What Happens When You Move MEL From Paper to Digital? With Hannah Wichmann of Five Talents UK

Hannah [00:00:01]:  Some of the people who were collecting data, it was the first time they had used a smartphone, collecting data on paper had been a challenge. A lot of that granularity has lost a lot of the value. My role within the team is focused on monitoring, evaluation, and learning, and currently leading a strategy – a three-year strategy. We’ve moved away from standard tools a lot of the time because we just didn’t find them to be empowering.

Marta [00:00:27]:  Welcome to Survey and Beyond, the data collection podcast by SurveyCTO. I’m your host, Marta Costa. Each episode brings you expert tips, tools, and insights to make data collection smarter, safer, and easier. Let’s dive in. 

Marta [00:00:45]: Today on Survey and Beyond, we are joined by Hannah Wichmann, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Specialist at Five Talents UK. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Hannah has helped organizations across East and Central Africa digitize their M&E systems and redefine what it means to make data local, actionable, and human. From introducing digital data workflows to embedding M&E into the DNA of Five Talents’ work, she’s here to show us how data collection, when done right, builds trust, transparency, and transformation. So welcome, Hannah, to the podcast. It’s great to have you here.

Hannah [00:01:25]:  Thank you for having me.

Marta [00:01:26]:  Yeah. To kick us off, I would love to learn more about you and your journey in the monitoring and evaluation space. So, can you just share a little bit about what drew you to this space and how it’s been the journey so far?

Hannah [00:01:40]:  Yeah. Definitely. I guess my interest was initially in microfinance more generally, specifically thinking about an interest in how it helped people to build sustainable businesses, hence why I joined the Five Talents team. I think over time, Five Talents, and therefore, I, as part of the team, have been on a journey of thinking more about the holistic impacts of savings groups, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about that later. So, I guess that’s that part of the journey. And in terms of monitoring and evaluation, I’ve always been interested in, like, data and breaking down complex things into ways that people can understand them or we can action them. I think working for a fairly small NGO, we prioritize collecting meaningful data in an efficient way and in a way that honors the communities that we work with. Five Talents has some principles that we apply to our work generally. So, for example, taking a participatory approach, being asset-based rather than thinking about deficits, holistic impacts, and I think these are things that we also try to embed within our monitoring and evaluation, and that’s been a big focus for me.

Marta [00:02:45]:  Thank you. And you’re already mentioning Five Talents a lot. You have been working for Five Talents for a few years now. So, maybe let’s discuss the organization. So, could you describe the work that you do at Five Talents a bit more for us?

Hannah [00:03:00]:  So, Five Talents is an organization that equips communities through savings groups. So, we work in predominantly East and Central Africa. So, our core focus is on business development to increase incomes, but we also see savings groups as a vehicle or a platform for discussion and impact around other topics. And my role within the team is focused on monitoring, evaluation, and learning, and currently leading a strategy, a three-year strategy to try and digitalize much of our data collection and data visualization, and also to strengthen the indicators that we’re using.

Marta [00:03:33]:  So, I really want to touch on that, the three-year monitoring, evaluation, and learning strategy that you have been rolling out. That’s quite interesting for me, and I wonder maybe you could just share. It will be difficult to describe the strategy, but maybe you can share at least the main focus. Is it digitization and strengthening of KPIs, or is it something more?

Hannah [00:03:57]:  Yeah. So, I think there’s, I guess, three pillars broadly. So, what we’re trying to do, as you say, part of it is exactly that, strengthening the metrics that we’re collecting. So, reviewing those together with the partner, prioritize meaningful indicators and actionable metrics over data. And then one of the things that we talk about a lot at Five Talents is a phrase we have called the power of what we have, and we apply that in many different areas. But within data, thinking about what can we do with existing data that we already have or with the data that we do collect, and trying to make the best use of that? And so I guess that leads to the digitalization. One of the big benefits that we see of that is being able to store data more effectively in a way that allows us to get more out of it through digitalization. So to give one example, many of our teams, we work in rural areas, so collecting data is not necessarily a quick and easy process. And so a lot of time will be spent collecting data from groups, and then that will be consolidated at a program level. And that granular detail that’s so valuable and so interesting around what’s happening in a particular group is often lost because when you’re using paper, it’s really hard to store it in a way that you can extract and get learning from that. So, that’s just one example of where this project and digitalizing gives us kind of being able to do more with what we’ve already got. And then, I guess, the third element is that digitalization. So, digitalizing both the collection and the visualization in a way that’s appropriate for us as a small organization and also our partners, who are small organizations too, and making sure it’s something that is usable and approachable for everybody.

