Digital Resilience in Action: Life Lifters Kenya’s journey through BRIDGE

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, the ability to engage online is a necessity. For nonprofits, especially those working in underserved regions or tackling complex social issues, digital tools can be the bridge between intention and impact. Whether it’s reaching new donors, advocating for policy change, or delivering services, digital capacity enables organisations to scale their mission and deepen their impact. Yet many grassroots organisations remain digitally under-resourced. That’s why Lightful created the BRIDGE programme - Building Resilience in Digital Growth and Engagement - to empower nonprofits with the skills, confidence, and strategies to thrive in the digital age and build lasting change.

Meet Life Lifters Kenya: A mission rooted in empowerment

Life Lifters Kenya is an organisation working to economically empower rural girls by ensuring they have access to quality education, mentorship, and business training. Through their work, they address some of the most critical barriers faced by adolescent girls in Kenya including limited access to menstrual hygiene, gender-based inequality, and a lack of economic opportunity.

At the heart of their approach is a deep commitment to dignity and agency. Life Lifters not only equips girls with the tools to thrive but also supports them in becoming changemakers within their communities. From mentorship programmes to menstrual hygiene drives, this is an organisation deeply embedded in the lived realities of the girls they serve.

But like many nonprofits operating in under-resourced environments, Life Lifters Kenya faced significant challenges in scaling their mission. Before joining the BRIDGE programme, they struggled to secure consistent funding and relied heavily on one-off donations. Their digital presence was limited, and they lacked the strategy and confidence to effectively engage wider audiences, funders, and collaborators online. These barriers constrained their ability to grow and to fully showcase the life-changing impact of their work.

When applying for BRIDGE, they shared, “We are a grassroots organisation whose main source of income is online donations. This training would provide us with an opportunity to learn how to leverage digital channels to be able to pull in enough resources to implement our programs. It [BRIDGE] would be a huge catalyst for our work and impact.”

The BRIDGE Breakthrough: Building capacity, expanding reach

The BRIDGE programme came at a pivotal moment for their team, offering a pathway not only to digital upskilling but to long-term sustainability and systems-level influence. BRIDGE equipped the team with essential skills in digital campaigning, donor communication, audience engagement, and stakeholder relationship-building. But more than technical know-how, the programme sparked a deeper transformation, shifting their confidence, mindset, and strategic outlook.

“My confidence was actually built around fundraising and running digital campaigns,” shares Cynthia Muhonja, a representative from Life Lifters Kenya. “I was able to follow Lightful’s content and create a very successful digital campaign for the Menstrual Hygiene Day celebration.”

By the end of the programme, their confidence in fundraising had increased by 100%. They also doubled their confidence in both audience engagement and digital strategy development. It’s a brilliant example of what’s possible with the right support, a clear focus, and a commitment to learning.

The results speak for themselves. Over the six-month programme:

• Life Lifters Kenya grew their social media audience by 15%, reaching new communities and allies beyond national borders
  
• Their Menstrual Hygiene Day campaign exceeded its fundraising target by 150%, enabling them to support even more girls with dignity-affirming hygiene supplies
  
• They also received in-kind donations from a US-based company, a direct result of improved online visibility and storytelling, further supporting their mission

“Lightful has such thought-provoking training materials and content that is very relevant to the issues we face everyday when engaging stakeholders online. My confidence was actually built around fundraising and running digital campaigns. I was able to follow their content and create a very successful digital campaign.”

By embracing digital tools and strategies, Life Lifters moved from being digitally present to being digitally resilient. Their journey is a clear example of how BRIDGE doesn’t just teach skills, it builds the foundations for sustainable, impactful growth.

Community impact: From online growth to real-world change

The true value of digital transformation is revealed when online engagement leads to tangible, offline impact. For Life Lifters Kenya, their growing digital confidence has enabled them to better tell their story, build strategic connections, and scale their mission in meaningful ways.

