Digital-Social Study
A new age is dawning for aid organizations. They now have to respond to donors who are busy being active in the Internet – who want to know where their money is going. They're demanding interaction. And they're just one click away from the competition. The trend is gaining momentum. Just how is digital communications changing the social sector?
- Abstract
- Current Activities (coming soon)
- Methodology (coming soon)
- New forms of giving, of engaging socially and of donating are well established to date over online donation opportunities and investment platforms such as kiva.org, betterplace.org, Give India, Global Giving or MyC4. Donors and project initiators can now network with one another to create quick and easy participation.
- Impact measurement, quality assessment, transparency and meaning are also positively effected.
- New feedback mechanisms (bottom-up and often technology-driven) allow for more realiable, open statements about project quality and effects.
- Countless small and mid-sized organizations—whose earlier existence was all but unknown to a public donor audience—can now present their initiatives online. This could result in the diversion of funds away from large, well-known organizations to multiple small initiatives.
- Project quality can be improved with basic, affordable technologies (such as mobile aid or election monitoring).
- Project quality can be improved by the direct, realtime inclusion of beneficiaries, who give feedback about the true impact of projects over sms, videos, blogs or twitter. (Also see our Stakeholder Feedback project).
Abstract
This study looks at digital-social potentials. What effects can the Internet and new mobile communications have on the social sector? Already on platforms like betterplace.org, small grassroots organizations are only one click away from their larger, more-established competitors in the aid industry in vying for support. The internet and its opportunities have become second nature. Now, users want to see where their donations are ending up and they want to have a say.
Our research will provide an overview on national and international trends in the use of digital communications in the social sector as well as identify the relevant players and forums. In addition, the study seeks to outline the potential for development in particular for the German donor market.
Already, countless phenomena are raising the first detailed questions. (You can also download the following overview as a pdf presentation or as an audio power-point presentation (the latter is currently only available in German).