The Interledger Community 🌱: Ushahidi

Fueling social justice with a monetization stream, for Ushahidi grassroots users — Final Grant Report

Ushahidi — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 19:31:07 +0000

Project Update

We successfully implemented the changes to our software for Web Monetization integration and launched them in a pilot project on April 19th, 2021. We reached out to 100 of our most active deployers to invite them to participate in the pilot. We got some of them to try the integration, but unfortunately due to a different challenges that we'll detail, none completed it successfully. We plan to continue reaching out to users through direct communications and support channels, refine the implementation aspects under our control and achieve success stories.

Progress on objectives

Our project aimed to;

Increasing the likelihood of success for grassroots projects using Ushahidi to fight for social justice by injecting money directly into them. Many organizations that reach out to use the Ushahidi platform have little to no financial resources and rely on in-kind support or volunteers to sustain their work. Donations or revenue generated from enabling this feature would go a long way in sustaining their projects.
Create awareness about the Web Monetization standard amongst the Ushahidi community.
Sensitize users regarding licensing of content and encourage them to use appropriate licenses.

We implemented the integration with Web Monetization enclosed in a feature that enables our deployers to customize their call for donations. We hope that our deployers will be able to leverage this feature to build awareness of their work and the support they need. We also hope this will be paired with practical, seamless and safe means for the deployers to receive funds and for visitors to remit them.

In terms of creating awareness and getting users, we can represent the progress on our efforts with the following pipeline:

We reached out directly via email to a total number of 100 deployers.
7 out of 100 deployers showed interest, 93 didn’t respond
- 50% estimated message opening rate
6 of the respondents remained engaged in communication (1 who applied via the form didn’t confirm their engagement)
Among the deployers who wanted to test the features, 4 were in countries supported by Uphold but the 2 were in countries blocked by Uphold and this kept changing from time to time, making it an unreliable wallet to use.
- (2 in countries blocked by Uphold: Kenya, Philippines)
2 attempted set up
- (2 didn’t confirm their attempt)
1 couldn’t go through due to sponsorship policy, donations through Uphold wallet was not allowed
1 failed to locate and provide the payment pointer
0 completed setup
0 reported fundraising results

As for sensitizing users regarding licensing of content, we haven't yet reached consensus on a way forward that makes sense for our community. Ushahidi is deeply rooted in a culture of sharing and collaborative building. Our users usually open their deployments for crowdsourcing information in order to enhance common situation awareness on a socially relevant event. This is not to say that licensing considerations are not relevant, just that the dynamics may be different from communities where content producers seek content consumers. We will continue discussing on the nuances of licensing in this scenario and how relevant this may be to the different types of our users.

Key activities

Product design

We completed user experience preliminary studies and screen design previews for the integration of Web Monetization with our software.
We have started an additional feature in our product, centred around the concept of donations to deployers. Web monetization is the first driver for donations. This is an idea we had considered in the past, but we had been deterred by the complexity of setting up payment gateways and reimbursement methods available to global users, many of which are based on developing countries.
We found that Web Monetization technology presents an opportunity to start breaking that barrier

Deployer experience

Interested deployers are now able to enable donations on their deployment. This is hidden behind a feature flag while we are testing the first users.
Once donations are enabled, deployers can fill in content for visitors as a pitch to the deployment's mission and needs of support.

Visitor experience

As visitors land on deployments with donations set up, they may read the deployment's pitch and find instructions to get set up for Web Monetization.
We hope that the diversity and social value of the missions run by our deployers will motivate people to get their browser set up with Web Monetization, if they are not yet.

Technical implementation

Implementation specifications can be found in the following GitHub issues.

The feature now is in maintenance and improvements as we receive feedback from qualified users. The collection of issues can be found here.

Documenation

We published an updated user guide with details on how users can enable the Web monetization feature and successfully set up to receive donations in their deployments. One of the deployers who was able to set up donations found it informative and easy to use.

Communications and marketing

One of our goals was to create awareness about web monetization. We have published blog posts and highlighted our work via social media and direct communication, receiving one applicant via the forms.

Blog posts include:

From our experience, we’ve noted gaps in understanding, and see a need for better education and integration of the Ushahidi community within the Web Monetization ecosystem. Our users are still struggling with understanding the value of web monetization, and how this directly applies to their projects. Therefore, we’re working on a marketing and outreach campaign to continue educating users about the importance of the feature and how it will impact their work.

In addition, we created a public form for any interested users to sign up for testing.