[00:05:34] Marta:  And I really want to get into the weeds of the digitalization part. But before that, maybe we can just go a bit deeper into what you mentioned on using existing data, making sure that the data is actionable. I think that’s quite interesting because whenever you are designing M&E frameworks, you are very concerned about which indicators you collect, how do you collect them, but it’s really interesting, then after collecting those data, how to use that data, how to make sure that’s part of your cycle, and making sure that’s decision-making processes and the design of programs, they’re all using that data that you are collecting. Is this something that you are taking into account? How do you approach such a thing in Five Talents?

Hannah [00:06:21]:  I think a lot of it is about developing that culture within the organization and celebrating learning and integrating learning. I think what gets celebrated is often what gets done, and I think building that culture and shifting that over time is something that we’re still working on. So, it’s a work in progress for us, but it’s a focus. I think at a community or a kind of project level, often it’s about kind of protecting the enthusiasm or the spark that communities have and our partners have for what they’re doing. I see Five Talents as a mobilizer rather than an initiator. When we start a new partnership, we look for what’s already there that’s good that we can come along and build on rather than start. And I think there are often vibrant, wonderful things happening that people have started because they’re passionate about it. And I think formal frameworks and bizarre questions in terms of, you know, thinking about monitoring and evaluation can often detract and deflate that. And I think that’s when monitoring and evaluation really becomes about, like, compliance rather than learning or curiosity. And I think that’s something that we’re trying to kinda move away from and resist at Five Talents, and we really hope to strengthen that passion, what’s already good there, thinking again about an asset-based approach. So, I and we see monitoring and evaluation as a way to notice what’s already good and what’s happening already, and to build the questions that we’re asking and monitoring and evaluation processes around that, around what is important to the communities that we’re working with and our partners. I think Five Talents are funding, and our supporters really help us with that. We’re in a, perhaps, a slightly unusual position in that we receive almost no government funding, and so we’re less bound than some of the other organizations are by rigid log frames and requirements around metrics. And that allows us, gives us space to co-create metrics with our partners and with communities around what’s important to them, again, trying to keep that enthusiasm alive. To give you an example, I met recently with our team in Tanzania, and they’d noticed they had kind of two cohorts of savings groups. One had a longer process at the start, a longer training process, where they spoke and facilitated a lot of conversation with the groups around resource mobilization and what the vision was for the groups, and that was a longer process than it was for the other cohort of groups. And through observation, one of the things the team was sharing was that they noticed that the groups that had that longer period at the start experienced more holistic and lasting impacts, really unexpected impacts that the groups, again, had gone on to do. They have this passion, and they’ve gone and done that, and that’s obviously unique to each and every group and each and every person. But, again, I guess coming back to this and coming back to monitoring and evaluation, I think valuing observation as a tool and not just, like, surveys and hard data, but kind of watching and listening and seeing what’s happening and valuing that within our partners is something that I’m hoping we’re becoming better at and trying to do certainly more of. And, really, that’s, like, how we learn in the rest of our lives, isn’t it? You notice things, and you try to do more of them if they’re good, and the fruit of that is good. And so I think that’s what we want to protect within what we’re doing. And, of course, there’s a space for data within that, you know? In that example, we will probably now definitely collect more data on that in order to understand what that looks like in more detail, and the trends around that, and the extent of that, but I think that is a kind of starting point to build upon, helps to keep that passion alive. And we’ve moved away from standard tools a lot of the time because we just didn’t find them to be empowering or so much fit with what we were trying to do, and it might be interesting to talk a bit more about that. But I really hope, as a whole, that’s the direction that the sector is moving in. Obviously, we’re at a time of big change where lots of funding that used to be available is no longer available, and that’s very, very difficult for communities that we’re working within the sector as a whole. But I hope that it does allow us to move from a kind of low trust to a higher trust relationship with partners and with communities, and thinking less about compliance and more about learning.

