Introduction to the Roadmap

Introduction

RNW Media is an organisation that aims at engaging young people – primarily in the digital space – as well as influencing the societies of young people. With innovative approaches to media and training, we connect communities and change-makers, contributing to a world where young people in restrictive settings confidently claim their rights, assume their place in society, and shape a better future. Our mission is to identify young people’s needs, and to bring young people together in user-owned digital communities where they can safely engage on taboos and sensitive topics and generate strong stories for advocacy to unleash their potential for social change.

RNW Media has three programmes: 1) Love Matters, 2) Citizens’ Voice, and 3) Economic Inclusion. RNW Media also has a capacity development unit, RNTC Media Training Center. The thematic programmes have a focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), social cohesion and inclusive governance (SCIG), and Youth Economic Inclusion (EI). RNTC Media Training Center provides capacity development and strengthening programmes in both digital and traditional media.

What is a digital community?

A group of people who:

  • who come together online for a defined purpose,
  • who engage on content shared with the community (both made by community or the community managers),
  • and for whom engagement is focused on purpose and participate because they feel there is a benefit to it.

What can a digital community bring to CSOs implementing programmes?

Digital communities have the following value propositions:

  • Providing the ability to implement programmes via the digital space
  • Mitigating risk: increasing resilience and sustainability
  • Awareness raising and campaigning
  • Scale reach and engagement
  • Delivering access to information
  • Reaching specific groups (reaching young people, connecting dispersed and/or disenfranchised populations)
  • Accessing the intelligence of many
  • Using user-generated data as evidence for advocacy
  • Raising funds
  • Increasing legitimacy of the organisation

What is the roadmap?

Based on learning from digital communities across the world, we created a roadmap that consists of the key building blocks needed to create a digital community for social change. The roadmap provides a framework to capture, organise, create and transfer our knowledge related to building digital communities for social change. Each building block of the roadmap corresponds to a module that assembles both internal and external resources and tools.

The roadmap also includes the decision tree, a tool which can help teams:

  • Determine whether building a digital community is the right method to achieve their desired goal
  • Assess if organisations have the right required resources to build a digital community (budget, partnerships, human resources)
  • Provide insights on why previous experiences related to setting up digital communities (might not) have led to the expected results

Why did RNW Media develop the roadmap?

RNW Media developed the roadmap to:

  • Capture, structure, and order current RNW Media organisational knowledge
  • Compare the captured approaches to RNW Media’s existing best practices
  • Implement streamlined and structured on boarding for new team members in RNW Media’s approach
  • Roll out new programmes and projects in different regions worldwide
  • Strengthen RNW Media’s current programmes and projects
  • Understand regional differences and continuously improve through feedback
  • Provide training of trainers to local teams thus structuring their knowledge and enabling them to offer specific products and services externally
  • Share expertise (content) through online and offline activities

How have we approached it?

The Roadmap came about through a funded collaboration project with the Swedish Postcode Lottery and Forum CIV, a Swedish network organization of NGOs. RNTC drafted the roadmap that captures RNW Media’s way of working (approach), actively involving RNW Media staff across the organisation about the work on the ground; resources and tools for each building block were gathered from our RNW Media programme teams as well as external resources to provide industry best practice.

How can I use this roadmap?

This roadmap can be used as a self-guided training online manual. The modules can be accessed globally through our online learning platform (OLA). Together with your team, you can go through all the building blocks to learn more about the steps to create a digital community, or only pick-and-choose those modules that are relevant to you and your organisation.

The roadmap consists of 11 learning modules and a Decision Tree, through which you can go to strengthen your digital community for social change.

What are the educational/learning benefits of this roadmap?

After going through the roadmap, you and your team will:

  • Have increased capacities on different levels of building digital communities for social change
  • Learn about the best practices through the presented case studies in implementing digital communities for social change
  • Be able to apply the various tools, templates and guidelines provided by the modules to build digital communities for social change
  • Become thought leaders in the process of building digital communities for social change

How can I get the most out of this learning experience?

Besides carefully going through the learning module(s), there are several things you can do to get the most out of this learning experience:

  • Share your knowledge with your team and/or organisation
  • Pick out the most relevant aspects of your learning journey and implement it into your projects
  • Keep track of your learning experiences in your learning journal and completing assignments to ‘learn by doing’ through the process.
  • Keep on discussing the content within your teams

How can I use the skills and knowledge I gain?

This is country context and project specific. After going through the module(s) relevant to your project, to your role, or to your organisation, think of how to roll it out internally.

  • How can you share the skills and knowledge with your teams?
  • How can you apply the skills and knowledge to your projects?
  • How can you incorporate continuous feedback into your newly adapted projects?
  • How can you make sure that your newly adapted projects make the indented impact?
  • How can you ensure sustainability of your projects?

What comes after the roadmap and its building blocks?

The roadmap for building digital communities for social change is a living knowledge resource, that we aim to continuously update & improve. These modules and their content are constantly reviewed and updated to ensure that we remain at the forefront of innovation in the field.

For this reason, the roadmap should be seen as a living lab to test in new and existing interventions. We also invite those who use it and implement it to:

  • Share feedback on the modules and their application
  • Share insights on the modules or discoveries made
  • Share demonstrable impact from the roadmap process.
  • Provide us with resources you find useful or add to the building of stronger communities for social change.
  • Share new methods, tools or innovative best practices.
  • Become involved in the testing of new modules
Illustrations by Freepik Storyset