We see these as the first steps in what is poised to be a longer journey of technology adoption for our users. By taking these first steps we have learned the following:
There was a low percentage of respondents to our message. This may indicate that:

We didn’t reach out to the right users with the right message, or ..
- Users don’t understand monetization, or ..
- Users don’t understand or trust this implementation of monetization, or ..
- Users don’t feel the need for monetization.
Most users that responded continued to be responsive and engaged. This indicates that our initial message was well understood by those who responded, and there is a small but well-attuned and non-negligible group of interested end-users.
We weren’t able to carry through any of the users to a successful implementation. This fact points to challenges in our implementation, the technology ecosystem and level of available support.

We believe that there are two keys to unlock this technology becoming relevant for our community of grassroots activists.

The first is achieving enough success stories that can be showcased to the rest of the community so as to build trust and excitement. We want to continue supporting and educating interested users, so as to help them reach successful implementations and stories.

The second key would be a more inclusive ecosystem, as hinted in the list of challenges below.

What’s next?

We have identified the following challenges:

The ecosystem is quite limited for the countries where we do most of our work, making it a challenge to find wallet providers that support users on a global scale and are easily accessible by not being bound to very onerous documentary requirements.
People don’t quite understand how cryptocurrency works and how it would apply to their lives.
The setup process currently involves copying a payment pointer. Our users didn’t quite understand or perform this step as expected.
Many of our deployers don’t have access to credit cards and thus can’t sign up to Coil to see with their own eyes “how the loop closes” and what web monetization feels like from the perspective of the donor.
Some non-profit organizations are not ready for cryptocurrency donations or are unsure of how it fits their policies and reporting requirements.
Crafting documentation and comms for users who are not native English speakers was not in our scope and the language barrier has proved to be a source of difficulties and misunderstandings.

In response to some of these challenges, we envision these future activities:

Once deployers succeed in their setup, follow up regularly surveying financial results in order to monitor impact.
Partner with translators for the most relevant languages (given our sample of interested users) and get documentation and support materials translated.
Continue identifying and fixing implementation issues.
Continued, expanded and/or refined marketing and outreach, to increase successful adoption and understanding of web monetization among our deployer base.
People do not entirely trust or understand cryptocurrency. This applies to a lot of people around the globe. Cryptocurrency is not something that people use or see the need in their everyday lives. We are looking for avenues of collaboration with cryptocurrency services and experts to help bridge this gap as an organization.
We desire that Platform will offer its deployers access to practical and trustworthy monetization and payment systems in the future.

What community support would benefit your project?

It would be great if our deployers in the developing world had accessible choices of crypto wallet providers, providing service in their geographies without imposing unassailable documentation requirements. Alternatively, the approach of fiscal hosting introduced by i.e. Open Collective could be interesting to consider.
As another possibility, it would be great to assemble a large enough platform to approach mobile money businesses (as used by large groups of population in the developing world) with integration projects.

New update

Ushahidi — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 13:30:38 +0000

We have encountered a minor setback that we thought it would be good to share. We recently learned that some countries are temporarily not supported by uphold delaying setting up deployers from said countries. We are looking at GateHub as the other alternative, and we will share updates as we make progress.

Of course, any feedback is highly appreciated.

For our deployers, fill this form to get your deployment web monetized💥.

Ushahidi’s Pilot launch

Ushahidi — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:41:57 +0000

We are excited to announce Ushahidi’s pilot launch will begin on Monday, April 19th, and run until May 14th. During this evaluation period, only selected Ushahidi deployers will have access to this feature. I invite you to support these deployments once we have the interested parties’ confirmation. Anyone who has a deployment here, feel free to reach out via our communication channels, and we will set you up 🥳.

Quick demo on how to set up.

Fueling social justice with a monetization stream, for Ushahidi grassroots users — Grant Report #1

Ushahidi — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 18:08:57 +0000

Ushahidi Platform is a crowdsourcing data collection product that has been used by thousands of actors over the globe for the last 10 years. Most of these actors are grassroots individuals and organizations working towards social justice, in some cases just starting working for their mission and in need of funding.

We are currently working on enabling our deployers to benefit from Web Monetization technology. We approach this not only in terms of technical implementation but most importantly as an outreach campaign to our deployers.

Project Update

The team has discussed and settled on the implementation efforts to be undertaken. We are currently working on the changes to our software and gearing up our communications and marketing efforts that will be unleashed. We project to launch during May.

Key activities

Product design

We have completed user experience preliminary studies and screen design previews for what will become the integration of Web Monetization with our software.

The joy and gratitude of sharing are central to our community, and these are values that we also see reflected in the Web Monetization community. Ushahidi deployers start their deployments to effect social impact in their communities, and as such, they help to build a world that can be better for all of us.

