A journey from Kigali to global influence

The Digital Agri Hub online community, commonly referred to as D4Ag, was established in 2013 with the launch of the first ICT for Agriculture (ICT4Ag) conference in Kigali, Rwanda. Initially, the community was known as ICT4Ag and primarily comprised members from ACP countries – Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Over time, it evolved into D4Ag, reflecting a broader focus and a more diverse membership base.

When the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) transitioned stewardship of the community to Wageningen University & Research, D4Ag underwent significant changes. It has expanded to include members from Asia and other continents. Under Wageningen’s guidance, the community has become a dynamic space for listening, connecting expertise, identifying priorities, bridging knowledge gaps, and fostering innovation in agriculture.

D4Ag’s focus extends beyond traditional farming to include agroforestry, fisheries, and livestock production, encompassing the full spectrum of land-based production systems. This broad approach supports diverse agricultural stakeholders in navigating and leveraging digital technologies for sustainable development.

A diverse membership base

D4Ag is a thriving global community of 1,900 people from a wide range of stakeholder groups, including development agencies, researchers, academics, practitioners, entrepreneurs, and consultants. In addition to the English-speaking D4Ag community, the Digital Agri Hub maintains both smaller French– and Spanish-speaking D4Ag dgroups.

However, a critical gap remains: representation from farmers’ organizations. While the exchanges and discussions in D4Ag often focus on farmer-centric issues, direct input from farmers is limited. This reflects a broader challenge faced by many digital communities, where barriers such as digital literacy, accessibility, and confidence in expressing opinions limit participation.

Patterns of engagement: Active participants, lurkers, and inactive members

Engagement within the D4Ag community mirrors trends observed in many online groups. Approximately 8%-10% of members actively contribute, sharing ideas, insights, and driving discussions.

The majority, often referred to as lurkers, are silent readers who do not actively engage but gain knowledge from the group. Far from being passive, the presence of these informed lurkers highlights the community’s role as a resource for learning and inspiration, even for those who choose to remain in the background.

A smaller subset of members, however, remains inactive, neither reading nor engaging with the group’s communications. Recognizing and addressing these diverse levels of engagement is essential to build a more inclusive and involved community.

eConversations: Building dialogue and partnerships

Since 2022, D4Ag moderators have revitalized their approach to community activities, starting with an e-dialogue to identify training needs and opportunities, conducted in partnership with the Dgroups Foundation. This was followed by a series of eConversations, where topics of interest were identified through small surveys and polls, and partnerships were formed with development agencies and institutions that share similar interests.

Each eConversation typically spans a week, running from Monday to Friday, with secondary questions sometimes introduced the following week to deepen discussions. This flexible format ensures meaningful engagement while accommodating the varying schedules of participants.

Turning dialogue into knowledge: Summarizing and sharing insights

After each eConversation, moderators compile and share detailed summaries, including:

• Responses to individual questions.
• An overall summary with 3-5 sub-summaries.
• A compilation of resources cited during the discussion.

These summaries are published as wikis within the community group, with downloadable PDF versions made available on the Digital AgriHub website. Content is shared under a Creative Commons license, allowing others to reuse and build upon it, provided the source is acknowledged.

Community surveys show that a significant number of members actively read and share these summaries, underscoring their value in supporting participants and a wider audience interested in digital agriculture.

D4Ag’s top tips for community development and engagement

1. Leverage platform features to understand your members

Make full use of the features offered by platforms like Groups.io. Set up fields to capture relevant member data during the sign-up process. Recently, D4Ag began collecting metadata such as gender and geographic location, enabling a deeper understanding of its newer members compared to when the community first launched.

2. Proactively recruit new members and organizations

Continuously expand your network by reaching out to new members and organizations. For example, D4Ag recently connected with the Pan-African Farmers Organization (PAFO) and other regional farmers’ organizations to promote the community within their constituencies.

3. Collaborate with like-minded organizations

Build partnerships with organizations that share an interest in your topics. D4Ag has found success in partnering with various groups to co-facilitate eConversations, enhancing both the depth and reach of discussions.