One standout example is their online Menstrual Hygiene campaign, which raised over USD 3,000 through digital channels. These funds directly supported more than 100 teenage girls across three different communities in Kenya, ensuring access to hygiene supplies, reducing school absenteeism, and addressing period poverty with dignity and care.

“Life Lifters Kenya has been running a Digital Menstrual Hygiene Management campaign that has raised over USD 3,000... supporting more than 100 teenage girls.”

But the digital impact didn’t stop there. Since completing BRIDGE in 2023, Life Lifters Kenya has significantly expanded its reach, both geographically and in terms of stakeholder engagement, a story that’s come through clearly in follow-up surveys and in our ongoing conversations with their team.

• They’ve engaged with individuals and organisations in the UK, USA, and China through their website and social platforms
  
• They’ve established connections with key sector players such as Amplify Girls, Ipas Africa Alliance, and FEMNET, opening doors to new learning and collaboration
  
• Most importantly, they’ve used their new digital fluency to engage funders such as She’s the First, The Melton Foundation, and Ipas Africa Alliance, who now invest in their work

"The Bridge program exposed Life Lifters Kenya to key lessons on donor engagement, communication and retention that have been absolutely revolutionary to our work.”

These outcomes illustrate the cascading effects of digital empowerment: stronger campaigns lead to more support; greater visibility leads to deeper credibility; and better tools lead to stronger voices. Life Lifters Kenya have turned digital capacity into real community change.

Systems Change: engaging funders and policy-makers

Beyond strengthening their digital presence and local impact, Life Lifters Kenya has begun influencing the very systems that shape their work. Through BRIDGE, they didn’t just learn how to run better campaigns, they learned how to position themselves as credible, compelling actors in the global development space.

“We’ve been able to attract funders such as She’s the First, the Melton Foundation, and Ipas Africa Alliance... and engage with policy-makers like NACADA and NCPD.”

This is where BRIDGE’s deeper value comes into focus. The programme empowers organisations to not only increase visibility but also build strategic, long-term relationships with institutional funders and policy influencers. For Life Lifters Kenya, this has led to:

• Direct investments and support from prominent international funders
  
• Policy recognition by national bodies such as the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) and the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD)

When nonprofits gain the digital confidence and credibility to sit at the table with decision-makers, they’re no longer on the margins of change… they’re helping shape it.

The story of Life Lifters Kenya is still unfolding but it’s already a powerful example of what’s possible when grassroots organisations are equipped with the digital tools, skills, and confidence to lead their own transformation. Since completing the BRIDGE programme, they’ve moved beyond reliance on traditional donations and reactive fundraising. Today, they operate with a strategic digital mindset, leveraging platforms, partnerships, and campaigns to drive sustainable growth.

"The BRIDGE program provided Life Lifters Kenya with a way to do campaigns and digital fundraisers the right way. The training programme strengthened our knowledge base and gave my team and I the chance to learn and implement the lessons learnt. The Life Lifters team now knows that we don’t just launch campaigns. They know that we have to plan, set clear goals and implementation strategies. I particularly loved the fact that we still have access to the materials, recently I used the materials to train two interns on how to run digital campaigns and they are currently using the materials to learn."

Their journey is a model of what happens when funders invest in digital capacity building. If one small, passionate team in Kenya can go from local visibility to global recognition in under a year, imagine the potential when hundreds more organisations follow suit.

Through BRIDGE, Lightful is helping to rebalance digital power in the social impact sector. And in doing so, we’re witnessing a new generation of changemakers, like Life Lifters Kenya, lead with clarity, courage, and connection.

If you're committed to strengthening the sector’s resilience, we’d love to hear from you. Whether you’re a funder, nonprofit, or mission-driven organisation, there’s a role for you in this journey. Let’s explore how we can work together to create more transformative stories, like Life Lifters Kenya, that demonstrate the power of digital for good. Contact us at partnerships@lightful.com.