success story
Making developmental funding more transparent
with IATI Connect
IATI Connect is a new global online community by the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).
With the help of Open Social, IATI created an inviting online space for their Communities of Practice to explore developmental and humanitarian spending data, exchange knowledge, build new networks and connect with a multitude of stakeholders.
“IATI is much more than numbers and data. At the heart of the initiative are its people. The IATI community brings together governments, multilateral institutions, the private sector, and civil society organizations from all over the world.”
– IATI Connect
IATI’s Challenges
Creating community engagement around data transparency
Open Social’s Solution
IATI Connect for Communities of Practice
By migrating from the platform on Discuss to Open Social, IATI Connect could become a more open and engaging community.
In November 2020 IATI Connect officially launched, welcoming members to a new community space filled with events, online resources and endless possibilities for connecting with one another.
Making the community user-friendly
Open Social’s modern design helps the community feel more open and accessible to a wide range of stakeholders.
Working closely together to create new features
IATI continues to work closely with Open Social to develop new and interesting features to add to the platform. For example, Open Social is currently working on a new feature that will allow community members to crosspost content between groups and create even more connections!
Welcoming new members
On IATI Connect there is ample space for new members to get to know the community without feeling intimidated. Onboarding is promoted with a range of community guides, user manuals and learning resources. Moreover, IATI has launched a monthly newsletter, called the ‘Snapshot’ that includes information on any relevant activities across the platform and a vlog built using the Dashboard extension.
Creating spaces for IATI Communities of Practice has allowed members to focus on their interests and create self-organized groups.
Spaces for Communities of Practice
Each CoP has its own individual group space on IATI Connect where members can network and exchange knowledge around special interest topics.
Each CoP group page includes:
- Detailed description of the CoP goals
- Thematic scope
- Activities and events
- Latest content stream
Self-organizing communities
IATI wanted to make clear to members that within each CoP they can also create new groups on their own or request special groups to be facilitated on the platform.
New groups create unique spaces for stakeholders to connect around specific niche topics. It also allows IATI Connect to become a space for sub-communities to form organically.
IATI Connect members can take full advantage of the new platform with Open Social’s unique collaboration and content creation tools.
Promoting user-generated content
Along with creating their own self-sustaining groups, Open Social’s suite of tools empowers IATI Connect members to create various kinds of content themselves. This includes creating events and sharing topics within their groups.
Creating engagement with Discussions
With the Discussions extension, anyone can host moderated and time-bound online discussions around specific topics related to different CoPs. This helps create conversation and support collaboration to strengthen the impact and quality of IATI data initiative worldwide.
Creating a repository of shared knowledge
Using the Resource Library extension, IATI can maintain a repository of knowledge products and expertise from across IATI’s network on IATI Connect.
This resource library is easy to navigate, allowing members to find content according to:
- CoP
- Content-type
- Topic
- Theme
- Keyword
- and more
“Transparency is at the heart of what IATI does. Therefore it is logical this would be a prerequisite for our community platform. The open nature of IATI Connect is a major improvement to our community infrastructure.”
– Sander Hees, Community Facilitator for IATI Secretariat
Sharing Success
IATI Connect Milestones
See what other organization have achieved
with their Open Social communities
Got interested? Let us show the Open Social platform to you
Personalized demo
See what Open Social will look like with your branding.
Q&A
Ask our expert all the questions you have about online communities.
Shareable platform
Share your personalized demo environment internally with colleagues and teammates.
