Category: Blog

Videos for advocacy have a clear purpose – to drive awareness and inspire tangible actions. Videos create a powerful emotional impact by connecting viewers to personal stories, illustrating stark realities, and providing direct visual evidence of social issues. They are accessible and versatile, allowing you to reach diverse audiences across various platforms. As videos offer a simple and efficient way to convey a message or idea to the masses, integrating videos into an advocacy campaign allows for a more streamlined process to increase visibility and expand the reach of your campaign.

That said, a video is only as consequential as its capacity to leave an impression on its audience and galvanize them into action. Using a video to create awareness is one thing, but inspiring your audience to take action is how you create a movement and attain the results you want. Thus, creating a successful video advocacy campaign requires thorough planning and execution. 

It is important that you define your objectives, understand your audience, create engaging content, and promote your video through the right channels to reach relevant and wider audiences. Basic ethical principles must also always be considered and taken into account in video production. You must always strive to ensure that your video provides accurate and unbiased information and inclusive content.

If you want to integrate videos into your advocacy campaigns, consider these five main steps:

1. Define your goal
   Before you start creating your video, define your goal. What do you want to achieve with your campaign? Do you want to raise awareness about a particular issue, change public opinion, or influence policy? Once you have a clear idea of your goal, you will be able to create a video that’s tailored to achieve it.

2. Know your audience
   Knowing your audience is key to creating an impactful video advocacy campaign. Who are you trying to reach with your message? What are their interests and concerns? What kind of content do they like to watch? By answering these questions, you can create a video that resonates with your target audience.

3. Keep it short and engaging
   People have short attention spans, so it’s important to keep your video short and engaging. Aim for a video that’s no longer than three minutes, and make sure it’s visually interesting and emotionally compelling. Use compelling music, detailed graphics, and coherent animations to keep viewers engaged.

4. Use a call to action
   Your video should have a clear call to action that tells viewers what they can do to support your cause or get involved. This might be signing a petition, making a donation, or sharing the video on social media. Make sure the call to action is easy to understand and simple to follow.

5. Promote your video
   Once you’ve created your video, you need to promote it. Share it on social media, post it on your website, and send it to your email list. Encourage your audience to share the video with their networks.

6. Measure the impact
   Measuring the impact of the video is important to understand if the campaign was successful or not. You can use various metrics such as views, shares, engagement, and conversions to measure the impact of the video. Analyzing the metrics will help you to understand what worked well and what did not, and make improvements for future campaigns.

Video advocacy campaigns have become vital in keeping audiences informed, engaged, and inspired to act in today’s technology-driven world. That is why ASSIST Creativelab delivers customized powerful video content for advocacy campaigns – from animation and motion graphics to comprehensive live-action shoots –  that can help you reach your goals.

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Exchanging information is only one aspect of effective communication. Understanding the emotion and intentions underlying each subject matter is important. Knowing your audience, how to reach them, and how to individualize your message so your target users can relate to them and understand them are all necessary for effective communication tactics. Therefore, it’s crucial to be clear about the messaging, the audience being targeted, and the best way to reach them. 

To be able to communicate with your target audience through  the use of compelling and relatable stories is a skill that successful leaders in business, non-governmental organizations, and philanthropy have mastered. Given the current technology trend where everyone is consuming content through social channels, and digital media, it has become imperative that businesses and organizations differentiate themselves so they can stand out from their peers or competition. This is where Digital storytelling comes in. Through the power of storytelling, organizations can now  create impact, communicate key messages, drive suitable actions, and establish relatability with their target audience.

With the advancements in digital technology, content authoring and curation has now become extremely easy, resulting in a massive amount of content inflow. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that every piece of story or content that is produced is relevant and high quality. With an increasing amount of content to consume there is also an increase in noise, resulting in content fatigue for the users… Which makes it increasingly difficult for organizations to stand out, grab people’s attention, and influence them in meaningful ways. To counter this, it is important that authors follow three Cs of content development —compelling character, catchy opening , and clear call to action and apply it to their stories and narratives.

Compelling Character:
Stories should have a single, distinctive subject that the audience can identify with. A “Story,” which is defined as “a description of an event or something that happened to someone”, should focus on a subject and position the organization as the “enabler” rather than the protagonist. According to the study Stories Worth Telling from Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact Communication, a subject is effective if it exhibits the following four aspects:

1. A universal need: The universal needs of the subject matter, such as hope, self-respect, and growth, must be expressed through stories.
2. Relatable: Stories must highlight the characteristics of your subjects that make them similar or relatable to the audience, such as being a part of a community or going through a particular phase of life.
3. Three-dimensional: To be more engaging and authentic, stories must present a 360-degree view of the subject by incorporating different perspectives.
4. Charismatic: Stories must build on and encourage the subject to recollect and relate specific details, memories, and feelings in their own words or perspective.

