Stakeholder Feedback
How can we find out what kind of impact projects have on aid recipients? By asking them directly, of course! In the stakeholder feedback studies, we experiment with SMS, video and online technologies, providing a platform for them to voice both criticisms and praise.
(Video currently only available in German. Subtitles to come soon.)
Abstract
What kind of impact does social engagment have on aid recipients? And how do we find out? We take a look at these questions in our project Stakeholder Feedback, which means feedback from beneficiaries. We try out technologically-supported feedback systems, like SMS, video or Twitter, to see whether and how it's possible to provide beneficiaries an opportunity to voice their own opinions. Aid recipients can give direct, onsite feedback and evaluation about the quality and impact of projects. After a pilot-phase, we will make the new feedback mechanisms available to all registered proejcts on betterplace.org.
Aid recipients should be able to provide feedback
betterplace.org uses the traditional trust-building mechanisms of well-known nonprofits, donation certifications or indirect reputation of organisations in order to evaluate the quality of project impact. But we additionally provide another mechanism, the "Web of Trust", a social network that functions as a kind of confidence-building public wiki. The Web of Trust enables all members--whether they are beneficiaries of a project's work, volunteers or initiators, topical experts or friends of the project managers – to evaluate the quality of the project on a public Internet platform.
The goal of the Stakeholder Feedback project is to broaden the already-existing Web of Trust, particularly to evaluate which projects are qualitatively high. The beneficiaries of projects are central for us. These are the end-users of the entire aid development initiatives and programmes. As such, they should be able to offer their feedback about positive and negative effects of the respective aid projects. To this end, we are testing various communications technologies such as SMS or video.
Our assumption: more effective impact monitoring promotes the willingness to donate
At betterplace.org, we start with the assumption that with increased transparency and comprehensive evaluation and trust-building mechanisms, the truly effective organizations and projects will receive more resources in the end than the ineffective ones. Potential donors will always prefer to support transparent and trusted projects. Improving our monitoring system makes the best projects stand out from the rest.
Social projects should be quickly and easily adjustable
The Internet opens up a whole new set of feedback possibilities. Numerous cost-efficient methods allow for the collection and aggregation of beneficiary feedback in a way that is easily accessible – for example through SMS-feedback, which functions similarly to twitter-updates posted on a virtual bulletin board. This form of opinion-accumulation is also known as crowdsourcing, and is a "bottom-up" approach of reporting that acts in compliment to the "top-down" reports that come from the headquarters of aid organizations. This makes sure that the voice of those people are strongly represented who are most directly impacted by projects. And since feedback can be transmitted in real time, programmes can be precisely and more quickly adjusted.
- Stakeholder Feedback leads to:
- better identification of problems through the alternate feedback,
- participation of beneficiaries in finding solutions,
- more targeted allocation of resources
- launch of innovative impact measurement systems,
- quicker detection of mismanagement and fraud,
- real-time communication with beneficiaries directly impacted by the aid projects,
- authentic additional information for sponsors
- better insights into the impact of individual aid projects
What technology is appropriate for the purpose of Stakeholder Feedback?
How helpful individual technologies are for getting feedback varies across countries and types of situation. In developing countries, beneficiary feedback is best collected via mobile phones. There, the internet and landline infrastructure are not nearly as developed as mobile networks. Over 73% of all mobile phone subscribers are based in developing countries. Mobile markets in many African countries have very high growth rates in recent years. In Kenya, for example, the number of mobile phone subscribers more than quadrupled between 2005 (approximately 5.3 million) and 2010 (approximately 22 million). The mobile phone is perceived by some people as "Africa's PC". Some development agencies, NGOs and governments in developing and emerging countries have already recognized this potential. More and more organizations build on the reach of mobile phone technology and the efficiencies related to "crowdsourcing"; leading sectors in this respect are humanitarian response and "mobile health" (often abbreviated as "mHealth"). In the field of development cooperation, particularly in project monitoring and evaluation, this is hardly the case. Could technology-supported feedback mechanisms as described above help to give beneficiaries stronger voice in the process of development? We try to explore this question within the framework of our Stakeholder Feedback project.
An SMS-based feedback mechanism could gain in importance not only in developing countries but also in countries like Germany. Our experience with pilots in Germany (see next section) showed that this looks promising when working with younger audiences.
Current Activities
- Second pilot phase: We have completed the first pilot phase end of May 2011. Funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation with 15000 EUR, we have developed an SMS gateway with our partner organization TickerTXT and tested the technology in three pilot cases: two projects with the Anne Frank Zentrum in Germany and one project in India (for more information about project results, see the final report). Our project results and the growing interest of many international organizations in beneficiary feedback have encouraged us in our motivation to scale the project. Based on findings from the first pilot phase, the project concept has been refined and further developed. In particular, further approaches were have been added that attempt to overcome the greatest challenges that confronted us: incentives for beneficiaries to participate and effective promotional activities. As the next step, we want to conduct two more pilots: 1) to support a development initiative based in sub-Saharan Africa with beneficiary feedback, and 2) conduct a pilot project in Germany. For the latter we have already found an interested partner working in the field of education: : buddY e.V.
- International Overview: We elaborated an international overview, where we can see which ideas have where already been implemented and where, what kind of standards have been developed and what relevant topics are being researched. The following pdf files are mindmaps, where you can click on the Firefox or Google Chrome icons to go directly to the linked websites.
- Accountability Standards:
- Range of application of digital feedback:
- Pilot projects with beneficiary feedback in the field of development (sorted according to sectors):
- Impact Measurement:
- Interviews: We have conducted interviews with international experts in the field of feedback in business, in development organizations and software development since 2010.
- Scientific publications: In the fall of 2011, we plan to publish papers in on stakeholder feedback in German and English language journals.
- Workshop: Together with the Humboldt Viadrina School of Governance we will hold a workshop on 3. September on the increasingly important topic of the economy of trust. User-driven feedback systems are included in this topic.
- Video: In cooperation with the US American telecommunication enterprise Cisco, we have recently begun a video-feedback competition. Chosen projects from the betterplace.org platform use small, simple FLIP cameras to document he impact of their social engagement.
- SMS interface on betterplace.org: In the long term, we are planning to implement an SMS feedback interface on betterplace.org. This will enable beneficiaries to post their feedback and thoughts in real time to a wide community of viewers.
In order to continue piloting we are looking for a funder who is interested in developing cooperation and digital media. First, we want to implement the approach of stakeholder feedback as part of an extended pilot project in a developing country. Second, we aim to start a beneficiary feedback program for buddy e.V. in Germany. Third, we want to establish a technological interface for betterplace.org and donor organizations.
Methodology
We are convinced that we must conduct continous pilots and tests in order to find the appropriate technologies for different users in their respective societies. To that end we rely on the methods of anthropology, social sciences, software development, evaluation science and the interdisciplinary Design Thinking. We think of ourselves as seekers in action. We experiment how various methods function in different contexts, since there are multiple types of aid organizations, not to mention a whole array of cultures and societies. After developing solutions, we scale the pilot projects up to a larger scale in order to widen their relevance to other audiences. These methods reflect how the betterplace lab works.
You can contact or from the betterplace lab team with any questions. Or just use our contact form.