the day her 8-year-old daughter Grace was born one “one of the best days” of her life “and also the scariest” as she remembers the alarming complications she experienced after giving birth. She goes on to state a disturbing truth: every minute a woman dies from a pregnancy-related and most of these deaths are preventable.

Turlington Burns’ film and message are certainly moving. They’re moving, largely, because they are intimate and personal. Both women are master storytellers who seem to realize the power of the human story. They’re also women who realize the power of sharing stories and have used social media, largely through Armstrong’s blog Dooce, to help make a personal concern a universal cause. The statistics seem to suggest that they have been hugely successful; over the past 10 years, maternal mortality in Bangladesh has dropped 40 percent.

Every Mother Counts is doing good work.

“Our voices can make a bigger impact together than on our own,” Turlington Burns said.
Armstrong added that using your voice means sharing your voice. The most effective advocacy work has gone digital. There are millions of untapped optimists, many of whom are women and stay-at-home mothers, just waiting to be tapped. They want to contribute to causes they care about. They want to share their voice. They want to give money.

Like Christy and Heather, Fundly believes in the power of the collective and the power of voice. We’ve built a social fundraising platform that honors both the social and the individual.

Doing good means making the person and the world a part of each other’s stories. It also means making the person and the world a part of each other’s priorities.