Catchy Opening:
According to Facebook research, the average duration of a video published on the platform in 2017 was 3 minutes and 48 seconds, but the average time spent watching was just 10 seconds, or 4% of the total video length. How does this affect digital storytellers? This means that writers and strategists only have a few seconds to catch the audience’s attention, especially with videos, therefore what is truly needed is a catchy opening – like a ‘hook’. A hook can be demonstrated in a variety of ways, such as showing what’s at risk and how it relates to the viewers, introducing an issue or question, and then offering a solution at its conclusion.

Clear Call-to-Action:
Storytelling can only help an organization advance its goals if it inspires and encourages individuals to take an action toward the same goal. Therefore, storytellers must be strategic in order to achieve the desired impact. A clear call-to-action may entail including a phrase or an actionable task at the conclusion that states what you want your audience to do. The most popular call-to-action among the organizations studied in the Stories Worth Telling study by Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact Communication was to donate (77%), followed by volunteer (50%), and sharing the story (5%). When it comes to digital storytelling and social impact, well-crafted calls to action are crucial, while they may also be creative to easily catch attention.

Web-based platforms, and social media networks in particular, are being used to promote rapid and extensive knowledge sharing. It is inevitable that digital storytelling will become a more powerful and relied-upon instrument for outreach, service delivery, and social impact as more people use social media to remain informed and engaged. It is a powerful strategic outreach tool that when used to its full potential has the ability to deliver a message that is meaningful, enlightening, engaging, and mobilizing. Through this, viewers are impacted by the message and moved to take action.

The process of creating a digital story, which was formerly confined to desktop computers or laptops, is now available with less expensive and easier to use mobile devices and web-based tools that practitioners of all ages may utilize. The newly developed digital stories may be simply shared online with people all around the world and seen on computers, tablets, smartphones, and a variety of digital devices. It is expected that as digital storytelling spreads, more people and organizations will come up with creative, cutting-edge methods to incorporate it into lessons and other teaching and learning activities. 

Every organization has a story to tell. If you feel that your organization needs assistance in effectively communicating their narratives through digital storytelling,  there is someone to help. ASSIST Creativelab offers services that can provide for the overwhelming need for thought leadership, capacity building, and resources to strengthen storytelling in the field. Through strategic guidance and capacity-building tools, your organization can leverage the power of narrative and the reach of networks to extend your reach and enhance your impact.

References:

Digital Storytelling for Social Impact (SSIR). (n.d.). (C) 2005-2023. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/digital_storytelling_for_social_impact

Great Valley Publishing Company, Inc. (n.d.). Social Work Today – The Power of Digital Storytelling. https://www.socialworktoday.com/news/enews_1015_1.shtml

Center for Social Impact Communication. (n.d.). Breaking through the noise: Digital storytelling for social impact – Center for Social Impact Communication. https://csic.georgetown.edu/magazine/breaking-noise-digital-storytelling-social-impact/

Gamification has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing user engagement and retention. Its applicability ranges from training to marketing to mobile and website apps in various domains , such as but not limited to education, marketing, and human resources. The process of gamification involves incorporating game-like elements into non-game contexts in order to create experiences that are enjoyable, engaging, and memorable for users. This has proven to be beneficial in improving the rate in which a user processes and maintains information as well as in staying focused on a productive activity.

What is gamification?

Gamification is a strategy that leverages people’s inclination for socializing, learning, mastery, competition, achievement, and status through game design elements and principles. Some classic game elements are rewards, badges, and leaderboards. This ultimately makes tasks or activities more enjoyable as users are incentivized to engage with the content and motivated to achieve the desired outcomes.

How does gamification enhance user engagement?

Gamification can be used in user engagement strategies to address the challenge of retention and motivation. This is especially effective for improving learning outcomes by incorporating game-like elements such as quizzes, challenges, and simulations, designers can create interactive and engaging learning experiences. This results in increased retention and understanding of the material, hence keeping the users motivated to consume content and interact with the product. By creating a sense of progress and achievement through game-like elements, users are more likely to be more involved to complete tasks and reach desired goals. This can be especially effective in contexts where users are required to complete repetitive or mundane tasks without any administrative intervention. Here’s how it works:

1. Behavior Reinforcement
   
   Gamification can effectively reinforce user behavior. Incorporating game-like elements allows you to reward users for their actions, such as leveling up or earning points by completing specific goals. Rewards are a powerful way to incite enjoyment of an activity. As a result, users are more engaged and inclined to return.

