Social Connect — Your Own Digital Marae

Every organisation we talk to has the same problem: their community is scattered across Facebook groups, WhatsApp threads, and email chains. Nobody can find anything. Nobody knows who’s responsible for what. And you’re dependent on platforms that can change the rules on you overnight.

For Māori organisations this cuts deeper. A Facebook group isn’t a marae. It doesn’t have kawa. It doesn’t respect whakapapa. It doesn’t let you govern who has access to taonga. It’s someone else’s platform running someone else’s rules — and it will happily serve your whānau an ad for a competitor the moment you post something.

Social Connect is our answer to that. It’s a private community platform that we set up and run for your organisation. Your branding. Your domain. Your data — not ours, not Facebook’s. Yours.

What it actually includes

We start with the basics: a private space where your members can communicate, share files, and organise events. News and announcements that go to the right people. A directory so everyone knows who’s who.

For organisations with more complex needs — iwi, clubs, marae committees — we can build in governance layers. Who can see what. Who can make decisions. How formal communications flow. Karakia before meetings. Proper tikanga embedded in how the platform works, not bolted on as an afterthought.

Why we run it for you

Most organisations don’t have IT staff. They have someone who “knows about computers” who is already doing three other jobs. We don’t sell you software and leave you to figure it out. We set it up, we migrate your existing content if you need it, we train your people, and we keep the thing running.

If something breaks, you call us. Not a support ticket queue in another country. We’re in the same timezone, we speak the same language, and we understand why it matters that your AGM notices go out correctly.

Is it for you?

Social Connect is a good fit if you have a member community of any size and you’re tired of the chaos of informal channels. Iwi, hapū, sports clubs, professional associations, community trusts, businesses with distributed teams — we’ve talked to all of them and the problems are remarkably similar.

Pricing is custom — it depends on your size and what you need. We don’t publish a price because the first conversation is always about whether it’s actually the right solution for you. Sometimes it isn’t, and we’ll tell you that.