Marta [00:10:24]:  That makes a lot of sense. And I guess that also answers, especially, maybe my next question, because it may all start with working with the partners in the ground on the theory of change, which is like a starting point of an M&E framework. And I was going to ask you about how does that process go, and how important it is for these partners on the ground to have, like, a strong theory of change in practice? And I guess you already answered partially about how much you work with what already exists, what people are passionate about, but maybe you can expand a bit more about this specific work with the theory of change.

Hannah [00:11:04]:  So, a theory of change is something that when we’ve been revising metrics as part of this project with partners, it’s often the starting point. Partners often already have them, and so we might review them if they’ve not done that recently. So, it’s important for the project as a whole, not just for monitoring and evaluation. I think one of my learnings through going through that process has been the value to the team in terms of them becoming more aware of the different impacts they’re seeing and us also becoming aware of them. And, again, there are unexpected impacts that we, maybe, didn’t know about that the team kind of brings out as they talk about what they see in their work. I think for us, we’ve seen, again, another learning, I guess, through that process is that the approach that we take to training and facilitation within savings groups is at least as important as the content of the training that’s delivered, and these are much more nuanced impacts that come out during that process. And, again, these are things that the teams have observed. And through that, we’re able to then consciously build that into the plans, the training plans that the team has, and then also through monitoring, evaluation, again, being able to measure and celebrate and learn from those is something that we’ve been able to do through the theory of change process. So, yeah, I think identifying unexpected outcomes has been something that’s been really useful, particularly with a theory of change, and we’re reviewing it together.

Marta [00:12:21]:  That makes sense. Now, moving into more the implementation part of collecting data, what have you seen as the biggest challenges for organizations in collecting data that is useful to them?

Hannah [00:12:35]:  I think, again, collecting data on paper has been a challenge in terms of, again, a lot of that granularity has lost a lot of the value, has lost a lot of that group-level detail. We support savings groups for a number of years, and then often they, we say, graduate, meaning that they no longer receive regular support from our partner. And actually being able to go back in the future to those groups and compare that data of where they are then, after they graduated, compared to when they were within the program, is something that we would love to be able to do, and which we will now be able to do much more easily because we have all of this information stored digitally. So, I think people often talk about the actual collection and the change around that, but I think also just being able to store it in a better way and being able to go back and reference things is where we also actually see a lot of the value. I think in terms of data quality, there are obvious benefits there. Being able to have validation within surveys is something that just helps us to get cleaner data. It’s so easy to put the number instead of the value of something, and I think being able to catch those things at the time really helps. And then I would say in terms of time, a lot of our partner staff time was spent compiling reports and us checking them. And I think moving from time spent compiling to time spent interpreting, and therefore, being able to learn more readily, is something that we’re kind of beginning to see as well within this project.

Marta [00:13:58]:  Perfect. So, I think now it’s the perfect time to get into this transition that you have been working so hard on, from paper-based questionnaires that I’m also not a fan of, obviously. So, this transition from this paper-based data collection to a digital data collection, and I really want to learn from you, how has it been in practice? Can you walk us through this transition? Maybe, I don’t know if it helps giving a specific example of a project.

Hannah [00:14:28]:  So, it’s something that we started to explore more consciously around the time it was just before the pandemic and pandemic, so then it turned out to be during the pandemic, which was both a good time to be exploring this because travel was harder. So, traveling to communities was more difficult, and therefore, digital data collection tools were a good way to go. Also, we were trying to collect different and new information around the preparedness of groups and group understanding around the pandemic, and how they were managing. So, we had these surveys that we wanted to conduct, and so it was during the pandemic that we first piloted digital data collection with some of our partners. I would say it’s maybe not, like, the ideal circumstance, because it’s very difficult for people to come together for training when there’s a pandemic, and it wasn’t an ideal circumstance equally, in many ways. I think that kind of helped us to some extent. We received really positive feedback from partners in spite of the very challenging circumstances we were all working in. So, one of the first partners that we piloted it with was our partner in Northeastern DR Congo, where they’re in an area where there’s quite limited Internet. Some of the people who were collecting data, it was the first time they had used a smartphone, and yet we received really positive feedback around that. And I think for us, that kind of laid some of our fears that we had around, like, is this gonna be an appropriate thing to do? Is this gonna work? Anxieties around losing data. The team felt really confident. So, that was something that, kind of, was very positive for us. So, we decided we wanted to roll it out more generally based on this positive feedback. So, then we started this project and got funding for it, which was fantastic. We chose to use Google Looker to visualize our data. We did try Power BI. We’re a small charity. I work in the UK office. There are 10 of us, most of whom are focused on fundraising. We don’t have, like, a dedicated IT team or people who can figure that kind of thing out. So, we needed something that was relatively lightweight, both for us, and for our partners. And we felt that Google Looker was good for that. We could sustain it. It was easy to use, and, again, we got good feedback. So then, for this project, working step by step with each partner, we decided to work with broadly one partner at a time, which actually has also, again, allowed us to learn as we go and improve things. But starting with the theory of change and indicator review, digital data collection, and then moving to the dashboards, and always testing and improving as we go.