2. Autonomy
   
   Gamification can enhance user engagement by giving the user a sense of control. By designing a campaign with compelling game design, it promotes exploration and allows users to make choices on how to proceed. When users have agency in how they play and interact, they are more likely to find the overall experience enjoyable.

3. Competition
   
   Gamification takes into account the fact that people are competitive by nature. Adding a competitive aspect to an activity means that once a user starts it, they will likely become committed out of a desire to win, or at least outrank others involved in the activity. Competition within oneself can also be encouraged by creating goals or best scores that audiences will want to beat.

4. Progress
   
   In game mechanics, players typically have a sense of their progress, such as their current level or how much further they have to go. One way to implement this is through progress mechanics like progress bars, levels and milestones. The use of progress mechanics not only helps players track their progress, it also enables them to gauge how close they are to achieving the top score in a competitive leaderboard.

That being said, it is important to note that gamification is not a one-size-fits-all solution. In order for gamification to be effective, it must be carefully tailored to the specific context and audience. Designers must also take care to ensure that the game-like elements do not distract from the core functionality of the product or service. Because strategy formulation in successful gamification is data-driven, ASSIST Creativelab captures relevant data and puts the strategic insights into action and makes products and experiences more enjoyable and engaging for users.

The best way to create a successful gamified experience is to collaborate with professionals. Contact us today to explore how we can collaborate with you!

Establishing a social impact brand profile for a nonprofit organization, business, government entity, or any other type of organization can prove to be far more challenging than developing a traditional brand profile due to its distinctive objective of creating impact and driving action. While a conventional consumer brand aims to establish familiarity, trust, and added-value of a business, a social impact brand aspires for more, such as promoting empathy for others, changing individual or group behavior, generating support for a cause, or inspiring continuous financial contributions to a particular cause.

Social impact brands acquaint themselves with the human experience and prioritize the beneficiary by putting them at the center of the process supported by stakeholders and partners to create a brand ecosystem. This process goes beyond logos, taglines, and organizational boundaries in order to ensure that campaigns, movements, or initiatives are not limited to a single system.

This is where strategic creativity comes in. Strategic creativity allows for the transformation of  ideas into knowledge and solutions by adding inspiration to experiences, narrative to texts, and insight to aspirations. It creates content for a brand, product, or service that stimulates emotions or provides value to your audience. If executed successfully, strategic creativity can help your social impact brand stand out from the digital noise and foster connection between your brand and your audience.

Strategic creativity serves as a catalyst for innovation. It requires a structured but visionary approach which involves utilizing a range of tools and techniques that lay the groundwork for successful initiatives which include impactful campaigns, narrative-driven content, purposeful branding, and immersive experiences that truly resonate with audiences. In the absence of strategic creativity, a social impact brand may hold appeal but lack the necessary impact to captivate, compel, and connect with the audience. 

The concept of strategic creativity may seem contradictory to many, akin to the concept of “organized chaos.” To the casual eye, strategy and creativity would appear to be at odds with one another, but both can, and should, coexist to foster innovation in any type of organization that implements social impact as part of its brand activities and brand story. While it may be tempting to prioritize strategic decision-making and downplay the role of creativity to minimize risk, relying solely on either deprives an organization of diversity of knowledge and experiences. ASSIST CreativeLab is committed to help organizations realize its full potential by adopting strategic creativity for its social impact branding that values both data-driven insights and outside-the-box thinking.

Get in touch with us today to explore how we can help and collaborate with you!

References:

“Strategic Creativity is Key to Novel Ideas.” IP.com. https://ip.com/blog/strategic-creativity-is-key-to-novel-ideas/

Poverty, educational inequality, and climate change are only a few of the social challenges that affect people globally. These continue to grow in complexity and increasingly require transnational coordinated efforts among countries, non-governmental organizations, communities, and individuals. These coordinated efforts work towards addressing these challenges sustainably, and there continues to be an important role for technology to deliver a widespread impact. Technology provides many opportunities for these institutions to streamline processes and improve efficiency that can further their efforts in addressing these social challenges.

One technological solution that has gained prominence in addressing social challenges is machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that leverages data and algorithms to identify patterns and make predictions or decisions with minimal human intervention. With the growing volumes and varieties of available data and cost-effective computational processing and data storage, advances in machine learning present an opportunity to build better tools and solutions to help address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, and deliver positive social impact. It is viewed to have potential across a range of social domains.

Poverty and Hunger
Machine learning is a growing trend in identifying poverty-stricken regions as scientists have been integrating machine learning into research designed to tackle poverty. They leverage the constant stream of photographs taken by satellites to get a feel for global economic activity. Stanford University economist Marshall Burke augmented this approach in order to identify places of near-poverty from those of absolute poverty. Using survey data from Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Malawi, and Rwanda, Burke and his team predicted the distribution of poverty throughout the countries. The algorithm could predict poverty 81 percent to 99 percent more accurately than a nightlight-only model. With this kind of information, policy makers could monitor economic wellbeing in various parts of the world and evaluate the effectiveness of antipoverty programs.

