COC Netherlands creates a digital monitoring and evaluation tool for international partners
It’s a user-friendly tool for planning, evaluating and tracking the development of initiatives aimed at creating a diverse, inclusive society.
COC is working with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Power of Pride partners in Africa and Asia to create a diverse and inclusive society for LGBT+ people.
In this alliance, the partners and COC Netherlands are working to support and strengthen local advocacy organisations in 22 countries around the world to improve the legal status of LGBT+ people. Although the details vary from country to country, there is a strong focus on knowledge sharing and decision-making between partners and affiliated organisations. This includes large high-profile initiatives like rallies in support of better rights. As well as smaller, impactful initiatives like appointing a confidential advisor or setting up a safe space where individuals can come together and share their experiences.
A choice was made to digitise and centralise the monitoring process by launching an online platform that would make the impact of global initiatives more visible, provide better advice to partners, and increase cooperation and knowledge sharing between the organisations.
What was delivered
It’s a user-friendly tool for planning, evaluating and tracking the development of initiatives aimed at creating a diverse, inclusive society
We delivered change within COC
Founded in 1946, COC is the longest-standing lhbti+ advocacy organisation in the world.
Technology we used
The type of team used
How we delivered
Starting by developing a prototype quickly made it clear which features are really needed and what the partners will actually use. That’s important because partners sometimes have limited access to the internet, and they are not all equally digitally savvy. This resulted in a common understanding of what the tool should look like and how we can get the most added value from developing the platform.
Maik
Pilot project in six countries before a successful global rollout
At first, the aim was to launch a Facebook-like platform to encourage partner initiatives and communication. However, a joint problem identification in the first phase of the project revealed that this would not be the right solution.
These were the problem areas:
- Partners spent a lot of time writing long emails with information for COC’s project managers.
- Meanwhile, there was no structured data available with which to properly design support for partners.
- Only at the end of the year did it become clear what impact all the initiatives had had together.
Armed with these insights, a prototype was developed on which the final design for a monitoring and evaluation tool and the technical choices were based. Partners can use that tool to register their initiatives very easily and accessibly, inspire other partners, and monitor the impact of the initiatives.
A pilot project in six countries is now testing partners’ responses to the tool and laying the groundwork for rolling it out to partners worldwide later this year.
Make and measure sustainable impact
COC supports partners in the alliance across six mutually reinforcing focus areas:
- Strengthening LGBT+ individuals
- Expanding LGBT+ communities
- Supporting LGBT+ CBOs
- Growing LGBT+ movements
- Mobilising allies
- Influencing legislation and policy
Activities aimed at building a more inclusive society are monitored in these six areas country-by-country. In the past, partners used a variety of tools and applications to communicate about the programmes and activities. For instance, COC received the annual programme results in different ways and in over 200 reports. The data from these reports then had to be manually restructured, which was a huge amount of work. This involved a few managed tools like Confluence and G Suite and countless independent tools ranging from Trello to Facebook to Signal.
An easy-to-use digital platform allows for better structuring of data by tracking the impact of initiatives throughout the year. That increases collaboration between the partners and helps them securely share information with COC and each other.
We’ve launched the platform in six countries with a particular focus on making the tool user-friendly for partners. Can they log in easily, and do they understand the questions we ask and how the features can be used? Our goal is to use this tool to monitor and improve the quality of initiatives by better supporting our partners.
Mart Kamphuis
Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Officer
Taking collaboration and participation to the next level
An effective tool for activating and developing the LGBT+ community worldwide
A scalable digital platform ready to roll out to 20 countries
Fulfils high security requirements to ensure user safety in countries where everything is monitored online
Helps partners share knowledge and inspiration by showing what events are being organised
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