Digital transformation is reshaping how NGOs and humanitarian organizations deliver aid, improve efficiency, and scale their impact. With limited funding and increasing demands, organizations are turning to innovative technologies to reach more people at lower costs.
This article explores real-world examples of digital transformation in action, from the Norwegian Refugee Council’s digital community hubs to Farm Radio International’s interactive real-time polling.
Each case study highlights how Telerivet’s technology is helping organizations improve engagement, streamline operations, and ultimately, do more good.
We’ll cover:
- What is digital transformation?
- Why is it important for humanitarian organizations to engage with digital transformation?
- How the Norwegian Refugee Council approached digital transformation
- How Médecins Sans Frontières used SMS for reminders
- How New Incentives increased engagement through airtime transfers
- How Farm Radio International used polling for real time feedback
What is digital transformation?
Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to change and advance your organization.
When we talk about digital transformation, we're talking about technology - but also the downstream effects and impacts of that technology, the cultural changes it can produce in an organization, the staffing needs, and the types of organizational structures that emerge from embedding digital technologies.
The purpose of engaging in a process of digital transformation is, first and foremost, to improve outcomes against your mission. Too often, organizations engage in digital transformation without a clear purpose. Lacking the "why" of your transformation will harm your ability to transform in a way that produces lasting change. A poorly executed digital transformation can create more problems than it solves.
So what might be the purpose of a digital transformation?
It might be a specific problem - for example, realizing that you're doing good work in tackling a real social or humanitarian issue, but that each person helped incurs too much cost for the program to be scalable. In this instance, you might want to map the flow of how you are achieving these outcomes currently and identify where digital technologies can either improve areas of the process or reduce waste and inefficiencies.
Digital transformation can happen on a process-by-process basis, or it can be a larger, grander ambition to change the way the whole organization operates. But the fundamentals remain the same: you should know why you are seeking transformation and what you want to achieve at the end of it.
The strengths of digital technologies are that they can reduce costs, scale easily and rapidly, and extend your reach beyond what would otherwise be possible. Additionally, the speed of digital technologies can create great efficiencies.
What do you want to change, and how do you want to do it?
Why is it important for humanitarian organizations to engage with digital transformation?
It has always been advantageous for humanitarian organizations - and firms within the humanitarian sector more broadly - to utilize digital technologies effectively.
One of the key reasons digital tools are useful in this space is that funding is often constrained. Many great organizations have to do a lot with a little. And when you know that each care parcel you provide can save a life, you are incentivized to enable as many of these parcels as possible.
The work we do in this sector is impactful, and many of us see that impact on a day-to-day basis. Being able to achieve things efficiently and effectively allows us to do more of them - and to do more good.
This fact underlies the raison d’être of Telerivet. Telerivet was founded on ways to improve aid delivery, identified during our founding team’s time in the Peace Corps.
Digital transformation is a way to get more work done - and to do more good.
The humanitarian sector, however, is not always as efficient as we want it to be. The industry experiences churn, and institutional knowledge can be lost. It faces complex problems that it seeks to overcome in ways that avoid cutting corners in favor of simple efficiencies.
But that doesn’t mean this sector cannot be increasingly modern, increasingly digital, and increasingly effective.
In light of the changing circumstances around U.S. aid - and what this may mean for funding going forward, at least through this presidential term - organizations in this sector will have to find efficiencies. Beyond that, they’ll need to quantify their impact and results.
It will be a tighter funding ecosystem. Organizations that can do more with less - and can demonstrate their impact with clear data - will be in a better position to survive and continue their mission.
Rapid scalability: How the Norwegian Refugee Council approached digital transformation
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) presents a valuable example of digital transformation.
Their story begins with COVID-19, when the global lockdowns heavily impacted the way NRC delivered its services and fulfilled its mission.
Traditional in-person aid delivery had become challenging, but the needs of displaced communities were greater than ever. What NRC needed was a way to scale its delivery and reach through digital means.
The Norwegian Refugee Council partnered with a range of digital companies, including Cisco, Meta, and Telerivet. The purpose of this partnership was to create what they called digital community hubs (DCH).
These hubs were designed to oversee aid delivery, improve it through better communication, and explore ways to make aid delivery less reliant on physical infrastructure.
