You’ve got to know what your customers want, that’s step one for any business. How you get there can vary greatly. The easiest option is, of course, to simply know what’s best for your customers like Steve Jobs.
If you’re not Steve Jobs, other options luckily remain. You could get consumer data from your past experiences, but what if you’re trying to build something new? That’s where focus groups come into play, of course. But for a group like Eastern Congo Initiative, you’ve got to think a little bigger. “ECI’s mission is to provide grants to local community-based organizations and to do grass tops advocacy work”, Director of Operations Heather Pfahl explains.”Our advocacy work is informed by actual, on the ground partners voices. What we do is amplify voices. You often hear statements like, ‘We’re a voice for the voiceless’. The Congolese have voices,” she says emphatically. “And they’re very loud. But in international communities, they’re often stifled”.
So many companies these days are built along similar lines, those of bridging consumers with products. Lyft connects people with drivers, Kickstarter connects creators with funders. Both of those companies have to do with a crowded marketplace of competitors, and even within those companies drivers and creators compete with each other. Although the stakes are much higher, the principles generally apply to the world of international grants. ECI must manage two worlds: they must grab the ears of the international community once they have that, figure out what Congolese activists require. To do that, they needed something bigger than a focus group: ECI engaged in a two-year poll, from 2011-2013, of the Congo, to find out greater needs and desires. “All of our programs are research-informed”, Pfahl says. “So we did comprehensive, DRC-national [Democratic Republic of Congo] polling. We worked through a contracting firm that does extensive polling internationally and here in the United States. They want in trained local poll givers, went into a variety of provinces across Congo. We did about four different rounds of polling, and are just finalizing our polling results right now. It’s informing our advocacy and informing local programs on the ground through local partners”.
The sheafs of data collected by ECI are put in a database, where security is a top priority given the sensitive information involved.”We’re very conscientious of what we publish”, Pfahl says. Their logistical experience has allowed them to help others, like Harvard, enter DRC for similar polling efforts.
ECI is decidedly non-profit, but has a deep understanding of the usefulness of the for-profit sector. It’s been able to leverage its data and targeting into partnerships with big brands like TOMS and smaller ones like Theo Chocolate based out of Seattle. “ECI’s pretty deliberate and intentional about our partnerships”, says Pfhal. There’s a checklist the organization goes through before even thinking about taking on any additional partnerships. ECI first has to understand what it’s lacking and what can be gained through a new partnership in the first place, this is best accomplished through a thorough reading of its own data. Then there’s a vetting process to make sure the potential partner meets high ethical standards in production. This, in addition to ECI’s youth as an organization, is why it only has two partners so far. But ECI has made those two partnerships work in a much greater capacity for its organizational goals than most nonprofits can: Theo has started to fund training programs for young Conogolese who in turn could work as polltakers for ECI’s two-year poll, and TOMS has taken a special focus on Congo, citing the rugged rocks and terrian the city of Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province, as especially wearing on shoes.
In an environment where attention is crucial and the competition crowded, ECI just got a huge boost from the outside, from Netflix’s pick-up of the documentary Virunga, which highlights the struggles between the caretakers of the Eastern Congolese national Virunga Park and outside oil conglomerates. There’s always a risk, in these situations, of outside hyper-focus: a sudden and immediate rush of attention to one part of a complex series of issues. Pfhal is confident that the new attention will only help. “Could it [result in hyper-focus]? Yes. Will it? No.” Pfhal found the documentary brilliant, not only adding to the simple task of ‘awareness’ but offering direct actions for viewers with the creation of the Virunga Alliance. The documentary, while being outside of ECI’s purview, contributes to its mission of making sure that above all it, it is the people of the DRC who are making their demands known. “The Congolese are resiliant”, Pfhal says, noting the decades of colonial struggle and war that have hit the nation. And thanks to ECI, that resilance gets heard the world over.