Educational Inequality
Several projects have recently contributed to the ways in which machine learning can help improve learning opportunities for students and management systems. IBM is using technology for poverty eradication through the “Simpler Voice: Overcoming Illiteracy” project. The initiative leverages machine learning to help adult learners who have low literacy skills or are illiterate in navigating content with more confidence by translating texts and presenting their basic meaning through visuals or simple spoken words. Geekie, an EdTech company in Brazil, developed an adaptive learning platform that received accreditation from the country’s Ministry of Education. Currently, over 5,000 schools in the country utilize the platform to offer customized learning experiences for students. Using machine learning, the software provides personalized content as the student interacts with it over time. Additionally, it can identify learning difficulties experienced by students, which human educators can use to determine appropriate interventions and provide targeted support.

Climate Change
As climate change continues to intensify storms, wildfires, and droughts, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning is gaining attention as a means to predict and mitigate its impacts. Sipremo is a startup that employs artificial intelligence to enhance the safety, cleanliness, and sustainability of urban areas. The company developed an artificial intelligence model that can predict the time, location, and nature of climate change or disaster events that may occur in the future, providing an opportunity to take prevention actions. This can help reduce or even prevent the harmful environmental impacts that such events may cause. Kettle, a startup that uses machine learning to combat climate change, leverages deep learning techniques to create a more intelligent reinsurance model that can more accurately anticipate the catastrophic consequences of climate change. Their latest model successfully predicted wildfires in the top 20 percent of high-risk areas.

The application of machine learning will have far-reaching impacts on nearly every facet of people’s daily lives. Leveraging this technology efficiently and ethically can provide institutions and governments an advantage in addressing complex social challenges that require innovative solutions. 

As data-intensive analysis and knowledge-based management are essential components of machine learning initiatives, these tasks need the availability of specific expertise and high data quality. ASSIST Creativelab can provide your organization with these to enable machine learning implementation in your current organizational processes.

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References:

Bennington-Castro, J. (2017). AI Is a Game-Changer in the Fight Against Hunger and Poverty. Here’s Why. https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/tech/ai-game-changer-fight-against-hunger-poverty-here-s-why-ncna774696

Kalejs, E. (2022). 7 AI innovations helping to combat climate change. https://aiforgood.itu.int/7-ai-innovations-helping-to-combat-climate-change/

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2019). Artificial Intelligence in Education: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Development. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000366994/PDF/366994eng.pdf.multi

Information has never been easier and faster to access as it is today. The digital age, also called the information age, has made the release and distribution of information possible with only a few clicks. While this brings greater efficiency and convenience to the consumer, threats against information quality and accuracy also continue to surge as content becomes easier to manipulate.

Information disorder, which refers to the mishandling of information with or without the intent to do so, is one such threat. Information disorder can be classified into three types: misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information. Misinformation is false information shared without the intent to cause harm (e.g., making false connections and misleading content), disinformation is false information with the intent to cause harm (e.g., providing false contexts, manipulating and fabricating content), and mal-information is genuine information shared to cause harm (e.g., leaks, harassment, hate speech).

Information disorder is seen to be highly relevant and prominent in the topic of the climate crisis. An analysis of social media activity done by Graham Readfearn in 2016  found that the most shared article about climate change was an article claiming that climate change was a hoax. Another study by Constantine Boussalis and Travis G. Coan found that in recent years, mis- and disinformation targeting climate science has been increasing relative to arguments targeting climate policy.

The reality of the climate crisis is an undeniable truth: average global temperatures are increasing due to emissions of greenhouse gasses released by human activities. And yet, many conversations about the climate crisis remain aimless, where urgency is minimized and the science is called into question. 

The climate information disorder include deceptive or misleading content that:

• Undermines the existence or impacts of climate change, the undeniable human influence on climate change, and the need for corresponding urgent action;

• Misrepresents scientific data, including by omission or cherry-picking, in order to erode trust in climate science, climate-focused institutions, experts, and solutions; or

• Falsely publicizes efforts as supportive of climate action that in fact contribute to climate warming.

The benefits of knowledge management systems to climate action

Knowledge has become a critical asset and intellectual capital of any organization’s capacity.  If an organization is adept at capturing, sharing and building its internal knowledge – making this knowledge easy to access and apply – then the organization is more likely to be effective in designing, delivering and improving its work and contribution towards climate action. Organizations that demonstrate effective utilization and protection of knowledge can build trust among stakeholders, which has the potential to create competitive advantage in times where trust is fast depleting in the thick of climate information disorder. 

