Being great at what you do isn't enough if nobody can find you. How to get your organisation listed in the Digital Village — and how to write a listing people actually act on.
Somewhere right now, a funder is searching for an organisation that does exactly what yours does. A young person is looking for the programme you run. A partner needs the product your community makes. Whether any of them finds you depends on one unglamorous thing: whether you're visible where they're looking. Listing your organisation in the Digital Village — the network's shared online marketplace and directory — is how you put yourself there. Here's how it works, and how to make a listing that earns its place. This guide covers: - Who belongs in the directory - How listing works - What makes a listing people act on - Getting discovered beyond the listing - Keeping it alive ## Who Belongs in the Directory The short answer: if you're part of this ecosystem's work, there's room. NGOs and community organisations, SMMEs and local enterprises, youth programmes and training initiatives, partners and projects across the network — the Village is deliberately a welcoming place, not a gated one. You don't need to be big, polished, or established for years; you need to be real, reachable, and doing something the ecosystem should know about. If you're unsure whether your organisation fits, ask — the answer is more often yes than people expect. ## How Listing Works Getting listed starts at **bighearts.digital**: reach out through the site to introduce your organisation. The team confirms the essentials — who you are, what you do, how to reach you — and your listing joins the directory. The process is kept simple on purpose, and since practical details can evolve as the Village grows, the site itself always carries the current steps. What you'll want ready is less about paperwork and more about clarity: a plain description of what you do, where you work, who you serve, and a contact that gets answered. That last one matters more than everything else combined. It's also worth deciding who in your organisation owns the listing — the person who'll answer enquiries and keep the details current — because a listing with an owner stays useful, and one without an owner quietly goes stale. > A listing is a promise that someone is on the other end. The organisations that win from directories are simply the ones that answer. ## What Makes a Listing People Act On A directory entry has one job: helping a stranger decide, in under a minute, that you're worth contacting. A few things do most of that work. **Say what you do in plain words.** "We train unemployed youth in Mpumalanga for retail work" beats "we facilitate transformative empowerment solutions" every time. Write for the person searching, not for a funding proposal. **Be specific about place and people.** Where you work and who you serve are the first filters anyone applies. Vague reach reads as no reach. **Show one proof.** A number, a story, a named partnership — one concrete thing that says this is real. Keep it honest; small and true beats big and fuzzy. **Make contact effortless.** A working phone number, an email someone reads, a site or page if you have one. Every extra step loses people. **Choose a good photo.** Real people doing the real work — not a stock handshake. In a village, faces matter. ## Getting Discovered Beyond the Listing The listing is your address in the Village; what makes people walk past it is activity. Share your stories — the Village gathers impact stories from across the ecosystem, and a story travels further than a description ever will. Mention your listing where you already talk: your social media, email signature, WhatsApp groups. Browse the directory yourself and connect with neighbours — referrals flow toward organisations that engage, and in a connected ecosystem, the one who refers gets referred. Discovery compounds slowly, then suddenly: each connection makes the next one likelier. The organisations that get found most aren't the biggest — they're the ones that showed up, stayed reachable, and gave the Village something worth passing along. ## Keeping It Alive A stale listing quietly costs you: a changed number, a finished programme, a moved office — each one a stranger lost without your knowing. Put a recurring reminder in your calendar — quarterly is plenty — to check that your details are current, your description still matches what you do, and anything new (programmes, products, achievements) has made it in. Five minutes, four times a year, keeps the front door working. ## Take Your Place in the Village Bighearts Digital connects hearts in a digital village — and the directory only gets richer as more of the ecosystem takes its place in it. If your organisation is doing real work that people should be able to find, visit bighearts.digital and introduce yourself. There's room.