Advancing the Third Sector through Innovation and Variation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Advancing the Third Sector through Innovation and Variation

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Social dialogue

Project Summary

Nowadays NGOs workers as well as people with which they cooperate, either employees, members or volunteers, encounter a wide range of difficulties related to the lack of basic knowledge in recent and highly relevant digital spheres. ATSIV – a project with the main purpose to increase the professional competences of NGOs workers, has resulted in the development of a Training Game that provides an open access online platform of training.
The ATSIV Game is an innovative and rather interesting tool to enhance NGOs workers skills. It ensures professional development needed for the nonprofit sector by play and personal study. The content of Game reveals explicit issues of the NGOs workers professional activity, which is comprehensively outlined in the three topics such as: Digital Marketing, Crowd-funding and Networking. The ATSIV Game was made in a manner that keeps the attention of the player, so it is not difficult to concentrate on materials that Game is aimed to convey.
ATSIV provides also a virtual learning environment which includes a course on Digital Marketing. It allows the participants to learn and acquire skills in Communication, Social Media and Online Advertising, all tailored to the needs of NGO workers. The course provides a robust set of learner-centric functionalities in a user-friendly way with an uncomplicated interface and easy functionality. As an virtual learning environment, ATSIV is accessible anytime, anywhere. It is also compatible with any browser and any access device, ensuring that all its page elements and functionalities are complete and arranged as the original page design.
In general, during the project, the following main activities have been undertaken:
IO1 – Training needs analysis of adult NGO workers’ skills (skills matrix) and benchmarking of best practices in adult learning/teaching were collected and recorded.
IO2 – Co-creation of a game based curriculum for adult NGO workers
IO3 – Development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) to enable continuous quadruple helix co-creation of the game based curriculum and best practices (also ensuring multi-stakeholder validation of the resources)
5 Multiplier events
3 short term joint staff training/mobility events (TCGP) for game-based curriculum co-creation tool place
Focus groups in 4 countries were conducted with different stakeholders, foundations and public officials but also journalists and representatives of private companies (via their CSR departments), providing their comments and feedback on the ATSIV game and VLE.
4 Transnational project meetings (Greece, Romania, Thessaloniki, Greece) took place during the project’s lifetime.

Overall, the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) created has drawn significant attention to the respective communities with more than 935 single users. Within the VLE a great variety of additional resources have been included both educating and informing visitors on issues related to the NPO ecosystem, managing an NPO, etc as well as the more specific issues covered by the project: digital marketing, crowd-funding and networking. the online game, has already impacted the community of Non-profits across the four participating countries, with more results already tangible in Greece and Poland in which there are partners that act as hubs for NPOs. More than 1,562 people, representatives of NPOs, have utilized the game further disseminating the results of the project.

In addition, the project has contributed to build up the collaboration between the partners and other stakeholders (policy makers, various (private) associations and universities) by bringing them together to the focus groups. Additionally, stakeholders participating in the focus groups were engaged in the project through significantly contributing to the creation of the training needs analysis, on which the curriculum and the gaming platform were based upon. During all three Transnational Co-Creation & Game Pilot (TCGP) organized in Greece, Bulgaria and Poland, participants representing a wide variety of roles within the wider NGO ecosystem consisted of Program Managers, Research Associates, Project Officers, Assistants Managers, Head of IT Departments, Senior lecturers and Legal Experts, through questionnaires and focus groups, evaluated the impact of the pilot game in general and more specifically the user experience of the game and the educational material included in the pilot game.

In terms of impact within partners there was an overall enhancement of knowledge and cooperation initiatives between them. Since the initiation of the project there has been more collaboration, mainly in terms of common proposals in EU projects, among various partners. Furthermore, cooperation initiatives in terms of academic research has been recorded with two academic articles being co-authored by different partners (SNSPA and UoP, UoP with SNSPA and Umbrella) while some additional ones being currently under discussion.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 241989 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF PELOPONNESE & Country: EL

Project Partners

• FUNDACJA WSPIERANIA ORGANIZACJI POZARZADOWYCH “UMBRELLA”
• KENTRO EREVNON NOTIOANATOLIKIS EVROPIS ASTIKI MI KERDOSKOPIKI ETAIREIA
• PRAVO I INTERNET FOUNDATION
• HIGHER INCUBATOR GIVING GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY
• SCOALA NATIONALA DE STUDII POLITICE SI ADMINISTRATIVE