4. Seek subject-matter experts

Actively invite specialists to contribute to your community. Platforms like LinkedIn can be leveraged to identify experts in specific areas and encourage them to join the conversation.

5. Prepare thoroughly for discussions

Don’t underestimate the groundwork required before launching an eConversation. At D4Ag, preparing for a conversation can take at least a month and includes:

• Drafting a conversation framework to outline the topic.
• Identifying and formulating key questions.
• Assigning roles, such as question launchers and summary writers.
• Scheduling emails and preparing templates.

This preparation ensures the conversation is structured and engaging.

6. Address member concerns to foster participation

Understand and address barriers to participation. Some members may hesitate to post due to language concerns or a perceived lack of expertise. D4Ag’s perception survey revealed that such fears are common, not individual weaknesses. Sharing these insights encouraged more members to contribute, creating a more inclusive and supportive environment.

7. Build a core group of champions

A thriving community needs a core group of committed individuals who maintain momentum and drive discussions. These individuals should believe in the community’s mission and focus on delivering value to its members.

8. Learn and grow with others

Collaborate with experienced partners to develop your skills. D4Ag’s partnership with the Dgroups Foundation helped the team improve their ability to plan and facilitate online discussions, providing a replicable structure for future conversations.

9. Cultivate a strong online presence

For young professionals, a strong online presence is essential for career development. As Giacomo advises, it’s not just about being visible but about the quality and content of your presence. Engaging as an administrator, facilitator, or active member of a community platform can enhance your professional reputation, build meaningful connections, and showcase your expertise.

IFAD Innovation Network

Gladys Morales presented the IFAD innovation network as an example of using online groups to discuss an issue in a community of interest. The IFAD Innovation Network is an informal group of innovation practitioners, authors, and global influencers that aims to reach 2,000 members by the end of the year. The network serves as a hub for innovation-related activities and initiatives within IFAD, as well as a mechanism for engaging with external partners. It provides a space for collaboration, dialogue, and learning, with the aim of driving innovation in IFAD’s operations and beyond. It is open to the public, and members include innovation practitioners, authors, and renowned global influencers in innovation, as well as individuals from academia, research institutions, private sector companies, and civil society organizations.

In terms of platform functionalities and features that are used to enhance collaboration, engagement, and knowledge sharing among members of the network, Gladys focused on the use of hashtags. Hashtags are used consistently to categorize posts related to specific innovation themes or projects. This makes it easier for members who are interested in that topic to find and engage with the post, to track the overall conversation and engagement around a particular theme or project.

CGIAR GENDER

Vivan Atakos introduced the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform as an example of using online groups across initiatives or projects. She shared how they use the group platform to support networking and sharing across different initiatives related to gender in agriculture. The group brings together gender researchers from 14 research centers across the world, and the platform is used to actively enable internal knowledge sharing, learning, and collaboration. The group has 225 members, including gender researchers, donors, and practitioners interested in gender issues. The platform provides a safe space for informal exchanges, sharing of events, publications, job opportunities, and consultancies related to gender in agriculture. Vivian encourages membership by providing targeted emails to new staff members, inviting them to join the platform, and providing a link to sign up.

A group feature that is particularly relevant and used is the calendar – a convenient and effective way to track key events and ensure everyone is informed. It is a simple solution that makes a big difference in keeping members updated with the latest happenings related to gender in agriculture.

KM4Dev (internal) groups

The KM4Dev group is well-known as an example of a successful online Community of Practice. But behind the main, public, group, the KM4Dev volunteers and core group also use several other online groups. These are normally small groups, set up and used to facilitate specific processes related to the management of the community and community activities – for example: to organize the rotation of monthly volunteer moderators; to discuss research and research issues; to coordinate between KM4Dev Journal editors; to plan and follow up on Core Group meetings and discussions.

Sarah Cummings illustrated how these different subgroups work and how they are managed, and some of the platform functionalities that they use. In the volunteers’ group, using polls makes the process of identifying monthly list moderators very efficient – the poll functionality is part of the platform, and polls can quickly be set up and launched.

