A donor’s perspective
Loren Treisman, PhD
Indigo Trust: Executive

• The Indigo Trust is a UK based grant making foundation that
funds mobile and web-driven projects to bring about social
change in Africa
• The Trust focuses mainly on innovation, transparency and
citizen empowerment
• We also support innovative tech-driven projects which support
development outcomes in any social sector including the
health, education, human rights and agricultural spheres
• We believe that if people have the ability to access, share,
create and utilise information, then they are empowered to
make positive changes in their own lives and communities

Transparency, Accountability & Citizen Participation:
Access to Info

Making Sense of Parliamentary Information

Citizen Reporting

Integrating Tech Interventions Into Wider Campaigns

What We’ve Learnt as Donors

Measuring Impact: Realistic Expectations
• It’s hard to show causation
• How does it compliment other work-relevant piece of a puzzle?
• Clear Theory of Change
• Proxy Indicators
• Users-awareness-re-use of info
• Informal feedback and social media
• Group calls
• Storytelling/anecdotal evidence

Working With On The Ground Partners

Marketing: Targeting Professionals

• The Chairman of the ruling party writing to ask
Mzalendo to help with engagement regarding the
Youth Employment Bill
• A rep writing to ask Mzalendo to share information
about a bursary they were offering
• Requests by MPs for profile updates
MPs are starting to take notice….

Marketing: Increasing traffic and engagement
• Twitter and Facebook they tend to account for between
85% and 90% of all social traffic.
• In most countries analysed, Facebook is a higher driver of traffic
• In South Africa and Zimbabwe the reverse is true
• In Africa, competitions or infographics, or similar style news type
stories are shared most
• In South Africa the blogs are the most shared
• Referrals make up 5% of hits of People’s Assembly
• In Kenya promotional work e.g. Shujaaz drew traffic

295,858 users on multiple
platforms

January
• Impressions 21,811 – a 30% increase on December
• Sessions 10,710 – a 25% increase on December
• Unique Visitors 9,104 – a 26% increase on December

Integrating Tech Into Well Devised Programmes

Integrating Tech Into Well Devised Campaigns

A Few Take home Messages……….
• Use of appropriate and available tech-target audience? Penetration?
• The importance of context
• Empower local activists and professionals to use tech
• Bringing together the right partners is key
• Don’t underestimate marketing and training needs
• Passionate, capable leaders and teams matter
• Consult end users at all stages of projects
• Think about interoperability, replicability and/or scalability
• Patience is needed, impact takes time

Thanks for Listening
Loren Treisman, PhD
www.indigotrust.org.uk
Twitter: @indigotrust
Loren.treisman@sfct.org.uk