M&E, Part II
We have another way of handling monitoring and evaluations that we just started a month ago:
When we agree on 5 kinds of benchmarks with our grantees on a project, we are encouraging those grantees to immediately write a web post once they've hit one of those benchmarks. Then we ask them to tag the blog so that our web scrappers can pick up that post. This project allows the news of the grantee's accomplishments to go out live and to the entire world. We believe this makes for a more open process and in real-time.
LOGIN TO COMMENT | POSTED ON OCT. 9, 2009
New ways of thinking about M&E
On the program level, we'd like to propose a new kind of self-evaluation model, where all the website metrics and audience evaluations are built in. As we create better media platforms we should build monitoring and evaluation into the projects.
You can look at the News21.com site, where students doing innovative news experiments , explain all the problems they had trying to create the innovations, who used them and what happened.
LOGIN TO COMMENT | POSTED ON OCT. 9, 2009
SPEAKERS SAY: Barnathan, Whitehouse, Etulain
Joyce BARNATHAN, president, International Center for Journalists (ICFJ): "We need to ask what economic impact a project has – even beyond the political impact. If your program manages to raise the vaccination rates in a country, what kind of value does that have for society? What other kinds of experts should be asked – who are not now being talked to – for their assessments of the project's effectiveness?"
LOGIN TO COMMENT | POSTED ON OCT. 9, 2009
The MDLF: "We Have to Invent Media Investors"
When the Media Development Loan Fund started up in 1995, reported Sasa Vucinic, it focused on Eastern European countries in transition. Almost 15 years later, it's operating across the world, disbursing some $12-15 million a year in investments. http://www.mdlf.org/
Vucinic talked about garden variety investor categories: financial investors, strategic investors and "political power" investors, all of whom present obstacles for international media. "So we have to invent media investors."
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Do we need a new kind of media investor?
This morning’s presenters seemed to agree that the behavior of current investors and the need for new investment is driven by digital transformation, a need for new kinds of investment for experimentation, and patient capital that supports social values. The view was shared that purely commercial criteria are insufficient to produce sustainable media in many environments. The current grants economy, by itself, may not be flexible or disciplined enough to provide the successive stages of capital required.
LOGIN TO COMMENT | POSTED ON OCT. 9, 2009