Thus, organizations must integrate knowledge security as a fundamental organizational activity, an inseparable part of a knowledge management approach, for organizations operating under the challenging circumstances in the climate crisis. 

Securing knowledge management systems

Knowledge security is defined as ‘the measures taken to protect knowledge from accidental or intentional disclosure to unauthorized persons and from unauthorized alteration’. In this definition, the significance of knowledge is highlighted based on the risks associated with its alteration; external threats are indicated; and the basic components of a risk management approach to knowledge security are laid.

In view of the climate information disorder, organizations need to account for emerging dynamics in order to secure their knowledge. Knowledge security has three dimensions: people, products, and processes. Along these dimensions, several implications can be extracted. 

First, with regard to people, capacity building is crucial in order to train them on how to recognize information disorder tactics through inoculation and prebunking, which involves an explicit warning of an impending disinformation attempt and a refutation of an anticipated argument that exposes its fallacy. One of the most effective ways to counter climate misinformation is to understand the five primary techniques used to spread it:

• False expertise: Presenting an unqualified person or institution as a source of credible information.
• Logical fallacies: Arguments where the conclusions don’t logically follow from the premises.
• Impossible expectations: Demanding unrealistic standards of proof before acting on the science.
• Conspiracy theories: Proposing that a secret plan exists to implement a nefarious scheme, such as hiding a truth.
• Cherry-picking data: Carefully selecting data that appear to confirm one position while ignoring other data that contradicts that position.

Second, when products are considered, for example, the explicit form of knowledge in the form of documents, organizations must ensure legitimacy and credibility. Knowledge products should be adequately resourced and referenced, in order to gain traction. This will allow stakeholders to vet the source of the product.

Third, in terms of procedures, knowledge communication needs to be established, especially in the case of relationships with stakeholders. A key piece of advice for building knowledge management systems is to capitalize on systems and processes that people are already using.

Every falsehood, distortion, and conspiracy theory about climate change is an obstacle to meaningful climate action—which is a collective effort that requires everyone’s agreement on a set of basic facts. ASSIST Creativelab works to aid organizations in securing organizational knowledge through knowledge management systems for the improvement of their climate adaptation work.

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Source:

Cook, J. ( 2019). Turning Climate Misinformation into an Educational Opportunity. Climate Change Communication. https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Cook_2019_TMEO.pdf

Climate Finance Ready. (2020). Knowledge management: An ingredient for better climate adaptation. https://www.adaptation-fund.org/knowledge-management-an-ingredient-for-better-climate-adaptation/

Lindwall, C. (2022). How to Spot—and Help Stop—Climate Misinformation. Natural Resources Defense Council. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-spot-and-help-stop-climate-misinformation

Organizations engage in impact evaluation to acquire information about the observed changes or ‘impacts’ produced by an intervention or an organizational change. For many organizations, an impact evaluation is used to improve or reorient an intervention or to make better and more informed decisions about whether to continue, discontinue, replicate or scale up an intervention. With donors and taxpayers directing significant amounts of funds to aid in addressing some of the most pressing social issues through organizations’ programmes, understanding how that money is being utilized, the outcomes of those programmes, and their impacts on stakeholders cannot be undermined. 

In facilitating this, monitoring and evaluation of data and information on key indicators must be collected and established in order to ensure validity and reliability. Thus, an impact evaluation requires a well knit monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system; more importantly, a valid impact evaluation requires a reliable monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system.

A monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system is used to assess the success and performance of programmed activities and projects. This generally involves tracking progress with respect to the project’s initial objective and analyzing data captured and measured on an ongoing basis to improve, and assess the programme’s performance. A strong M&E system can provide important information about the quality of programme implementation, which is especially useful for impact evaluation. A strong M&E can also provide:

• Factual, quantitative, and qualitative information about the programme implementation
  Most programme implementations deviate from the original plan due to logistical and political challenges. Understanding how the programme has diverged from or adhered to this plan is key to attributing the observed change in the outcomes to the programme. Frequent data monitoring can provide the information about the programme implementation.

• Salient data about whether targets have been met 
  Evaluations can help assess implementation fidelity, success in targeting planned beneficiaries, validation of key assumptions hypothesized in the theory of change, and providing important information about the field efficacy of the planned implementation. Programme evaluation can also help assess if a programme has progressed enough to do an impact evaluation.  

Below are some key points to keep in mind when developing a reliable M&E system which can be used to carry out a valid impact evaluation: 

• Articulate the theory of change with inputs from all the stakeholders including the evaluation team.

