How Gram Vikas made content production a system and a practice

By 2018, Gram Vikas was managing complex programmes across thousands of villages in Odisha and Jharkhand, India, spanning water and sanitation, livelihoods, and village institutions among others. Yet there was no dedicated communications function, no content system, and no consistent digital presence. 

Programme documentation met compliance needs, but there was no structured way to decide which developments should be surfaced, organise them for strategic use, or share them consistently with external audiences. Without that, advances remained locked in internal reports, disconnected from the broader organisational narrative.

In June 2018, Gram Vikas engaged Priya Pillai from Wordmatter to help build capacity from ground up.  As the organisation scaled, it became clear that developing a disciplined content system would be key to maintaining visibility across all thematic areas, supporting donor relationships, and easing operational strain on programme teams.

Over the five-year period, this discipline contributed to 58% of all donor partnerships established. The website saw a 128% growth in visitors, LinkedIn followers grew by 557%, and Facebook reach doubled. 

Why building a content system was critical

For decades, Gram Vikas kept careful programme records. Documentation was integral to how the organisation met donor requirements, ensured compliance, and tracked operational details across thousands of villages.

But like many rural development organisations, Gram Vikas had no formal communications function. There was no deliberate process for selecting which initiatives and outcomes should be brought forward, shaping them into content tied to strategic priorities, or sharing them in a way that steadily built external understanding and trust.

This absence carried significant risks. Without a communications lens, important advances often remained embedded within internal reports, disconnected from broader organisational narratives that could demonstrate scale or continuity.

Content development was often driven by immediate programme needs, with limited alignment to a broader schedule or long-term narrative plan. This meant there was little opportunity to build a sustained, evidence-backed view of long-term engagement.

It also left field teams exposed to last-minute demands. Requests for stories, photographs or local data typically arrived close to reporting deadlines, adding strain to staff whose primary focus was on delivery.

Over time, without a structured way to represent the depth and consistency of its work, Gram Vikas faced the risk of appearing fragmented or episodic to institutional funders and collaborators assessing long-term partnerships.

The decision to build a structured content system, situated within a broader communications approach, was a way to address these vulnerabilities. By 2023, this investment had already contributed to influencing approximately ₹7 crore in institutional funding, underscoring how disciplined, strategically managed content could reinforce trust, partnerships and the resilience needed for future growth.

Without a communications lens, important advances often remained embedded within internal reports, disconnected from broader organisational narratives that could demonstrate scale or continuity.

Forming the team, systems and platforms

The first visible step in building the communications function was launching a new website — a seven-month process that consolidated more than 40 years of organisational data, programme histories, and field narratives into a single, accessible repository. Once the website went live, LinkedIn was added as a deliberate new channel, chosen specifically to engage institutional donors and skilled professionals. 

Alongside these visible changes, Gram Vikas began building the internal capacity to sustain them. A dedicated three-member communications team was formed from the ground up — identifying and recruiting staff, defining roles, and embedding operational routines that could maintain quality over time.

The system was built by first assessing available capacities within the communications team, then looking at the larger organisation to see what could realistically be drawn in and stretched. Choices on formats and priorities were made accordingly. Until 2020, video content took precedence, supported by an in-house photographer and videographer. When a new team member joined in 2020 and quickly developed strong story-finding and writing skills, the focus shifted towards producing more written narratives, allowing the team to expand the volume and variety of stories shared.

By 2023, the team had produced and documented over 2,300 unique posts and stories, establishing a substantial content base that supported Gram Vikas’ communications efforts.

A less visible but equally critical part of this system was mentoring the team to develop a steady, evidence-backed writing practice. Wordmatter trained the team to treat writing as a daily operational habit, not just an output tied to deadlines. This was reinforced by continuous on-the-job capacity building on qualitative data collection, equipping them to gather individual experiences, programme outcomes, and community perspectives with greater rigour.

Structured content databases were created to catalogue every story, social post, and media mention by type, date, and theme. These evolved from static archives into working tools for planning and analysis, reducing duplication, smoothing workflows, and giving leadership a transparent view of how Gram Vikas was represented externally.

The system was built by first assessing available capacities within the communications team, then looking at the larger organisation to see what could realistically be drawn in and stretched. Choices on formats and priorities were made accordingly.

Moving from reactive outputs to a forward-looking practice

As the system took shape, sustained mentoring from Wordmatter helped the communications team shift from responding to immediate content needs to working with a planned, anticipatory approach. 

Annual content calendars were developed from the organisation’s annual plan, and the team held one-on-one sessions with project leads to map potential quarterly stories and reporting needs in line with project progress. This approach meant that content gathering became part of regular programme rhythms, rather than an afterthought, creating a steady pipeline and reducing last-minute pressures on field staff.

Over time, the team developed sharper editorial judgement — learning how to weigh which stories best illustrated programme priorities, how to balance qualitative narratives with supporting data, and how to adapt tone and format for different audiences. 

Familiarity with structured archives also made it possible to connect individual pieces into longer narrative arcs. For example, on international days, the team could draw on past stories to showcase the legacy and strengths of Gram Vikas’ work in a thematic area, and link it to current initiatives, creating a sense of continuity and depth.

Building discipline and sharper judgement

With sustained mentoring from Wordmatter, the communications team developed a clearer sense of what merited attention, learning to assess the value of a story against supporting evidence and its relevance to organisational priorities. They became more adept at selecting stories that could stand alone yet also fit into broader thematic arcs, while keeping the writing grounded in the operational realities of programme delivery.

