Comgo is the first digital impact community that provides organizations and individuals with the right tools to manage, track, measure, certify and report social and environmental impact in real time for their stakeholders. We spoke with Arancha Martínez Fernández, co-founder of the NGOs It will be and Comgo, to learn more about their work and how Comgo can contribute to the debate on the decolonization of NGOs.
The Sherwood Way (TSW): Explain to us in simple words what Comgo is and how they help the cooperative sector.
Arancha Martínez (A.M.): At Comgo we have been working on technological innovation for the field of cooperation since 2017, which is when the idea of a digital platform for the common good came up, precisely. What we do is a lot of research and innovation work to see how new technologies, such as blockchain, the token economy, which still sound quite new, but we started working with them years ago, on how they can help the sector to be much more transparent, much more efficient.
For us it is very important to decentralize how we manage the impact, we believe that in cooperation when there are so many roles in different countries it is important that participation is much more egalitarian and more equitable and that we can give much more voice to the final beneficiaries of the programs of the communities so that together, in a much more collective way, we can contribute to the common good.
TSW: And how could you explain to us what blockchain technology means?
A.M.: The platform we have built has an important blockchain component for some of the functionality, but it is not the most important thing. I always say that technologies help us achieve what we want to do. In that sense, blockchain is a technology that allows us to prove that what you say has happened, has really happened; it allows us to be able to record information in an immutable way in public networks accessible to everyone. So, what we do is to use the blockchain so that impact data can be certified directly from the source, in the communities where that impact has been generated, and that this is recorded (with its geolocation data, where the information has been certified, etc.) in an immutable way in transparent environments for everyone.
This is a very specific part of what we do, that part of the certification, because we think it is important to move towards a model where that impact audit really helps us to know that realities are being transformed, that there is a real social impact, a social transformation, to know that this information comes from where it has to come from, which is from the communities themselves. That is where we have seen the use of this technology.
On the other hand, the other component, also of these new technologies that we are using, is the concept of «tokenization». We have seen that it is very interesting because the impact is not only generated with money; in the end, social transformation occurs with many more types of contributions, sometimes more intangible, financial, and difficult to measure.
So we are doing a lot of research to see how these intangibles (such as time, influence, network and other super-relevant contributions to social change) can be made tangible thanks to this technology, so we can trace and understand that impact much more. These are technologies that are helping us a lot in the platform to achieve what we want to achieve, which is more reliability and quality of impact data, to know much better what generates that impact, those social transformations, to be able to make better decisions from the sector and bet on those programs or projects that are generating those changes.
We believe that in cooperation when there are so many roles in different countries it is important that participation is much more egalitarian and more equitable and that we can give much more voice to the final beneficiaries of the programs of the communities so that together, in a much more collective way, we can contribute to the common good.
-Arancha Martínez, CEO Comgo
TSW: How does your work relate to the growing debate on the decolonization of NGOs?
A.M.: Before I started working at Comgo I spent many years managing a cooperation NGO, I worked in India for many years. I have also worked managing an NGO in Spain… I have a little bit of that vigil from those two countries and when I returned to Spain it was very striking for me to realize that many times the work with local partners, «the counterparts», is very invisible. Also, I remember a comment once when someone said «Don’t talk too much about counterparts because you make a mess of the donor» and I said: we are contributing with funding, with innovation processes, with training, but the impact is being generated by local partners, by teams led by people in the field, who are the ones who have to play a leading role and who have to be visible.
Therefore, it seemed clear to me that the sector needed a very deep transformation in terms of placing much more value on the work being done by the communities themselves and finding a way to modify the roles and, of course, protagonists and egos that are given and that do not make the general public (the ordinary donor, the citizen) understand the roles that each entity is exercising within the scope of cooperation.
I often do not understand why communication has to be done by the international entity that is funding the project, when communication today with new technologies can be done immediately, in real time, through a social network and so on. That is where Comgo, through a system of permissions, allows each role within the platform to have more participation, more voice, more visibility and even generate new interactions: a citizen who is donating to a project in the field of development can perfectly interact with a person in the community where the project is being developed, without the intermediation that exists right now.
It seemed clear to me that the sector needed a very deep transformation in terms of placing much more value on the work being done by the communities themselves and finding a way to modify the roles
-Arancha Martínez, CEO Comgo
TSW: We are very interested in some projects such as TogetherforSDGs or Stopcovid, tell us about their results.