• Establish monitoring and information systems to track inputs, activities, processes, and immediate outputs.

• Develop key indicators and protocols for measuring attributable change. Do an evaluability assessment and discuss why an impact evaluation is important.

• Use robust and regular qualitative data and approaches to inform, validate or understand exceptions to the overall theory of change.

• Understand and analyze sources of bias (specifically, selection bias and programme placement bias).

• Set up explicit or implicit counterfactuals.

• Pay close attention to challenges to external validity: use disaggregated data and attend to important areas like unintended consequences for different target sub-groups, gender impacts, equity and heterogeneity in general.

• Train program staff and M&E professionals in protocol development, data collection, methods, analyses and interpretation.

• Analyze and understand design efficacy, implementation fidelity and causal impact.

• Review, reflect and update the system based on impact evaluation findings.

• Undertake cost and cost-effectiveness studies.

A strong M&E system is a long-term instrument that can aid in improving the implementation of existing programmes as well as informing decisions about new ones. ASSIST Creativelab helps organizations run monitoring and evaluation studies across sectors and thematic areas for impact interventions.

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Sources:

Puri, J. and Rathinam, F. (n.d). Designing an M&E System for Impact Evaluation: Tips for Program Designers and Evaluators. Green Climate Fund. https://ieu.greenclimate.fund/blog/designing-me-system-impact-evaluation-tips-program-designers-and-evaluators

In the past two decades, we have witnessed unprecedented environmental changes that have resulted from the misuse and mismanagement of natural resources in pursuit of global development. The massive increase in technological dependency and large-scale infrastructure development have made fundamental impacts on the environment, manifested in the worsening impact on climate. One sector that is particularly affected by this is the agricultural sector. Climate change disrupts the agricultural ecosystem, as a result of changes in agricultural climatic elements such as temperature, precipitation, and sunlight. Even more so, increased intensity and frequency of storms, drought and flooding, altered hydrological cycles and precipitation variance threaten agricultural production and livelihoods around the world.

At the same time, the agriculture sector is a major contributor to the climate problem. Since the beginning of the Green Revolution, the productivity of the global agricultural system has more than doubled, improving food security and meeting dietary demands for a growing global population. However, this growth has also imposed environmental costs due to unsustainable agriculture and farming practices. Agricultural activities currently generate 19%–30% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the total anthropogenic emission. As such, new attention is being given to agriculture’s role in the climate change solution.

As climate change continues to exert increasing pressure upon the livelihoods and agricultural sector of many developing and developed nations, multiple stakeholders are working towards climate change adaptation through  generating huge amounts of data, information, and knowledge. However,  the  increasing  complexity of the climate problem demands a more comprehensive and collaborative approach. It requires investment in key management practices in finding and sharing relevant information. While generating information is an important element of knowledge management, it will not have an impact unless it is processed, analyzed, and disseminated to those in need in a format that is easily understood. Moreover, climate change science is continuously being updated, and new information and knowledge products in the form of coping strategies, technologies, and monitoring mechanisms are continuously being developed at national, regional, and global levels. These data, information, and knowledge do not necessarily find their way to potential beneficiaries, especially those at the forefront of climate change impacts—farmers, fisherfolk, and coastal communities.

The cornerstone of the solution to the issue of climate change and agriculture lies in better connecting the existing data, information and knowledge on the issue: developing and establishing knowledge management mechanisms and technologies that link relevant content on creating  climate resilient and sustainable agriculture—be it reports, projects, organizations, people, policies—across platforms, websites and the web at large, and across the multiple scales, disciplines and sectors involved in implementation.

To address the urgent existential threat posed by climate change, a transformation in how the world seeks and finds the information to address these enormous and interrelated missions is necessary. A streamlined Knowledge Management framework will present ways to hasten widespread knowledge uptake and implementation by leveraging present-day technologies and emerging digital approaches. 

At ASSIST Creativelab we are committed to help organizations in finding better ways to utilize existing technology and explore new channels. Our intervention is focused towards creating an ecosystem in which the communities and actors can learn from one another by sharing and creating eLearning content through streamlined knowledge management frameworks. This intervention will not only allow us to work together as a true global community in addressing challenges related to information dissemination but it will also ensure that all the stakeholders and beneficiaries are at the same level when it comes to awareness and knowledge consumption.

Get in touch with us today to explore how we can help and collaborate with you!