C4C Advocacy group

John Ede from Charter for Change (C4C) illustrated how C4C is using online groups to support their advocacy initiatives. Charter for Change is an initiative led by national and international NGOs aiming to implement changes in the humanitarian system to enable more locally-led humanitarian responses. The C4C Advocacy Group is a smaller group within the network that advocates approaches to address imbalances and inequalities in the global humanitarian system and make equitable partnerships with local and national actors core to funding streams. The group has approximately 150 members from local, national, and international NGOs, as well as allied networks and organizations working on the localization of aid agenda. Members exchange information and collaborate to advance advocacy as individual agencies and collectively as the Charter for Change network, driving progress on the localization of aid agenda.

The group uses the email list functionality of the online platform to organize calls and discuss joint statements or pledges, which are then fed back into the group for comments or additions. The group also jointly develops advocacy statements as INGOs and national NGOs to influence key humanitarian decision-makers or strategies and organizes localization-focused side events.

D4Ag online dialogue

Giacomo Rambaldi shared experiences with an online, facilitated dialogue that the Digital Agri Hub convened with support from the Dgroups Foundation.

The online dialogue aimed to identify priorities and gaps in capacity-building opportunities for digitalization in agriculture. The dialogue, designed and facilitated by the Dgroups Foundation, was conducted for a three-week period across various platforms such as Zoom and the email list. Other group features were used to support the process, such as: the calendar, to publish the dialogue timeline and milestones; the wiki, to explain the dialogue process, provide technical guidance to participants, and publish weekly discussion summaries; the hashtags, to organize messages and topics.

He also focused on some of the challenges of engaging people to contribute to such exercises. From a survey he conducted some time ago, the results indicated that members in online groups may be hesitant to contribute due to their language constraints, which make them afraid to write and contribute publicly to a dialogue. He suggested that a similar survey could be replicated, with a standard questionnaire administered across different Dgroups Partners groups to identify other potential challenges to engaging contributors.

The chat and discussion throughout the talk show highlighted how the groups.io platform is rich in functionality, facilitating member engagement and providing a voice to many. Participants also noted the importance of ‘democratizing’ online dialogue and exchange through user collaboration and engagement. Some participants also suggested organizing training for the community at least once a year to remind members of the platform’s functionalities and to foster adoption. Finally, participants suggested and encouraged to continue this type of experience-sharing events to all benefit from individual experiences across the Dgroups partnership.

This is the third of a series of short posts from the discussion. The other two posts cover:

• Online interaction around events and meetings – the peer assist
• Online collaboration experience exchange – the 24 February session

Talk to us if you look for advice, coaching, and support in your work with online groups and communities

Jessica Ball brought the questions. She works as part of the KM Team in the UN-REDD programme. Last year, Jessica started an online community, coinciding with a two-day event in Rome, where representatives from all regions came together – but not all members of the virtual community could join. Jessica admitted that they were a bit late in starting the group and didn’t have much time to engage people before the event. They tried to connect with online group members through summaries after day one and through a final summary of day two. Despite these efforts, she asked how they could more effectively engage the community around different online and in-person events.

What could be done differently, to support upcoming and future events?

Pier Andrea Pirani was the peer assistant. He offered an example from a project he was involved with as part of a larger team supporting a three-day, face-to-face, experience capitalization workshop. The workshop was preceded by a two-week online engagement beforehand, covering a lot of ground and mapping people, expertise, potential connections, and what was needed. By doing so, both participants and the facilitation team went into the workshop with a head start, and by the end of the workshop, it was possible to produce a significant list of products, some in draft, and some still in a conceptual phase.

5 key elements to support events

Engaging a group around events requires careful planning, clear aims, and engagement before, during, and after the event.

1. Set a clear purpose: Define what you want to achieve through the online interaction, and make sure it adds to the event and brings value.
   

2. Plan carefully: Keep in mind the needs and expectations of the group. Consider the format, duration, and resources needed – and be realistic with the time and resources available.
   

3. Engage before the event: Engage with the participants ahead of the event to build connections, gather insights, and prepare for the event. Use this time to map people, expertise, and what is needed. This can help finalize an event agenda and preparations. It can be useful for both logistics as well as on the substance of a meeting.
   