Marta [00:16:56]:  And it makes sense what you are talking about, choosing the right tool. Choosing the right tool doesn’t mean that the tool needs to be fancy in any way. A lot of times, it just needs to work for your needs. And I’ve seen so many organizations with constrained resources that it’s mostly a matter of choosing something that most of the time is affordable and that the learning curve is, it isn’t painful in some ways. And that gets me to the next question because I worked with many organizations where a lot of people in the field were reluctant to this change of sometimes moving from paper-based to digital, sometimes moving from one digital tool to another. Because it’s always change is difficult in general, and many times, people are used to doing things for many years, in the same way, and especially when you try to apply it during the pandemic, it was an even bigger change, I would say. So, it is amazing that you got such positive feedback. But to inspire our listeners around the world that are thinking about doing this shift, how did you make sure that people on the ground, the ones that were being most impacted by this change, or being involved in this decision-making, how did you ensure that they were trained appropriately? And I’m saying this because obviously, Five Talents has an approach that very community-led partners are always involved. So, could you just share a little bit about how did this transition go in terms of making sure that the people on the ground were involved and part of the decision-making?

Hannah [00:18:41]:  Yeah. I mean, I guess, first and foremost, we haven’t mandated any of our partners to make the move from paper to digital. It’s a choice that each partner makes. And so there have been some partners that have decided not to, and that’s fine. Again, within that, we might look at things that we could do that might strengthen it. So, for example, there’s one partner that’s decided not to because in their context, in their country, there is a perception around digital data collection and a fear that people have of their details being held digitally, some fear around government, and what that might lead to. So for them, they’ve not opted to do it. Now that’s fine. There are, it might be that we still think about digital data storage and how we could store the data they’re collecting in a better way, again, to try and get more out of what they’re collecting. But, again, it has to be so context-specific, and it has to be driven by them. I think what we have seen and what has been encouraging is that there are more partners than we expected or indeed planned wanting to make that change to digital. So, we planned for eight over the three-year project, but we’ve had more than that take part in it, which has been wonderful. I think also, as one partner does it and is able to share their experience with others, that really helps to your point about how do we support partners at the setup stage? We have an office in Kenya. So, for example, within that area, the team in Kenya is able to travel and provide in-person training. We do that pretty much wherever we’re starting with a new partner, and that we’ve seen to be really fruitful and useful. Also, trying to build on the lessons that we’re learning as we go, so strengthening the data collection tool, strengthening the data visualization, and building those lessons means that we have a stronger outcome at the end of it. I think we’re seeing a lot less time being spent on compiling reports and more time being spent looking at indicators and learning, which is wonderful. So, I think kind of trying to bring out that within our work and celebrating that is something that’s also helped. But it takes time, like you say, some people really feel that shift and feel very kind of reserved about that. Other people jump at the opportunity, and I think it just takes time, doesn’t it?

Marta [00:20:48]:  Absolutely. And maybe this ties together with something that you mentioned earlier, where you mentioned that you removed standard tools from some processes. And it’s this idea that it’s always about the context. It’s always about the background. It’s always about the partner’s choice and what makes sense to them. I don’t know if you want to talk more about those standard tools that you mentioned that you decided not to use because they didn’t make sense for some particular context.

