Social Change
Social change action with informed and engaged societies
Social Change
After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Communication for Social Change (CFSC) Consortium - Global

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The Communication for Social Change (CFSC) Consortium is an international nonprofit organisation working to build the local capacity of people living in poor and marginalised communities to use communication to improve their lives. The CFSC Consortium was chartered in June of 2003 in the United States to work globally as a registered public charity. Its vision includes fostering the incorporation, by 2015, of CFSC principles into the work of a network of practitioners, as well as most major development initiatives. A broad goal is ensuring that principles of justice, equity, tolerance, and ownership by affected communities become central to the practice of communication for development.
Communication Strategies

The CFSC Consortium works to catalyse shifts in practice, values, and attitudes about the centrality of CFSC in community-driven development. Operating as a network of practitioners and scholars, the Consortium is committed to the idea that communication processes - such as those enabled by mass media and rapidly emerging technology - must empower people from the bottom up.

To that end, the network collaborates with funding agencies and donor institutions, individual practitioners, communities, teachers, and leaders of institutions working with poor and marginalised people. Based on findings from participatory research, the CFSC Consortium works with these stakeholders to redefine how communication is practiced and taught. It advocates that public and private dialogue take place, followed by a process of community-based problem solving and collective action. This is followed by strategy design, implementation, community monitoring, and assessment based on collective input from the affected people.

In carrying out this process, the Consortium pursues a multi-pronged strategy that includes providing and exchanging information, stimulating dialogue, building capacity, and advocating for change. Specifically, the organisation works to:

  • Find and present evidence that demonstrates how participatory processes and community-based communication approaches can work best. Example: The Consortium will develop and distribute case studies and other resources, using the Consortium website as one means to share them.
  • Build local capacity and abilities, especially among poor communities, to manage their own communication, to apply CFSC methods, and to replicate such applications. Example: The Consortium will work in various communities to empower people to access and control mainstream media as well as to help make community and alternative media more effective. To support this effort, the CFSC Consortium works to impact public policy that creates obstacles to such access and ownership.
  • Stimulate innovation and dialogue among those working in the field of communication. Examples: The Consortium - working closely with the Communication Initiative - will become a repository and source of information for practitioners dedicated to CFSC methods, helping them update their skills and experience base. In addition, consultants and academics working with the Consortium offer a 3-week practitioners' training course.
  • Increase the capacity of universities and training centres to offer specialised CFSC programmes. Examples: Academic leaders within the CFSC network have developed a master's course outline that the Consortium is testing in several universities in industrialised and developing countries. In addition, CFSC Fellows from universities in the South are provided with small research stipends.
Development Issues

Communication for Social Change

Key Points

The CFSC Consortium started as a special project of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1997.

Partners

Support is provided to the CFSC Consortium from a number of organisations, especially the Rockefeller Foundation, The Communication Initiative, Panos London, UN agencies and divisions within the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and universities in the North and South.

Sources

CFSC Consortium website.