A.M.: They were two of the big pilots that have taught us the most during the R&D phase in recent years. The first one, TogetherforSDGs, was done in collaboration with the UN technology innovation labs, specifically with the Malaysian team, which was also our first pilot with the technology. The objective was to test how our platform could help accelerate some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets selected as priorities by the government. Within the pilot, there was room for NGOs, social enterprises, citizens and academia. The objective was precisely to see how a platform aligned with social goals where there could be a series of interactions that could be traced and see in real time the achievement of these programs, how it could increase citizen engagement through transparency and, therefore, accelerate the SDGs, which was the objective of the project.
The results of that first pilot helped us to understand that what we had developed had a lot of value in terms of the digital community that was created, it aligned around the same objectives and, in some way, everyone took ownership of the project and made it more their own. That was important. In addition, we understood that the concept of working on a platform with common commitments and goals, with a narrative and, for example, how we call things, by the same names, also helped to organize, to have more efficient and not to duplicate projects that in the end do the same thing, but walk independently. In short, that there could be this «match» between needs and resources thanks to technology, and in this way be able to go a little faster.
Another issue we learned, and which we later confirmed with the Stopcovid pilot, is that those who contribute or, as I say, those of us who have the privilege of being able to contribute to the programs, whether with time, money or whatever, do not care so much about how the project is executed at a financial level, but rather about the impact it generates. So, it made us pivot at a methodological level and, therefore, also at a technological level, not so much to financial traceability, but to impact traceability and, thanks to this very reliable traceability that this type of technology gives you, to be able to move towards a model where the contributor can trace exactly the results and impacts generated by their contributions.
Another issue we learned, and which we later confirmed with the Stopcovid pilot, is that those who contribute or, as I say, those of us who have the privilege of being able to contribute to the programs, whether with time, money or whatever, do not care so much about how the project is executed at a financial level, but rather about the impact it generates. So, it made us pivot at a methodological level and, therefore, also at a technological level, not so much to financial traceability, but to impact traceability and, thanks to this very reliable traceability that this type of technology gives you, to be able to move towards a model where the contributor can trace exactly the results and impacts generated by their contributions.
What we had developed had a lot of value in terms of the digital community that was created, it aligned around the same objectives and, in some way, everyone took ownership of the project and made it more their own.
-Arancha Martínez, CEO Comgo
In Stopcovid, which was a pilot we did in Spain during the pandemic, what we did was make the technology available to NGOs and social enterprises that were working to alleviate the effects of covid-19. That was a very interesting pilot because more than 130 NGOs or social enterprises used the technology. I have to say that it was not very good because it is not possible to adopt this type of technology very quickly since it requires a lot of education, but it was a learning experience precisely to understand which type of programs could be implemented more quickly and in which ones it was necessary to do much more work to raise awareness at the level of changing mentalities.
This is a technology that does not respond to a market need as such, it is a technology that makes a change in the mentality of how impact is managed, in communication. Organizations realize that they need much more training in digitization issues and also in the field, so it is a technology that also requires patience. The greatest learning was not so much in the management part and changes in mentalities, but what was also very relevant was to see that more than 70% of the contributions that were channelled through the platform for the projects were from young people, which is a very relevant issue for cooperation. In general, in the third sector, it is very difficult for NGOs to reach young people and suddenly a more transparent donation experience encouraged young people to contribute more.
TSW: Let’s talk about specific problems, some time ago an NGO in Guatemala told us that they were presenting 80 reports a year for a budget of 3M euros, how do we solve this problem?
A.M.: As I always say, if technology helps us in the sector, it is precisely to increase our efficiency. In our sector in particular, everything that has to do with accountability is a job that we have to do more and more and better, and sometimes you find organizations that manage little money and yet need the same level of accountability as an entity that manages many, many millions. In fact, at Comgo we work mainly with smaller entities, perhaps because they are more agile when it comes to approaching a process such as the one we propose.
So, we find ourselves with very small organizations that spend a very large percentage of their time working, on the one hand, to access funds (writing projects and trying to adapt them to the funding); and then, on the other hand, when they get the funding (and to get it they have had to write 50 projects, so that is a very important inefficiency issue to be solved) they also have to make several reports, each one different, because the funder requires it in different ways, on different platforms. Of course, you also have to add the «due diligence» part that you have to go through at the bureaucratic level and then the financial and impact audits, plus the quality seals… In the end, you effectively end up spending a third of the year with the team working on all this, and technology plays a key role there.
Within Comgo we work on all these issues. In that sense, at the level of due diligence, the diligence of the life of the entities, we are trying to generate efficiencies. On the other hand, on the reporting side, what we have done is create a methodology for digitizing project impact strategies at the level of description, problem, location, etc…
As for the impact side, we have standardized how to upload the theory of change of a project: there is a lot of flexibility, you can customize indicators and many things, but there are some minimums that are aligned with international standards, with what funders usually require. So, if you use this module of our platform at the end of the project or after three months or six months, you can decide that you want to report on the first half of the year (or any other date), you click on a button and it automates a report for that period.