Hannah [00:21:15]:  Absolutely. So, I think we’re pretty much done away with most of them. So, I think there are a couple of reasons for that. So, we were using a tool which designed to give those 10 country-specific questions. The idea was that at the end of that, you would have a percentage chance of whether somebody lived above or below a particular poverty line. And those were a couple of challenges that we had with this, I mean, if you just think about what we were saying earlier, around us taking a participatory asset-based approach, holistic, concentrating on what is meaningful to people, and measuring those things, these questions were not that. So, for example, one of the questions in one country was around, do you own a frying pan? Really, kinda irrelevant to what we’re trying to do. Maybe for somebody, it’s important to have a frying pan, which is great. But for the majority, it’s not linked to what we’re trying to achieve. And so it felt disempowering. Some of them were perceived as being quite rude questions. There was confusion. Actually, somebody went out and bought a frying pan, thinking they needed a frying pan to be part of a project. So, it was not the right tool. It was not effective. I think also, more generally, thinking about those tools, that the reason that they are standardized tools is that they’re aiming to be objective. The idea is you can get an objective sense of whether somebody is or is not living in poverty. And on one level, that makes sense. On another level, it feels very extractive. And why is it that we feel the need to ask questions and tell somebody whether they’re living in poverty or not? Why not just ask them about how they see things? Why not ask them about things that matter to them, not about frying pans? And so I think we kind of moved away from that and more to tracking things that matter to communities, fitting it more closely with the theory of change, which I know lots of organizations are doing and trying to ask questions that matter to communities. And then thinking about the community’s own learning as well, making sure that we know that monitoring and evaluation isn’t just an add-on. It’s not like the final step that’s for the funder or for the partner. It needs to be part of the whole project. And so, again, allowing communities to participate in monitoring the valuation in a meaningful way and it being useful for them, asking questions to the group that are gonna give them a sense of their progress and allow them to have a check-in is also really useful. Hence, for all those reasons, we kind of moved away from those tools and instead started measuring based on what people were working to.

Marta [00:23:37]:  And I am curious. When you started transitioning from the paper-based questionnaires to a digital data collection platform, as you might know, it’s not simply copying and pasting. You need to convert it to some extent because questions might be a little bit different, because you are making the questionnaire more efficient in a way. You are making sure that some questions are relevant in certain situations and not relevant in other situations. Maybe you get to be more mindful about the questions you are asking, about the time it takes to fill out the form. Did you think that this transition helped you question more, those types of things that you were mentioning? Just because I feel like whenever I try to transition something from point A to point B, it makes me question more because I get more mindful about what it is.

Hannah [00:24:28]:  So, where we have preexisting questions, I think there were some instances where when we either discussed them, when we were reviewing them, or when we put them into the digital format and then we started seeing all of the data coming in, we realized that, for example, wasn’t a consistent definition, a consistent understanding of that question. And so we’d go back and review that. That was something that happened a couple of times. I think in terms of collecting data again, that’s useful, thinking both about impact and what’s useful for Five Talents, but also thinking about our partners and trying to make sure we balance those things. So, our partners are interested, of course, in impact and in kind of the long term, are they achieving the goals they set out to do? But often, for them, they require also a kind of greater level of detail around that allows them to do more monitoring work, that allows them to plan their activities, and so, integrating that in a way that wasn’t there before necessarily was something that partners asked us to do. So, for example, in the dashboards, you’re able to log in, and you’re able to see which groups have received which training topics. So, it’s very easy for a team to identify that this group has not yet received that and then to plan their activities around that and plan their work plan around that.

Marta [00:25:36]:  That’s awesome. And now, after all these years that you have been transitioning, and I guess you are still transitioning some projects, do you have any examples to share on things that improved significantly, or even what made partners more happy on the ground on things that changed?