This was a significant challenge and represented a comprehensive digital transformation of their humanitarian services.
The impact of this transformation has been huge.
In 2023, NRC reached over 465,000 people in less than a month with a small team using the digital community hub's technology. Achieving this level of reach previously would have required adding hundreds or even thousands of staff members.
This entire program has led to reduced costs, increased reach, and a truly scalable aid provision service.
SMS reminders: How Médecins Sans Frontières used SMS to increase engagement
Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, is an organization active in aid delivery around the world.
In 2015, Médecins Sans Frontières approached Telerivet as part of a digital solution to improve its efforts in tackling HIV in South Africa.
At a project near Cape Town, the challenge was to enhance reporting and testing processes for both HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis. With testing infrastructure in place to allow for self-testing and self-screening, the core problem shifted toward engagement and adherence.
How could they ensure that people took the tests and reported their results to the relevant bodies
Médecins Sans Frontières came to Telerivet to develop a notification system that could address low levels of self-reporting after self-tests or screenings were completed.
By leveraging Telerivet’s communication technologies, Médecins Sans Frontières was able to send SMS reminders at different intervals after the testing opportunity.
What they found was clear: same-day reminders significantly increased the completion and reporting rate. They tested notifications at various intervals to determine the optimal timing for follow-ups.
By doing so, they were able to maximize reporting—and, therefore, the treatment of HIV.
Airtime transfers: How New Incentives increased engagement through incentivizing mothers
New Incentives is a nonprofit in Nigeria that works alongside state governments and partners to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV and neonatal mortality.
New Incentives leverages technology in interesting ways to incentivize positive health outcomes.
They use Telerivet’s airtime transfer feature to facilitate a conditional cash transfer program, aiming to encourage pregnant women to access health services that typically have low adoption rates. Their goals include increasing registration rates for antenatal care and raising the proportion of hospital deliveries.
This has been a highly effective form of digital transformation, enabling them to reach a large number of women at very low costs. As a result, they have been able to provide more incentives.
The results have been significant. In the state of Akwa Ibom, facility deliveries at participating clinics nearly doubled—from 30% to 55%—after the program was introduced.
Beyond the cash transfer incentives, this program has also brought more pregnant women into the orbit of New Incentives, allowing them to provide additional useful services and resources.
New Incentives uses Telerivet to send mobile money tokens via SMS, even in areas where network reliability is a challenge. Each SMS contains a unique token and instructions on how to redeem it for cash at a bank branch.
These cash transfers, which typically amount to about $130 per participant, have proven to be a highly effective way to reward health-seeking behaviors and support pregnant women both before and after delivery.
The program has now served over 2,500 women and has begun expanding to additional states across Nigeria.
Using digital technology to deliver this program not only allows for rapid scaling but also gives the women themselves a greater sense of autonomy.
SMS polling: How Farm Radio International used polling for real time feedback
Across 38 African countries, Farm Radio International partners with local radio stations to ensure that practical, relevant, and timely information reaches tens of millions of small-scale farmers in rural communities.
But instead of simply broadcasting information, Farm Radio International uses Telerivet to make communication a two-way street.
Farm Radio International uses two key features: missed call polling and opt-in SMS alerts.
So, what do these features do?
These are Telerivet tools that make it easy and affordable for people to stay engaged in the conversation.
Missed call polling allows a radio presenter to ask a question, and listeners can "vote" by calling in—but the call never connects. Since the call doesn’t go through, the listener isn’t charged, making this an accessible way to participate. At the same time, it keeps costs low for the organization conducting the poll. This makes it an affordable and effective way to increase engagement in communities where money is already tight.
To maintain high engagement, Farm Radio International also uses SMS notifications, one of Telerivet’s core services, widely used by charities, NGOs, and private businesses.
Through Telerivet, they notify listeners when a show is about to air and when there will be opportunities to vote or participate in a poll.
Farm Radio International has found this technology incredibly valuable—not only for engaging listeners but also for gathering key demographic data, such as location, gender, and language.
Since implementing these tools, they have:
- Sent out more than 2,000 polls
- Delivered over 700,000 SMS messages
- Collected over 1 million listener responses
This has helped them better serve over 200,000 small-scale farmers across Africa.
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