Introduction to the Roadmap

Welcome to the introductory module on your journey to building digital communities for social change. 

Introduction

RNW Media focuses both on engaging young people – primarily in the digital space – and influencing the societies of young people. Our approach is based on continuous innovation applying state of the art media tools and methods. 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. 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 come together online for a defined purpose;

who engage on content shared with the community (both made by community or the community managers), for whom engagement is focused on purpose; and

participate because they feel they get something out of it (there is a benefit).

What can a digital community bring to CSOs implementing programmes? 

Digital communities have the following value propositions.  

• Provide the ability to implement programmes via the digital space
• Mitigate risk: Increasing resilience and sustainability
• Awareness raising and campaigning
• Scale reach and engagement
• Deliver access to information
• Reaching specific groups (essential way to reach young people; new ways of connecting dispersed populations; people with less of a voice)
• Access intelligence of many
• User generated data can be used as evidence for advocacy
• Raise funds
• Increasing legitimacy of the organisation

What is the roadmap?

Based on learning from 20 digital communities across the world, we created a roadmap,

consisting of 12 steps, or building blocks, that are 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.

For each building block of the roadmap, a module has been developed, that gathers the relevant

resources and tools of RNW Media as well as external sources. 

The roadmap includes a tool, a decision tree, which can help organisations to: 

• Determine whether building a digital community is the right method to achieve their desired goal
• Assess if organisations have the right requited 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, including a Decision Tree, through which you can go to strengthen your digital community for social change.

What are the 11 steps in “Building digital Communities for Social Change”?

• STEP 1: ANALYSE YOUR DIGITAL COUNTRY CONTEXT 

In this first step, you will collect relevant information to understand what is going on in the (digital) context of the country you want to work in. This can be done by doing desk research on existing information, by doing an online content analysis on relevant topics (e.g. news reports and statistics about the internet penetration), through surveys, focus groups discussions and other interviewing methods.  

• STEP 2: DEFINE YOUR TOC  

A Theory of Change (ToC) is a methodology that comprehensively describes why and how the desired (social) change you want to contribute to is expected to happen. In this step, the ToC will be further explored, and you will learn how to create one. Starting by identifying your mission and vision, you will work towards a ToC ‘product’ which exists of the ToC narrative and a visualisation of the ToC.  

• DECISION TREE  

The decision tree was developed to have a check-in moment before you get into the practicalities of building digital communities for social change. It gives you a moment to think: “What is the impact you want to achieve?” and, “Will a larger community increase your impact?” but also, “Is your target group accessible online?” and “Do you have the resources to invest?” These are all important questions you need to ask yourself before deciding to continue alongside the roadmap to use digital tools and channels to create social impact at scale.  

• STEP 3: DEFINE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

After deciding that the usage of digital tools and channels will help you achieve the impact you want to make, you can start defining your target audience. In this step, you will have to define to whom your activities will be targeted at to be able to achieve the intended results. You will learn how to create a target audience map, how to create personas and how to develop a user journey to understand your target audience and their needs. 

• STEP 4: BUILD YOUR TEAM AND PARTNERSHIPS

In the fourth step, you will identify what roles and responsibilities are needed to make up a good working team. The team must be inclusive and diverse, and careful recruitment strategies are explained to eliminate discrimination and to give everyone an equal opportunity to apply. Besides a good functioning team, it is important to assess potential partner organisations to collaborate with. You will understand what types of partnerships exists, why they are important and how you can establish successful partnerships. This step is especially important for the sustainability of your project. Engaging with existing local organisations in your context can provide a strong basis for the success of your project.  

• STEP 5: SET-UP YOUR DIGITAL PLATFORMS

There are many different digital platforms and channels that you can work with to build your digital community. In this step you will learn the differences between medium, channels, social media and mobile channels. Furthermore, you will identify the digital channels that you can select to reach your target audience, taking your goals and capacity into account. As a final, but not unimportant point, you will identify what channels your competitors are using to improve your own channel strategy.  

• STEP 6: DEVELOP YOUR STRATEGIES

There are many different strategies that you can consider developing for different purposes. You can also make use of already existing strategies; however, it is important that you contextualise your strategies to make them fit for purpose. In this step, you will focus on contextualising four different strategies: 1) Content strategy – to develop relevant and inclusive content, 2) Moderation strategy – to make sure that you engage people from different backgrounds into the conversation, 3) Advocacy strategy – to identify the most relevant advocacy topics, 4) Data strategy – to manage your data in accordance with the (ethical aspects of) data protection laws.  