With this standardization, we are also listening a lot to users, funders, and impact managers, so that we can improve with everyone’s feedback and arrive at a reporting model that can be useful for the vast majority of funders and avoid having to do so many reports.
In general, in the third sector, it is very difficult for NGOs to reach young people and suddenly a more transparent donation experience encouraged young people to contribute more.
-Arancha Martínez, CEO Comgo
TSW: Regarding the better distribution of power: how can technology help us to have a more balanced relationship between social organizations and international NGOs, with mutual accountability and not only in one direction?
A.M.: For us that is key and at Comgo we always talk about decentralizing impact management processes and when we say management we also mean reporting, measurement, everything. What we do is that when you upload those impact strategies, and those projects to the platform, we have another functionality where you also invite all the stakeholders to the project within the platform. We understand that in some cases it is not easy. We are seeing it in some projects that, well, due to digital training issues, it is a little bit difficult for a user in the platform to have some of the roles, such as the end users in the communities.
I always insist that we must make an effort on the part of the sector because we are moving towards an increasingly digital world and I believe that if we want to guarantee the rights of the most vulnerable groups, then we must make an effort to avoid this digital gap and train them so that they have a voice and participation in the digital field, or we are not complying. The fact is that rights must also be increasingly fulfilled in the digital sphere.
We are indeed allowing some of the interactions with the project on the platform to be done, for example, via SMS or WhatsApp (in the case of a validation) so that we don’t have to create an email. Also, we would have to talk about internet access which is another fundamental right that needs to be solved to continue advancing in these platforms…And although we try to make it as accessible as possible in that sense our ultimate goal is that all users of a project with any role (no matter if it is a donor role, recipient, user role, volunteer or auditor) are on the platform precisely so that users who are part of that project have access to that transparency and the status of the project in real time and that accountability is precisely for all of them.
We also talk about multilayer reporting, because it is true that not all stakeholders need to see the same information, nor do they have the same interests, and it is necessary to make it more accessible depending on how they consume that information. What an impact investor, a donor, wants to see is not the same as what the community itself wants to see, what is happening with the project. So we are working a lot on the design of multilayer reports, so that everyone can access and see what they need to see, can consume what they need to consume; but the goal is decentralized accountability that can go in all directions and those transparent spaces, which in the end the technology is very basic, are walls where any user, any participant in a project, can leave comments, can leave their feedback and can interact with each other.
TSW: Finally, do you think that cooperation should change or improve? How or in what way?
A.M.: From my humble experience, I believe that it is precisely in these changes in power dynamics that we have to put a lot of effort into really transforming cooperation. As I said, I have been on both sides. I have been for a long time on the receiving side and then I was on the donor side. The reality is that (and this is an issue that is not about brands or that also, surely, but for me, it is within the people who have at any given time one role or another) we can without being aware get a little into how the sector is, in the status quo, and exercise that role of funder cap and when you have that role then somehow you have more power, because you have more power to decide «what can be changed with that funding»; And, on the other hand, you have the role of «we need the help and if I have to say this I will say it because this way I do not lose the opportunity and if I deviate a little from the mission we will see how to redirect the project, but we need this funding». I have lived these two situations and it makes me sad to realize that money has such an important power in people and makes us act in different ways depending on the role we have.
I believe that we need to be much more aware and make all participants in the value chain much more aware. To say «Hey, these are common objectives», some of us have had the chance and we are very fortunate to be on the most privileged side; others are on the other side, but we must be aware of which side we are on, but that the mission is a common one.
I do not believe that we are going to solve the great social challenges if we do not have the humility from the donor’s side to take a step back and say «Let those who are experiencing the problems step forward», because they are the most aware of what is happening on the ground, they know what is needed to change things and perhaps they do not have the power that money gives you, but they have the ideas and the need for a solution.
So I think we have to change those dynamics. We must not only give a voice to the communities, and when I say give a voice it is not just to speak for them (which is what NGOs often do now), but also NGOs must give the microphone to the communities so that it is from there that projects, policies and programs are designed and those of us who contribute play a more partnering role. I think there is a lot to do and understand that we are all in the same situation. And on the other hand, if we have not solved the great social challenges to date, we have to innovate and see what is going wrong. To be very humble and try to find new ways of doing things.
Watch the video (Spanish version) here:
