Description
Romanian NGOs don't use online services to their fullest potential, from project management cloud services to significant presence in online communities like Facebook. Online learning resources are not adapted to NGOs activities and are unaffordable. The project develops the capacity for NGOs employees and volunteers to use online tools to efficiently manage projects, raise funds online and increase the reach of their NGOs. It aims to build online skills for 500 NGOs employees and volunteers to identify, budget and manage online services that answer their specific project management, fundraising and communities needs. This capacity will be build in online and offline trainings, national and locale, by using competitions and while creating and disseminating free learning materials adapted for NGOs' needs.
Summary of project results
Even though new online services that help NGOs to develop and to reduce costs are being developed, very few NGOs get to use them. A cloud document management system helps an NGO saving important infrastructure costs, while also improving its transparency and good governance. Many of these new cloud services are free or hugely discounted for NGOs, and still very few Romanian NGOs use them. Fear of technology, but also lack of relevant training opportunities, are a constant of the Romanian NGO community – a community served by less and less resource centers. NGO Online, the programme developed by TechSoup, was the first step in building a sustainable learning environment for Romanian NGOs, reaching an extensive audience of more than 2,600 NGOs in Romania. NGO Online created the most complex current learning curricula: 11 online trainings that covered a wide range of technology topics, from branding to social media, documents management in the cloud or creating your own online shop, enhanced with monthly assignments for each training, and local events in 6 municipalities in Romania and in Bucharest. Technology trainings for NGOs reached Iași, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Sibiu and for the first time Craiova or Tulcea, and the volunteer IT experts met NGO employees for the first time in their professional life. Hate speech was one of the subjects during the learning process. For example, the beneficiaries have learned how to address the dangers of hate speech in the virtual space. 535 NGO employees and volunteers directly participated in at least 1 learning opportunity created in this innovative programme - the first technology training for a significant proportion of them. The feedback interviews showed that they became bolder in adopting technology, implemented more project management online services, or documented cloud management services, and became more familiar to online marketing services. The project also designed and implemented the first sociological research on how Romanian NGOs are consuming technology, which shows that although NGOs understand the need to make more use of technology in their daily work, they still lack the human resources, training resources or sometime even information on what is available and how they could use it. This research will help design new training opportunities and resources programmes in the years to follow and help Techsoup Association to continue and develop the current programme.
Summary of bilateral results