It also aims to connect NGOs, foundations and corporations that want to assist underprivileged communities.

According to Wiki Impact’s co-founder Deborah Chan, the online platform was created during the Covid-19 pandemic after NGOs and foundations, whom Wiki Impact dubs as “changemakers”, had difficulty in getting access to data that was easy to interpret in order to help them reach out to the deserving communities.

“There is an abundance of data on various issues, but they are all over the place and difficult to understand. Wiki Impact wants to provide data that is easy to interpret,” Chan said during an online sharing session today.

Wiki Impact has created a national poverty map that shows the median household income of each district in the country, using data provided by the statistics department. Apart from publishing data on poverty, Wiki Impact also publishes whitepapers on socio-economic issues and advertises job openings from think tanks and foundations.

According to Chan, Wiki Impact also helps in the networking between like-minded NGOs that want to work with the urban poor community.

“Wiki Impact has assisted Bulan Sisters, a youth campaign that wanted to help eradicate period poverty but does not have the data on the issue, by connecting them with other changemakers who are working with the poor.

“We also helped with fine-tuning survey methods to get information on period poverty,” Chan said.

Wiki Impact has also worked with Bait Al-Amanah, a KL-based independent research institute in co-organising dialogues on providing education for the stateless and undocumented communities in Malaysia with changemakers. The institute is currently working towards policy recommendations.