4. Engage during the event: Use the group as a space to reach out to people that cannot attend the event, and to share knowledge, documents, and additional information generated or discussed at the event. It’s important to have the right expectations and motivators so useful engagement can take place. Often, some form of curation and facilitation is necessary.
   

5. Engage after the event: Follow up with the community after the event to share outcomes, gather feedback, and plan for future events. Keep the connections warm and use the face-to-face meeting as a springboard to foster online participation post-event.

Particularly where several events are planned, such online support helps to link people, support continuing discussion threads and conversations, and guide attention to agreed follow-ups, plans, or previous documentation.

Events can be a powerful tool to engage and support online groups – and online platforms can really help in supporting and complementing events. By setting clear goals, planning carefully, and engaging before, during, and after the event, communities can be brought together to share knowledge, collaborate, and work towards a common goal.

This is the second of a series of short posts from the discussion. The other two posts cover:

• Online collaboration use cases in depth – the talk show
• Online collaboration experience exchange – the 24 February session

Talk to us if you look for advice on online support and interaction around events

The experience-sharing session on 24 February 2023 drew from our diverse partner network and their sector involvement to discuss and share practical strategies of different online communities. To do this, we used a typology of uses – or use cases – that we observe our partners to work with. We thought these would provide a useful framework to interact and learn while recognizing that most such communities have several objectives.

After an icebreaker session, Peter Ballantyne very briefly introduced the Dgroups Foundation and its journey since 2002. He summarized the typology comprising seven typical uses cases that we observe among partners:

1. around events – helping to prepare, plan, report, and follow up face-to-face, virtual or hybrid meet-ups;
   
2. across initiatives or projects – supporting collaboration and information exchange among participants in a defined project;
   
3. on an issue – sharing ideas and connecting people with shared interests in a topic;
   
4. for a knowledge product – reinforcing co-development of proposals, articles, or other joint outputs among a group of individuals;
   
5. for learning and capacity development – sharing information and lessons to complement training, mentoring, or other educational efforts;
   
6. for purposeful engagement and dialogue – holding guided conversation and interaction to improve practice on an issue or challenge;
   
7. for advocacy towards a goal – helping people share and align ideas and actions around a shared vision.

While recognizing that online groups typically support multiple purposes, we thought it would be useful to explore the similarities and differences around different uses and how these shape the support and facilitation an online group needs.

The rest of the event dived deeper into different cases to identify insights for success.

The first element was a ‘peer assist’ where Jessica Ball sought lessons and feedback on how an online group could support event preparation, delivery, and follow-up.

Pier Andrea Pirani was her ‘peer assistant’ and he illustrated some ideas from an earlier engagement where a three-day face-to-face workshop used online groups before, during, and after the event. In that case, participants in the face-to-face meeting were invited to join a facilitated pre-event group where they introduced themselves, mapped interests and expertise, and pointed to additional resources. Material from this was used in the physical meeting. The group was also used during and after the workshop to start synthesizing insights and to support the follow up actions.

Next, Saskia Harmsen hosted a talk show where other use cases were the primary focus:

1. Gladys Morales from the IFAD innovation network talked about her online group as an example of an issue-driven community of interest.
   
2. Vivan Atakos from the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform talked about her group as an example of a project or initiative-supporting mechanism.
   
3. Sarah Cummings from the KM4Dev community explained how several online groups are used internally to manage this community of individuals.
   
4. John Ede from the C4C coalition explained how this group of organizations use their online groups to support advocacy initiatives towards specific goals.
   
5. Giacomo Rambaldi shared how the Digital Agri Hub ran an online, facilitated dialogue to mobilise ideas across its online community.

Discussions revolved around technical issues and platform-related features, as well as facilitation and user-side concerns. Ideas and suggestions were floated to better support users and moderators in utilizing such platforms to their full potential.

Overall, the dialogue underscored the relevance of the Dgroups Foundation’s mission to support and enhance Partners’ online groups and communities through learning, peer-sharing, and experimentation to optimize platform functionality and facilitation processes.

This is the first of a series of short posts from the discussion. The other two posts cover:

• Online interaction around events and meetings – the peer assist
• Online collaboration use cases in depth – the talk show

Talk to us if you look for advice, coaching, and support in your work with online groups and communities