Sources:

Asian Development Bank. (2011). People’s Republic of Bangladesh: Climate Change Capacity Building and Knowledge Management. Available from: https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/project-document/61048/45065-001-ban-tar.pdf

Barrott, J., Bharwani, S., Brandon, K. (2020). Transforming knowledge  management for climate action:  a road map for accelerated  discovery and learning. Placard. Available from: https://www.placard-network.eu/wp-content/PDFs/PLACARD-Transforming-knowledge-for-climate-action-2020.pdf

Food and Agriculture Organization. (2018). Emissions due to agriculture. Global, regional and country trends 1990–2018.  Available from: https://www.fao.org/3/cb3808en/cb3808en.pdf

Walljasper, C. (2019). Agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. But it can also be a part of the solution. Midwest Center. Available from: https://investigatemidwest.org/2019/09/27/agriculture-is-one-of-the-biggest-contributors-to-climate-change-but-it-can-also-be-a-part-of-the-solution/

Stories are a powerful tool for inspiring action by creating human connection and emotional resonance. Well-crafted stories can communicate abstract and complex ideas in ways that encourage understanding and value connections. This is especially important in the nonprofit industry. Stories put a face or name on an organization and the communities and people it works with and for, bringing its mission to life and providing a glimpse into the lives of individuals or communities. These stories connect with emotions and can inspire people to act — to bring about change.

Nonprofit organizations have the ability to shift the dynamics in the development sector by bringing the right people and resources together to improve both the supply side and the demand side of the storytelling marketplace.  With the rise of new and ever-evolving technologies, people are more connected to information than ever before. Nonprofit organizations are facing an unprecedented opportunity to harness the power of narratives to tell compelling stories and showcase their impact. However, the ubiquity of the digital world makes it a lot harder for nonprofit organizations, who are more likely to have limited access to resources to gather and curate compelling stories, to stand out among the crowd.

To address this, nonprofit organizations must use the right tools and technology they need to tell more and effective stories — those that get people invested and involved. The guide below explores answers to critical questions in five key areas, and suggests tools and resources needed to help organizations elevate the practice and impact of digital storytelling. 

1. STRATEGY: How can digital storytelling help nonprofit organizations advance their missions?
   • Storytelling must be strategic. Social impact organizations often dive into storytelling without articulating clear goals, understanding the interests and motivations of target audiences, or setting measurable objectives. These strategic guidelines are necessary to craft effective content and design an engagement plan using appropriate platforms to reach the right people and mobilize them for the cause.

2. CAPACITY: What resources and skills do individuals and organizations need to shape and share their stories?
   • Effective storytelling takes skill. The most meaningful stories often come from people with authentic and insightful experiences to share, even though they may not be skilled storytellers. Storytelling professionals with specialized creative and technical skills know how to turn compelling stories into high-quality content, but few organizations have skilled storytellers on staff to create content for storytelling. While plenty of tools exist, organizations don’t know how to use and apply them.

3. CONTENT: What are the elements of compelling and motivating stories?
   • Stories must be meaningful. In today’s hypercompetitive media environment, people notice and share only the most compelling content. Compelling and motivating stories create emotional resonance and human connection while serving a strategic purpose, such as driving people to take meaningful actions. Stories for social impact must show people as active agents of change, who play a central role in creating solutions to the problems they face. This preserves their dignity, encourages empathy, and inspires support from others.

4. PLATFORMS: What technologies are available (or needed) to help people curate, house and share stories? 
   • There’s no one-size-fits-all tool for storytelling. With the sheer number of tools and platforms in existence, social impact organizations struggle to understand which to use to most effectively engage the right audiences. Most organizations need guidance on best practices for utilizing common platforms; they also need access to data that can help them target the right audiences.

5. EVALUATION: What simple, effective and meaningful metrics can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of digital storytelling?
   • We can measure the impact of storytelling, but we often don’t. Organizations that evaluate the impact of their storytelling accurately can learn what’s working and enhance their outreach. 

If you feel that your organization needs assistance with some of these areas, help is on the way. ASSIST Creativelab offers services that can provide for the overwhelming need for thought leadership, capacity building, and resources to strengthen storytelling in the field. Through strategic guidance and capacity-building tools, your organization can leverage the power of narrative and the reach of networks to extend your reach and enhance your impact.

Share your story with us!

Sources

Dal Lago, S. (n.d.). Breaking through the noise: Digital storytelling for social impact. Center for Social Impact Communication. Available from: https://csic.georgetown.edu/magazine/breaking-noise-digital-storytelling-social-impact/

The Rockefeller Foundation. (2014). Digital storytelling for social impact. Available from: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Digital-Storytelling-for-Social-Impact.pdf

A paradigm shift in the use of communication strategies has occurred in recent years as strategic, evidence-based behavior change communication (BCC) strategies increasingly take over sporadic awareness-raising information, education, and communication (IEC) activities. The change has resulted from the pursuit of holistic approaches to communication in which socio-cultural norms are used to influence individual behavior and mobilize communities in support of advocacies that could affect societal issues.