Hannah [00:25:53]:  So, I think in terms of feedback, like I say, we really have received huge positive feedback around the digital data collection. People really have valued that, appreciate that, save them a lot of time. Also, the teams that we work with are small. There are 3, 5 people sometimes, and they’re recruited; their skill set, their experience working in the community, is not compiling reports, and nor do we want it to be. And so I think there’s been a lot of positive feedback around the kind of time being freed up. In terms of, I guess, specific learning, we used the digital data collection to do an evaluation of a program that we’ve been working with for eight years in Kenya in Kericho. And, again, this was an example of where we had moved away from, like, a standardized survey and a very long survey to we had a very simply short survey that focused on 12 questions, things that we knew were important for the program that we developed with the team there, plus some qualitative follow-up questions based on trends that would be observed within the group, so asking for more detail around what was significant to members. And from that, we were able to learn a huge amount. So, for example, we were able to, like, celebrate some of the impacts. We could see that I think, it was nearly 80 of people reported that their children were now more consistently in school as a result of the program and growth of businesses, leadership roles, and confidence, and that was wonderful. But then again, in terms of us learning, we were able to understand more about how those things had happened. Even though it was a relatively short survey, I think thinking carefully about those questions really strengthened it. So, for example, within this program, there was I think three or four different areas, different zones. One area, and then there’s another one as well, had been quite hard to work in initially. There hasn’t been a lot of traction. At one point, the team actually thought maybe we shouldn’t be working in these areas. It’s really hard going. There were areas where it was harder for women to become business owners, where literacy was lower. These were challenges for the program. And what we saw in the data was that, actually, it was these areas that quite significantly reported more positive impacts than the other area, and we were kind of trying to understand why this was. And a lot of it was around women and women within this area saying, like, “I’ve been able to start a business.” And, again, how did that happen? Well, often, it was about role models. So,  it was about role models within the group, women unlocking opportunities for others, but also often, and again, this was interesting for us. We’d often thought about it, and maybe this is a very Western mindset around improved self-esteem and that confidence coming from yourself. But, actually, what people were telling us and what women were telling us was, actually, there’s been a change in how others perceive me. I’m part of this group. We have become successful business people, and in turn, that has increased respect for us in the community, and this has meant that I’ve been able to become a leader in my community. It has meant that I’ve been able to start a business. Often, I’ve been able to start a business in an area that often isn’t really open for women. So, for example, I’ve been able to go into, like, transport, you know, buying a motorbike or something, which is not something that women in these areas would typically do. So again, understanding how that change has happened in a relatively short survey is something that we can use that learning. And we had a workshop in Nairobi two weeks ago now, where lots of our partners came together, and we were able to share this learning with them and celebrate that. And I think, again, that’s about trying to build that culture of learning amongst all of our partners and throughout Five Talents as well.

Marta [00:29:20]:  No. That’s so interesting and inspiring. And something that I really love that you are doing at Five Talents is group-led analysis and interpretation. So, I think it’s very much related to that, making sure that data belongs to the community. So, can you just explain what this is?

Hannah [00:29:41]:  Absolutely. So, a colleague of mine summed it up really nicely. She was saying that, like, it’s the data often in monitoring and evaluation. It goes from the community, and then it gets taken away. It gets further and further. And, actually, what we want to try and do is keep that within and make sure that we don’t know anything. We don’t learn anything that communities are not learning and knowing. So, I guess to take that example of that evaluation again in Kericho, 12 questions. And then there were some of those questions that had a follow-up qualitative question. Now our partners were doing this already, and we saw huge benefits from it, but Five Talents is always collected from the group level, not from individuals. So, if you went and you observed that evaluation happening, you would have seen a savings group sitting together as they would at their normal meeting. A question would be asked, maybe how many of you own a business, and then people would raise their hands. We always disaggregate the data by gender, and then the facilitators were trained to then ask relevant follow-up questions. So, for example, if they observed that many more men raised their hands than women, then they might ask, I noticed that many more men have raised their hands than women. Can you tell me why that is? Or it might be, I noticed that many of you had started the business as a result of the program. Can you tell me what about the program helped with that? Or many of you have started a business. Why is it important to you, significant to you, that you’ve started a business? What does that mean to you and your family? And, again, that gives us depth of understanding. But I think, also, in all of these things, what we’re seeking in part is for the groups to help us understand the data that we’re seeing to help with that analysis rather than the data coming back to say me and me wondering why it might be and not really knowing. And, also, again, in terms of learning, doing the data collection in that setting means that immediately as it’s being collected, the groups are able to see, oh, lots of us have started businesses, or not many of us have. Why is that? And, actually, that aids their learning in a very organic way, and that’s very similar to the way that they do their training generally, which is, again, in discussion, learning from one another. So, we really want monitoring and evaluation to reflect that, and we want our learning to align with what’s happening in communities and what they’re telling us.