• 7: ONLINE CIVIC SPACE

The platforms that you use to build a digital community, can grow to be an alternative civic space in a challenging media environment. The last two decades have seen an accelerating trend of ‘shrinking civic space’ in which states and non-state actors have curtailed citizens’ rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly through legislative and extra-legal measures. This step is an introductory chapter to what will be explained in 7.1 and 7.2: Inclusive digital media content and communities that are both essential for your platform to become and inclusive, alternative civic space for engagement.  

• STEP 7.1: CREATE PLURALISTIC CONTENT

To create a space where people feel safe to contribute, it is essential to have content that supports this. In this step, you will continue to learn more about effectively reaching your target audience through inclusive and pluralistic content creation. You will be introduced to the persuasive storytelling approach and you will learn how to identify a micro target audience through a target audience mapping exercise.  

• STEP 7.2: MODERATE & SUPPORT ENGAGEMENT

The next element of an inclusive, alternative civic space to function, is through engaging with the content. Different engagement techniques can support groups with different backgrounds (e.g. ethnic groups, gender identities, religious groups) to contribute to the discussion. In this step we introduce you to community moderation, which can lead to increased engagement on content, and with each other. You will learn how to moderate different comments, and how to deal with polarisation, and you will be introduced into measuring effective moderation. In this step you will also learn about other engagement techniques, such as SMART-targeting (presenting certain content to a specific targeted group first, for this group to lead the discussion) and other offline engagement techniques. Finally, this step is also an introduction into digital optimisation to support engagement.  

• STEP 8: COLLECT INSIGHTS ON YOUTH NEEDS, BEHAVIOUR AND ASPIRATIONS

To make sure that your digital channels reflect the needs of the people you want to serve, to carry out effective campaigns, and to engage in lobby and advocacy activities on these needs, data needs to be collected. In this step, you will learn how to collect valuable information through different tactics, namely: social listening, social media analytics, surveys and focus group discussions. You will be able to select between different methods of collecting data and you will know how to visualise it. It is important to keep in mind that not all data can be accessed and spread. Therefore, you will also be introduced to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law, as well as the RNW Media Responsible Data Framework (RDF) which focuses more on the ethical aspects of data collection.  

• STEP 9: ADVOCATE AND AMPLIFY YOUTH NEEDS

After collecting data on what the young people you have targeted need, you can work on strategies to advocate for those needs to amplify their voices. In this step you will learn what advocacy is, the tools that you can use to advocate, the 12 steps to build an advocacy strategy and many other tips and tricks to make your strategy work. You will also get acquainted with the concept of amplification. Amplifying young people’s needs can be done through traditional media, how to engage the traditional media and strategies for amplification. 

• STEP 10: REFER YOUNG PEOPLE TO SERVICES

When you know what certain needs of your target audience are, but you cannot meet the needs as an organisation, you can refer your audience to service providers. This step will guide you through the process of referring to services. You will know how to assess the need for referral, how to identify and refer to the relevant services, and you will look at conditions for effective collaboration with service providers. Finally, you will learn how to keep track of the successful referrals that you have done. It is important to monitor referrals to understand whether the services you are linking to have been accessed successfully by your target audience.  

• STEP 11: EVALUATE

As a final step in the roadmap you need to evaluate. In this step, you will familiarise yourself with the PMEL (Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning) cycle to find out whether you have achieved your objectives. The PMEL cycle you will get acquainted with addressed a mix-method approach of combining quantitative and qualitative data and analysis methods from digital and non-digital sources. After this step, you have completed the roadmap! 

What are the educational/learning benefits of this roadmap?

After going through (some of the building blocks of) the roadmap, you will get acquainted with knowledge that can benefit you in the following areas: 

• You and your organisation will have increased capacities on different levels of building digital communities for social change
• You and your organisation will learn about the best practices through the presented case studies in implementing digital communities for social change
• You and your organisation will be able to apply the various tools, templates and guidelines provided by the modules to build digital communities for social change
• You and your organisation will 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 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 intervention. 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