What is Social and Behavior Change Communication

Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) is a framework that uses the strategies of advocacy, BCC, and community mobilization to influence both individual and societal change. It uses an integrated approach that is focused not just on mass media but incorporates mid-media and interpersonal communication. It employs a systematic process of planning, designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating communication.

SBCC is based on data and evidence and grounded in social and behavioral theory. Its implementation involves tailored messages and communication channels that influence positive behaviors; promote and sustain individual, community and societal behavior change.

Why Use Social and Behavior Change Communication 

Effective communication campaigns succeed in raising high levels of awareness, however, they do not always drive action. An SBCC strategy, on the other hand, proposes a comprehensive set of interventions to encourage and support positive behaviors. It identifies intended audiences; conveys consistent messages for all materials and activities; and allows for harmonization of priorities and approaches among the relevant organizations and stakeholders to reach the program goal and objective.

Designing an Effective SBCC Strategy

Designing an SBCC strategy is more than just information dissemination and must, therefore, be participatory wherein members of target populations and stakeholders are involved and taken into account. It is crucial to identify the appropriate approach in order to command attention and promote and enable action. Below is a five-step guide for designing an SBCC strategy:

1. Understand the Problem through a Situation and Target Audience Analysis > Select and Define Target Audiences and Desired Behaviors
   • Identify what behaviors needs to be changed, who is performing the behaviors, what are the motivating factors (drivers) and concerns (barriers) regarding the current and desired behaviors
   • Identify and segment the Target Audiences
   • Identify drivers (motivating factors) and other influencing factors underlying behaviors you need to change
   • Create a Target Audience Profile
2. Design the SBCC Strategy and Interventions
   • There are three SBCC strategies to choose from: 
     • Behavior Change Communication
       • To change knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices of consumers (Target Audience) and change social norms
     • Social and Community Mobilization
       • To change behaviors and social norms, and generate wider participation, coalition-building, and local ownership among groups, associations, and networks that are influential among consumers
     • Advocacy
       • To generate active support, resources, and political-social commitment that create an enabling environment for lasting desired behavior change
3. Create Messages, Materials, and Dissemination Plan
   • Develop the Key Messages
   • Assess drivers and barriers of the Target Audience
   • Communicate “Reason Why” and “Call to Action”
   • Develop the Creative Brief
   • Develop Creative and Impactful Content
   • Pretest Materials to determine if they are appealing, credible, believable, and resonate with the Target Audience
   • Prepare a Media Plan that will effectively reach the Target Audience
4. Implement and Monitor
   • Implementation – coordinates and executes planned activities
   • Monitoring – ensures that the activities are being conducted according to the time frame, using the planned inputs (quantity and quality), and producing the desired outputs
     • Inputs – items or resources needed for activities to be conducted e.g., budget, staff, logistics, materials, expertise, and time
     • Outputs – direct results of the activities e.g., number of persons trained, number of groups oriented on the campaign,  number and quality of creative materials (video, PSAs, billboards, print ads) produced, pretest of materials conducted, media placements implemented 
5. Evaluate and Replan for Improved Outcomes and Sustainability
   • Evaluation
     • Determines whether the activities and outputs are producing desired results or outcomes based on the campaign’s behavioral objectives
     • Asks the question: Have we made progress against the campaign’s behavioral and communication objectives?
     • Can be conducted while the campaign is ongoing (midterm evaluation) and at the end of the campaign (final evaluation)
   • What to Measure 
     • Behavioral Objectives: Change in behaviors and practices of Target Audience 
     • Before you can change behaviors, you need to change determinants, such as attitudes, beliefs, intentions to consume, and social norms/social acceptability.  You also need to target and measure these changes in order to achieve the behavioral objectives based on the analysis and results of the baseline or pre-campaign research.

ASSIST Creativelab provides technical assistance to develop sustainable national- and state-level institutional capacity to design, deliver, and evaluate strategic evidenced-based SBCC programs that will:

• Increase knowledge and attitudes of individuals, families, communities, and related stakeholders about certain advocacies
• Promote an environment where communities and key influencers support positive behaviors 
• Reduce barriers of vulnerable populations to credible information

Engage with us today!

Sources

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Government of India. (2013). Social and Behavior  Change Communication (SBCC): Training for Information,  Education, and Communication (IEC) Officers. Available from: https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00K6VP.pdf

USAID. (2020). Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) Demand Reduction Guidebook. Available from: https://www.fhi360.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/resource-sbcc-guidebook.pdf

USAID. (n.d.). What is an SBCC Strategy. Health Communication Capacity Collaborative. Available from: https://healthcommcapacity.org/i-kits/sbcc-strategy/#top