Marta [00:31:52]:  Makes so much sense. And because you are so mindful about what communities want and need, I’m just wondering I know a common concern of many NGOs is balancing these interests between donors and between the local communities. And you mentioned at the beginning that you are not bound to government funding, but you’re probably bound to other types of funding. So, how do you strike the balance between what donors want and what local communities need and want?

Hannah [00:32:25]:  That’s a great question. I think for us, we see a lot of alignment between community-led data gathering that I was just speaking about, what our funders, supporters are looking for. So often, people who support Five Talents see themselves investing in something long-term and sustainable. They want to hear about real impact, real stories, real voices. And so moving away from generic tick boxes or poverty measurement tools, which don’t necessarily measure the impacts that people who invest in Five Talents or the communities themselves want to see and don’t necessarily see as important or significant. So, I think for us, there is really that alignment between people who invest in Five Talents and communities. And the approach that we take, we see a lot of alignment there.

Marta [00:33:07]:  That’s great. So, as final questions, you have an inspiring case study of a not-so-big NGO that is transitioning still from paper-based to digital data collection. So, do you have any advice, recommendations, or suggestions for other listeners that are in a similar position? Maybe to demystify some misconceptions about, if you don’t have many resources, maybe it’s so expensive, maybe it’s so difficult and complex, what can you share to inspire others?

Hannah [00:33:43]:  Yeah. That’s a great question. I think reach out to other people who are already doing similar things. I benefited a lot from some conversations I had at the start of this project, learning from others who had already gone before and done similar things. So, I think reach out to people who you can learn from. I think keeping it simple, particularly if you are a small NGO focusing on what you are able to deliver and also importantly sustain, I think, is really important. And often, there’s a lot of value in simplicity. I think work with early adopters and people that are enthusiastic about what you’re doing and kind of want to be, they’re very willing to be somebody to pioneer something new. I think, again, something we’ve benefited from is working with one partner at a time and learning as we go, and then being able to scale what sticks and what’s been good. And I think that’s been really useful and definitely an approach I would recommend. And I think also trying to remember what you’re doing, like the impacts that you hope to see and centering that over kind of graphs and dashboards, which are wonderful, but remembering that it’s actually about the impact in the work that we want to see and making sure that is at the forefront.

Marta [00:34:51]:  And do you have any resources or tools or anything that you like to share with our listeners?

Hannah [00:34:58]:  I think your peers are people who are really helpful to learn from, so definitely reach out to people with different experiences and different kinds of levels of what you’re doing as well. So, reaching out to your own partners or other partners and understanding their experience, reaching out to other NGOs, reaching out to kind of people who have done the tech side more, or people who have done the monitoring and evaluation aspect more. I think, for me, that’s where I was very fortunate that people were really waiting to share. I think people often are very happy to share, and I think that’s a wonderful thing about this sector, there’s a lot of value in that, and I think that it’s also really encouraging to do that. So, I would say that’s your number one resource. 

Marta [00:35:35]:  Good answer. Thank you so much, Hannah. It was a pleasure having you here.

Hannah [00:35:40]:  Thank you.

Marta [00:35:41]:  That wraps up today’s episode with Hannah, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Specialist at Five Talents UK. In this episode, we discussed Five Talents work equipping communities through savings groups in East and Central Africa. We dove into the three-year monitoring evaluation learning strategy focusing on the shift to digital data collection, and we’ll learn how Five Talents is fostering a culture of learning by centering the data and learning within the community. Find the links to Five Talents work in our show notes, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. 

Outro [00:36:18]: Thanks for listening to Survey and Beyond, the data collection podcast by SurveyCTO. If you want to learn more about how SurveyCTO helps organizations collect reliable, secure, and scalable data anywhere in the world, visit www.surveycto.com. And if you are a fan of Survey and Beyond, consider leaving us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Your feedback helps more listeners discover this conversations and stay connected to the latest thinking in data collection. Don’t forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss any episode. On behalf of the entire SurveyCTO team, thanks again for joining us, and we will see you next time.