My Presentation from The Impact of Civic Tech Conference 2015

A donor’s perspectiveLoren Treisman, PhD

Indigo Trust: Executive

• The Indigo Trust is a UK based grant making foundation thatfunds mobile and web-driven projects to bring about socialchange in Africa

• The Trust focuses mainly on innovation, transparency andcitizen empowerment

• We also support innovative tech-driven projects which supportdevelopment outcomes in any social sector including thehealth, education, human rights and agricultural spheres

• We believe that if people have the ability to access, share, create and utilise information, then they are empowered to make positive changes in their own lives and communities

Transparency, Accountability & Citizen Participation: Access to Info

Making Sense of Parliamentary Information

Citizen Reporting

Integrating Tech Interventions Into Wider Campaigns

What We’ve Learnt as Donors

Measuring Impact: Realistic Expectations

• It’s hard to show causation

• How does it compliment other work-relevant piece of a puzzle?

• Clear Theory of Change

• Proxy Indicators

• Users-awareness-re-use of info

• Informal feedback and social media

• Group calls

• Storytelling/anecdotal evidence

Working With On The Ground Partners

Marketing: Targeting Professionals

• The Chairman of the ruling party writing to ask Mzalendo to help with engagement regarding the Youth Employment Bill

• A rep writing to ask Mzalendo to share information about a bursary they were offering

• Requests by MPs for profile updates

MPs are starting to take notice….

Marketing: Increasing traffic and engagement

• Twitter and Facebook they tend to account for between 85% and 90% of all social traffic.

• In most countries analysed, Facebook is a higher driver of traffic

• In South Africa and Zimbabwe the reverse is true

• In Africa, competitions or infographics, or similar style news type stories are shared most

• In South Africa the blogs are the most shared

• Referrals make up 5% of hits of People’s Assembly

• In Kenya promotional work e.g. Shujaaz drew traffic

295,858 users on multiple platforms

January

• Impressions 21,811 – a 30% increase on December

• Sessions 10,710 – a 25% increase on December

• Unique Visitors 9,104 – a 26% increase on December

Integrating Tech Into Well Devised Programmes

Integrating Tech Into Well Devised Campaigns

A Few Take home Messages……….

• Use of appropriate and available tech-target audience? Penetration?

• The importance of context

• Empower local activists and professionals to use tech

• Bringing together the right partners is key

• Don’t underestimate marketing and training needs

• Passionate, capable leaders and teams matter

• Consult end users at all stages of projects

• Think about interoperability, replicability and/or scalability

• Patience is needed, impact takes time

Thanks for ListeningLoren Treisman, PhD

www.indigotrust.org.ukTwitter: @[email protected]