Insights
We explore how Trace Planet’s small team is using digital technology to help tackle climate change
Trace Planet uses research, education, and multi-stakeholder coalitions to promote environmental regeneration to fight against climate change, using the fashion industry as its entry point to making a difference.
Professionals of small charities are regularly under pressure to find ways to be resourceful, efficient, and take meaningful action with intention – and digital technology can play an essential role in that. But the 2023 Charity Digital Skills Report found that key challenges for small charities include a lack of funding for digital technology (54%), being busy firefighting (44%), and needing to upskill staff or volunteers (41%).
So how are small charities using digital technology to tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time, despite these resource limitations? We spoke to Aroa Fernandez Alvarez, co-founder of the environmental CIO Trace Planet, to learn about the use of digital technology in building a community around a cause, creating a visually engaging website, and overcoming unforeseen digital challenges.
Aroa Fernandez Alvarez (AFA): Digital technology has been crucial. All our networking has happened online, there are not so many local organisations doing similar work, so from the very beginning we used digital search engines to understand who was doing what in the regenerative ecosystem, reach out, and forge alliances.
Tech and hyperconnectivity have many downsides, but there’s no argument to the fact that they enable us to build connections and collaborate on projects with people and organisations that would be very difficult to engage with in an analogue world.
AFA: The online workshops started because of the pandemic! We had planned an exciting calendar of in-person events that was meant to kick off just about the same time that COVID-19 got to the U.K. and everything shut down.
We decided to completely change our strategy and develop a new programme that would work in an online setting, and that’s how that workshop series was born. We love facilitating in-person events and creating experiences and spaces where people can have deep conversations and meaningful interactions.
We still believe this is easier done in person than online, but going online brought a whole new set of opportunities: we were able to reach amazing speakers from all over the world (Netherlands, Australia, U.S.) who we would never have been able to engage through an in-person meeting, and in turn, our workshops gathered participants from all around the world.
I think ultimately the change of strategy to an online workshop format enabled us to reach many more people with our message about environmental regeneration.
AFA: Our advice would be – be proactive and approach people, most will be willing to talk and collaborate. If you have an idea, approach others with a plan as specific as possible, and be clear about what you imagine your role can be and what they can get out of this.
Everybody is really busy and it’s best to be clear and straightforward about things, otherwise projects and conversations are likely to fizzle out and be pushed away by more urgent priorities.
Also, don’t take it personally if people don’t follow up – again, times are busy and we all have competing priorities!
Keep trying to find the right partner. If you don’t have specific ideas yet, do still network and try to understand what other organisations are doing. It’s by talking and getting to know each other over time that you’ll come up with the best ideas.
AFA: We still have lots of ideas for continuous improvement, so we see our website as a work in progress. Some tips:
AFA: Building this website was quite challenging – it forced us into a process of strategic review and was a big project to manage on our very limited capacity while continuing activity delivery.
We’ve also had all sorts of problems with our operating systems. What has worked in our experience is asking for help and being patient. Generally, most tech systems have good client support, so we raise any queries that we have and wait for a call back.
Sometimes issues take days (or even weeks!) to resolve, but we’ve learned to be more patient and just don’t fuss about things we can’t control. We’re honest with our community: we’re a very small team and sometimes things don’t get done as quickly as we wished, we just don’t have the capacity for it. And that openness has worked.
It’s a similar situation to when we facilitate workshops online – sometimes tech doesn’t work as it should and there’re issues with connectivity, sharing screens etc. All you can do is prepare well, have backup plans where possible, and if things still go south, take it with good humour and improvise.
AFA: This year our main focus is to secure funding to expand our workshop programme and our operational capacity.
We want to further develop our in-person workshops and expand our work with schools, as we believe that it’s a priority to work with young people who generally are quite aware of the magnitude of the climate emergency but who don’t always know how they can be part of the solution.
We want to use the workshops to spark hope and ignite action.
Click here to learn more about Trace Planet's work promoting environmental regeneration to fight climate change
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