This editorial discipline enabled Gram Vikas to maintain a steady rhythm of three social media posts per week, supplemented by planned thematic campaigns. Between 2018 and 2023, this amounted to over 2,200 posts across Facebook and LinkedIn — each tied to programme milestones or key organisational themes, rather than ad-hoc updates. 

For donors and partners, it created consistent, well-structured windows into the organisation’s work, demonstrating continuity and focus over time. Internally, it eased the pressure of last-minute content demands, allowing both field and communications teams to work at a more predictable, sustainable pace.

Learning to repurpose and deepen stories

As planning processes matured, the communications team moved beyond treating each story as a one-off output. Through regular mentoring, they built the habit of systematically reviewing earlier content to identify stories and visuals that could be updated, reframed, or re-released to strengthen priority themes.

This deliberate repurposing served multiple purposes: it kept core messages visible over longer periods, created stronger links between past and present work, and reduced the pressure on a small two-person English content team that could not be physically present across geographically dispersed villages to collect data and write narratives. By 2022–23, approximately 42% of posts on Facebook and LinkedIn were drawn from earlier stories, photographs, or case studies — a significant increase from just 2% two years earlier.

The result was a more layered, evolving picture of Gram Vikas’ programmes, returning to communities and issues over multiple cycles and building continuity into the organisation’s external narrative. Internally, it embedded repurposing as a routine part of editorial planning rather than an occasional stopgap, ensuring the organisation’s narrative stayed rich and coherent despite geographic and capacity constraints.

Decentralising content production 

A cornerstone of the content system was engaging programme staff working closest to the field in content production, so storytelling was not dependent solely on the communications team. The first step came in 2018, with workshops introducing 150 staff members to mobile photography and videography basics. By 2021, this evolved into a structured Staff Training Programme on Communications, equipping 128 field staff and coordinators to identify stories, apply the 5W1H framework, and follow clear ethical guidelines in gathering and sharing information.

The importance of this decentralisation became most visible during the COVID-19 years. In 2020–21, when travel restrictions prevented the two-person English content team from visiting most villages, Gram Vikas still produced 631 English and Odia social media posts — the highest annual output in the five-year period. More than half of these (326) came directly from the programme team, underscoring how essential it was to have multiple content contributors embedded across programmes. This allowed the organisation to capture and share stories as they unfolded, despite severe mobility constraints.

A deliberate part of the approach was building allies and finding ambassadors for the communications function from across the programme team, at different levels. This expanded the pool of people who co-owned communications, making it a shared responsibility rather than the task of a small central team. It enabled greater agility in spotting opportunities, ensured richer local context in stories, and supported timely content production from the field.

For an organisation operating without dedicated donor budgets for communications, this decentralisation was not just efficient — it was essential. It reduced reliance on the central team, ensured that content could be developed from a wider range of locations, and maintained a steady flow of material for strategic storytelling without disproportionately expanding communications capacity. In resource-constrained environments, where such routines can easily falter, this approach offers a practical way to keep the pipeline active and responsive.

A deliberate part of the approach was building allies and finding ambassadors for the communications function from across the programme team, at different levels. It enabled greater agility in spotting opportunities, ensured richer local context in stories, and supported timely content production from the field.

Scale and discipline in numbers

The consistency, discipline and scale of this work over five years is best seen through a few clear numbers.

• 2,325 unique pieces of content produced across website and social media (2018–2023)
• Maintained a steady rhythm of three social media posts per week, supported by planned campaigns.
• Content from across 15 districts, systematically catalogued by type, location, and theme.
• Over 50% of all content came from outside the core communications team, with field staff alone contributing 45% of social posts.
• 150 staff were introduced to content skills in early workshops; 128 field coordinators formally trained under the communications programme.
• By 2022–23, 42% of Facebook and LinkedIn posts were repurposed, up from 2% two years earlier, embedding reuse as routine practice.
• Built a library of over 25,000 photographs and produced 206 videos.
• Supported local outreach with 43 editions of the Odia newsletter, distributing 27,400 copies to 756 villages.

A foundation for continued growth

Today, content production at Gram Vikas is no longer peripheral — it is a core organisational practice. It provides a structured way to amplify progress, stay connected with communities, and build trust with donors and partners. This system rests on three pillars: regular field engagement, a disciplined writing routine, and close collaboration between communications and programme teams.

Sustaining such a system, however, is never automatic. In a large, multi-location organisation with limited donor funding for communications, the habits that keep content disciplined and rooted in programme realities can easily erode under operational pressures. Protecting this capacity means recognising that how an organisation documents and represents its work is inseparable from how it builds credibility, secures partnerships, and sustains the long horizon that complex rural development demands.

At Gram Vikas, this is anchored in ongoing leadership commitment. Even as new challenges arise — from staff transitions to shifting donor expectations and the sheer demands of reaching remote communities — there is a shared understanding that investment in people, in their judgement about what stories to tell and how, and in the systems that enable them, is essential. 

As Liby Johnson, Executive Director of Gram Vikas, puts it, “Organisations need to see themselves as going concerns, not just as project-implementing agencies. That requires leaders who can look beyond their own time frame and imagine the organisation as an ongoing system…I never did communications for the sake of communications alone. For Gram Vikas, profile-building was about opening doors to more donors and partners — but that is not something you can achieve in a short window.”

Gram Vikas’ experience shows that building a communications function is about embedding discipline, shared ownership, and strategic intent into how an organisation tells its story. Even in resource-constrained environments, clear systems, decentralised contributions, and leadership commitment can turn communications from an afterthought into a driver of partnerships, credibility, and long-term resilience.

Wordmatter continues as a long-term partner for Gram Vikas, through The Method programme, helping strengthen the people, practices, and structures that keep this work alive.