With this in mind, we have put together the design for an additional feature in our product, centered around the concept of donations to these deployers. This is an idea we had considered in the past, but we had been deterred by the complexity of setting up payment gateways and reimbursement methods available to global users, many of which are based on developing countries.

We think Web Monetization technology presents an opportunity to start breaking that barrier, and as such will become the first monetary contribution method that our deployers will be able to directly benefit from through our platform.

Deployer perspective

Deployers will be able to enable donations on their deployment. This will be available regardless of where and how they are hosting it (we offer both open source and SaaS setups).

While they are enabling donations, they will be able to provide content for visitors as a pitch to the deployment's mission and needs of support.

Visitor perspective

As visitors land on deployments with donations set up, they may read the deployment's pitch and find instructions to get set up for Web Monetization.

We hope that the diversity and social value of the missions run by our deployers will motivate people to want to chip in and get set up with Web Monetization if they are not yet.

Technical implementation plan

We have gone through the technical implementation evaluation for introducing web monetization in our web app, and foresee no trouble in execution.

Implementation specifications can be found in the following GitHub issues

Communications and marketing

We have been working internally with our communications team, to research the current status of the Web Monetization ecosystem, contrast it with what we know about the reality of our users, and strategize adoption paths for our user base.

To help our community understand the potential value of web monetization to supporting the advancement of their individual impact, we are preparing outreach campaigns consisting of:

Blog posts
- https://www.ushahidi.com/blog/2021/02/17/technology-as-a-drive-for-change
Social media outreach
Webinars

What’s next?

Finish our implementation and get some of our community members engaged.
We have spent a sizeable amount of time communicating internally and finding out the practical implications of the ecosystem in its current state. Grasping a new technology is always a harder process at the beginning. We expect some of the same and new "learning curve" challenges we found internally, to replicate as we engage external partners (our deployers). Especially those who may not feel entirely comfortable with technology and/or crypto.
The current set of options to get set up seems pretty narrow, both as a content producer and a contributor. In the event, a person wouldn't fit in the criteria Uphold or GateHub has established for their business, there don't seem to be many alternatives around for this individual. Additionally, we see how these criteria may not have been drafted guided with the realities of developing countries in mind. That's where many of our deployers are from. For this reason, we intend to pay special attention to events where the ecosystem is not accessible to our deployers and make it part of our reporting.
The progress of a Monetization campaign may appear a bit fuzzy to parties sitting on either side of it. For the time being, we intend to focus on the content producer side, and we will monitor if our deployers feel they are getting enough feedback about the progress of their respective campaign.
Given that the content offered by our providers is collected and offered as a social good, our messaging may need to be somewhat different from the messaging used by the Web Monetization materials ("perks", "included in membership", etc). We will need to lean towards a messaging where the reward for content consumers is less tangible and is expressed instead in terms of gratitude and being part of something bigger.

Web monetization as a source of empowerment to our deployers.

Ushahidi — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 08:52:00 +0000

Last year was an incredibly difficult year, and as human beings, we always hold onto hope that a new year will be better. However, that has not exactly been the case in 2021 thus far. As the pandemic continues raging globally, and as we wait for the much needed vaccines to get to each country and into people’s arms; we are also cognizant of the fact that this is an election year for 10 African countries. As we look forward to peaceful processes in those countries, we recognize that anti-lockdown protests continue gaining momentum around the world resulting in violence, unrest, and human rights violations by some authorities.

As technological innovations emerge as being some of the most important tools in the transformation of society and more governments enabling data transparency to the people; Grant For the Web has created a way that enhances openness and independence in data distribution and monetization of content that benefits all parties involved.

Around the world, people generally use Ushahidi’s platform to help their local communities in having their voices heard on a range of issues. However, a major constraint for small organizations and grassroots groups is insufficient funding, especially when it comes to pursuing tech solutions to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency. Ushahidi’s response to this is a project to build a system through which individuals anywhere in the world can donate to their choice of sector or grassroots organization. This model allows donors the ability to vary their donations in support of specific areas of interest or passion such as election justice, health matters, gender-based violence etc; all of which are possible areas of support on our platform from the deployments that currently exist.

What is web monetization?

This is a new revenue model for the web that allows Websites to earn revenue from users without:

Requiring users to sign-up to a site
Advertising

With this technology, we will be able to create an opportunity with the hope that the diversity and social value of the missions run by our deployers will motivate people to want to chip in and get set up with Web Monetization if they are not yet.

More to come……..