Interested in measuring your impact? Of course you are. We all are! So how do we do it? Well, there are several possible ways, but what is critical is that we make the perspectives of the people who are meant to enjoy the benefits of a service visible to decision makers in the system. This[…]
At Keystone, we are very quick to make the argument that listening to those you aim to serve is not only the right thing to do, but also the bright thing – a way to not only better understand impact, but more importantly as a way to improve impact.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or so we are told. But is it true? Words are powerful and we use them carefully to evoke certain feelings and emotions. For example, the vast majority of international NGOs work in “partnerships”. What does this word partnerships evoke? Shared mutual benefits perhaps? Shared[…]
Like it or not, those with the cash set the agenda. They influence where we work and what we focus on. That is not to say they choose the wrong things or that they don’t take others’ views into consideration, but never the less, they choose. And the rest of us respond. It also affects[…]
Are international non-governmental organizations ready to surrender control to southern partners? Along with accountability and effectiveness, localization – essentially the process of handing over of control of programmes to locally based actors – dominates the discussions about how international NGOs (INGOs) should behave. And it is easy to see why; the issue of localization affects[…]
Last summer, the Blagrave Trust with support from Keystone Accountability set out to learn more about what youth-oriented charities do to listen and respond to the young people they help. Keystone spent time with key staff from eight Blagrave partners to understand and document their youth feedback related practices. Among the eight partners, there was[…]
Having seen a recent and rather controversial weight-loss advert here in the UK, I decided, along with the majority of others I suspect, that I was not ‘beach body ready’. I didn’t really need the advert to draw the conclusion, but none the less I decided I needed to do something about it. More specifically,[…]
Coventry has a history of listening to people. During the Second World War, the people of Coventry wanted to voice their support for the Soviet Army during the Battle of Stalingrad, and their voice was heard. Coventry and Stalingrad were twinned, to promote mutual understandings and improve relationships. The practice of twinning has continued to[…]
In a recent blog, Patricia Dorsher comments that “It is a particular feature of aid that people on the ground are often not involved in activities affecting their communities”. Patricia makes the case for not only shifting resources to those with greater need, but also shifting other sources of power, such as agenda setting; “Agenda[…]
For anybody interested in feedback, technology offers huge potential; the potential to reach communities, the potential to do so affordably, and the potential to access such feedback in real time. At Keystone we view these three elements as key to effective listening. Aleem Walji, director of the World Bank’s Innovation Labs recently spoke about technology as[…]