Inviting Changemakers to partner with our fellows

The benefits of technology tend to often exclude vulnerable communities, the planet and those who serve them. aikyam fellows are committed to making technology accessible to changemakers. Especially small & grassroots NGOs, changemakers with limited or no budget and resources. All aspects of our tech support are free.

We believe that all changemakers (esp. grassroots & movements) should have access to trained professionals to meaningfully leverage tech.

We would love to work with you if you are

  1. a registered NGO, co-operative, not-for-profit, movement with a budget of less than ₹25 lakh a year
  2. a changemaker, activist in the process of or thinking of registering an NGO/co-operative in the future
  3. a volunteer offering their time and skills for free to 1 & 2 above.

What can aikyam fellows help you with?

So far we have been able to support the following but are constantly trying to learn to help with new use cases where we can add value.

  1. Improve discoverability of your work for funders, staff, volunteers, etc through websites, fundraising pages, directories, etc
  2. Amplify visibility and engagement with your key stakeholders through tools like blogs, newsletters, online forums.
  3. Help measure impact of your work through meaningful, ethical Data Collection, Aggregation, Analysis framework and tools.
  4. Improve your day-to-day operations like Email Systems, Collaboration, HR operations, Recruitment, Accounting & Payroll by leveraging simple, free tools
  5. Project Management frameworks and tools
  6. Learning Management Systems that can foster a learning culture for your team as well as external stakeholders.
  7. Knowledge Management Systems and frameworks to nurture co-creating, sharing and retrieval of important organisational research and program work.
  8. Advice and strategy on how tech can be meaningfully leveraged in your work in a simple and low-cost way without diluting the important, caring nature of your work

We can also support you by holding space for you with our curated resources for changemakers at aikyam space in Kochi, Kerala

What aikyam fellows may NOT BE ABLE TO HELP you with

  1. We believe in re-using code and free software to help you with your use cases. That way we help our partners to build "Valuable" solutions instead of original and expensive, and most of the time, unusable solutions. We are not the best for building a new app that is exclusive for you and has proprietary software.
  2. Funding for your tech needs. We can definitely direct you to the right links, resources wherever possible.
  3. We are not useful if you are looking for someone to directly manage your day-to-day tech like Emails, Website updating, Social Media updating, Data, etc. We can, of course, help with training and support as you learn.

If/when we are unable to help your specific use-case, we share your tech queries and/or connect you to the right resources through our forum.

Our focus is on the process and not the product

Our process often starts with an online conversation with change makers based on the form below, which they fill out. Sometimes, we may need 1-3 calls to understand the important work they do, the barriers they are facing and which of those barriers can tech help them solve in a meaningful way.

This helps us decide whether aikyam fellows are the best option to solve the problem. (If not, we guide them to our forum where they can reach out to others who could help.)

aikyam fellows discuss the solution and create a timeline for delivering it.

All the stakeholders are kept updated on the progress of the work through emails and WhatsApp group chats.

At the end of the project, you may share your experience on the collaboration on email or post it to the forum; this can help others re-use your solution, learning.

Project collaboration guidelines

  1. We believe that no one should be taken for granted and so, empathy and respect for each other is non negotiable. Across conversations, whether face-to-face or in writing.
  2. All stakeholders have to work together, to the timeline. If any task cannot be finished on time, do keep everyone in the loop.
  3. Tech is usually only 2% of the solution. For example, a website is a content challenge and not a tech issue. All content and images needed for website projects have to be provided by your team. Our team will of course guide you on this, share other partner websites for inspiration, etc.
  4. Do ask for help whenever you need it. Because we always ask for help if we get stuck.

If you have reached this far and feel like we will enjoy working together, please click here to fill the changemaker onboarding form and you will hear from our team in 2-3 business days. Thank you for your patience. We look forward to working with you and learning from you.

Changemaker Onboarding Form