More information
Description
The aim of the project is to strenghten the strategic capacity of LAPAS on the topics of social resilience and communication, by developing new and sustainable mechanisms for the support of the member organisations and wider involvement of the partners. Being a candidate country for the UN Security Council is an important step for Latvia but also for NGOs by providing the opportunity to communicate the investment of the sector in the security of the society and by building new international partnerships.
In 2023 the campaign by Latvia will begin and NGos will have a meaningful start to get involved.
By candidating Latvia also increases its development aid and around 500 thousand EUR will be available for NGO projects. To support LAPAS members and other NGOs, we need to invest in the strategic communication, needs assessment and development of our work, so more organisations have access to our knowledge and competence.
Even though LAPAS members will be directly involved in the project, the beneficiary will be the whole NGO sector as LAPAS always involves wide number of partners. Within the project the website will be developed, social media audit implemented and channels improved, needs assessment performed, trainings organised and specific learning environment created.
Project results will be sustainable because they will combine the experience of LAPAS and resources developed with the strategic future needs not only for our organisation but beyond for the sector and country.
Summary of project results
The aim of the project was to strenghten the strategic capacity of LAPAS on the topics of social resilience and communication, by developing new and sustainable mechanisms for the support of the member organisations and wider involvement of the partners.
The project started with the relaunch of the website, establishing it as a systematised database and communication channel with the different target groups. It offers a wide database of resources - methodologies, studies, opinion pieces and other material produced by the organisation''s various projects - and is a unique resource in the field of development cooperation for anyone interested in it. The members'' section of the website also contains a single collection of information on member organisations and their areas of activity.
A key stage in the project was the development of a concept for LAPAS'' fee-based service offering, aiming to diversify LAPAS'' income for the sustainability of the organisation. This involved the identification of several platforms on which the training programme could be based and the implementation of a pilot project. During the project, work on the formulation of the fee-based service offering continued in a step-by-step manner, also taking into account the results of the membership survey.
The project also included two trainings on social resilience - a CSO capacity training on inclusive crisis response and a training on community social resilience in crises.
Attention was also paid to improving LAPAS communication. A training seminar on "Social Media Marketing for Successful Communication" was held. It is important to mention that as a result of the response and involvement of members, this training has established a new tradition within LAPAS of working with existing and prospective members, developing the tradition of communication afternoons.
The LAPAS Social Networking Action Plan and the Social Account Development Action Plan were also piloted for two months and the results evaluated, monitoring whether the recommended methods and the knowledge gained, applied in practice, are producing results (e.g. whether the number of followers increases over a certain period, whether the selected communication audiences are reached).
The action plan was piloted by defining the communication objectives, audiences and tasks for each social media and by testing different ways of organising the plan over time to arrive at the most user-friendly and effective communication plan. The LAPAS communication team continues to use the model of the action plan developed on a daily basis.
The relaunched website highlights and clearly explains the organisation''s five areas of work and what it does in them, and offers a wide database of resources - methodologies, studies, opinion pieces and other materials produced by the organisation''s various projects - that provide a unique resource on development cooperation for anyone interested in the field. The website is available in three languages - Latvian, English and Russian. The Members section of the website also contains a single collection of information about the member organisations and their areas of activity.
Given that social resilience is a new and topical issue for Latvian civil society representatives, two basic knowledge-building training modules were chosen for the training day: how to work effectively in a crisis situation, with a specific focus on the war in Ukraine, and how to design inclusive aid activities.
During the project, the following lessons were learnt from individual meetings with members:
- Member organisations are open to being involved in the future work of LAPAS;
- such one-to-one meetings strengthen the connection and ownership of member organisations to LAPAS;
- taking into account the views expressed by members, improvements could be made in the organisation of communication, taking into account the specific interests and thematic priorities of each member;
- networking between members should be encouraged;
- Information was gathered that LAPAS has > 7000 members, which is still an untapped resource for LAPAS work.
At the end of the project, LAPAS concludes that the project objective has been fully achieved through the implementation of all planned activities, some of which have been complemented by an activity that has made a significant contribution to the achievement of the project objective:
- the capacity of the organisation in social resilience issues has been increased, both in terms of knowledge and skills acquired and in terms of collaborations and inputs developed, which will contribute to the social resilience of communities, civil society and Latvian society as a whole;
- an audit of the organisation''s external and internal communication, a significant learning process and strengthened communication with member organisations, contributing to a louder and more effective overall communication and image of the organisation for new collaborations.