Investing in the long game: Liby Johnson on building Gram Vikas’ communications muscle

In 2018, Gram Vikas, a 46-year-old organisation working in rural Odisha and Jharkhand, made a decisive move to set up a dedicated communications function. Priya Pillai, Founder of Wordmatter, got on board as an external anchor to establish and grow the function. It was a turning point that marked a shift from ad hoc storytelling to a systematic approach—one that has since shaped how the organisation presents itself to the world. Wordmatter’s flagship capacity-building programme, The Method, grew out of this experience of embedding communications within a grassroots, community-development organisation.

Liby, some context setting would be useful—where was Gram Vikas in 2018? What was on your mind that led you to make communications a priority? We have changed quite a bit in the seven years since, so could you talk a bit about what shaped your thinking at the time.

The years from 2016 onwards were a period of significant internal churn and review. We were asking fundamental questions—what Gram Vikas is, what it should be, and what we should be doing. That process went on for almost five years. It began with uncertainty around the Water and Sanitation Programme, which had been our core work. In the context in which we operate, where programmes like the Swachh Bharat Mission and other large government efforts had come in, it felt less relevant.

During this period, we also had leadership transitions and changes at the senior staff level. The first big challenge we identified was the need to define our strategic purpose: who we are, what we do, why we exist, and how our work flows from that. The second was about our identity. Over many years, Gram Vikas had become strongly associated with water and sanitation, and other aspects of our work did not get the visibility or recognition they deserved.

Both of these were linked to a third challenge: resource mobilisation. If we were to change track in our programmes, how would we raise the resources needed to do it? It was in this context that we recognised the importance of communications.

Gram Vikas has a strong legacy and a long history of being recognised for its work. At what point did you feel that wasn’t enough, and that we needed to build a more systematic way of telling our story?

In the past, when we needed to communicate or network, we relied on individuals with great charisma. Going forward, that would not be enough—we needed systems in place. The leadership churn between 2014 and 2017 proved that you cannot depend on one person to be the sole face or voice of the organisation.

At the same time, our reality was that most of our people work at a remote, hyperlocal level. We are grant-dependent, and the majority of the organisation operates on local-level remuneration. We could not bring in high-profile ambassadors to speak for us.

So we had to ask what exactly we should communicate to make sure the relevance of Gram Vikas’ work is understood externally. The answer was to tell our stories better. We had no shortage of powerful stories. They needed to be told well, and shared through the right channels. We needed a better grip on social media and other emerging forms of communication. That is what led us to put a dedicated communications function in place.

“We had to move from depending on individual charisma to building systems that could carry the organisation’s voice over time.”

You have often talked about what you call a “constraints-first” approach—starting with the limitations, then figuring out how to work within them, rather than beginning with what ideally should be done. I feel it’s been a hallmark of how we have operated together and how we have built communications in Gram Vikas. Even when I have been frustrated by those limitations, you have brought me back to that frame. Can you explain that a bit?

A lot of Gram Vikas’ institutional processes and internal systems have, over the years, tried to balance audacity with constraints. It is like saying, “I want to climb Everest,” while also recognising, “I can’t take two steps forward right now.” That interplay between limitless ambition and very real limitations has been one of our core operating principles.

Bootstrapping—working with whatever we have—has been internalised in the organisation. Most of Gram Vikas would naturally respond with “Why not?” to a new idea, even before getting into the details. Some people might see that as a negative, but I think it’s actually part of our robustness as a system. We can stay grounded in reality while still reaching for something higher.

That is why I say the constraints-first approach is not just a concept. It is a value that comes from lived practice and organisational behaviour. The decision to invest in communications came from that same place.

I still remember what you told us when we started out—you were not going to look for outcomes in the first three years, but after that, you would want to take stock of what had come out of it. We ended up doing the assessment in 2023, after five years. You have also always said you see this as an investment, not a cost. In fact, communications is budgeted internally under Systems & Strategies, not as an overhead. What was driving your thinking on these?

We did not know exactly what it would take or what it would bring, but we were clear we had to do it. When I said I would not ask questions for three years, it was because I did not yet know what the right questions would even be. The confidence to make that call came from what I have just described—the ability to hold both our limitations and our possibilities in view at the same time.

One thing I was clear about, and what the Board accepted, was that this was an investment. Building Gram Vikas’ storytelling capabilities, raising our profile, and creating an internal system where storytelling feels natural—these are long-term assets. I still do not think of it as a cost in my head unless it is for repair, to fix something broken.

It has been a long-term view from the start. I do not think organisations like Gram Vikas can afford to spend much on communications, but in our case, we were fortunate. We had some funds of our own that were not tied to projects or restricted by donors. Without that, it would have been much harder to do what we did.

But the mindset shift was just as important: seeing communications as core organisational infrastructure, not a nice-to-have.

“This was an investment. Building Gram Vikas’ storytelling capabilities, raising our profile, and creating an internal system where storytelling feels natural—these are long-term assets.”

When you look back now, more than seven years later, how do you see that bet you made? Has it played out the way you expected, and what do you think has changed inside Gram Vikas and in how the world sees us?

I would not call it a bet or a gamble. It was a strategy, even if it was based on limited information. We were confident enough to say that as we went along, we would figure out how to do it. That is not a gamble—it is a purposeful approach, where each step is contingent on the previous one. You build it as you go.

The results speak for themselves. The assessment report, and the overall profile and response from the larger world, are evidence that it has worked and produced results. Now, has it produced what you might call a cost–benefit return? I am not sure. The assessment report touches on that, but we do not have sector benchmarks for those kinds of calculations, so I would not venture into it.

Internally, communications and media have become normalised, which is very difficult in most organisations. People often see storytelling as a burden.

For me, the number of young people from Gram Vikas now posting on LinkedIn—even using AI-supported text—is evidence that our approach has worked. That did not happen by accident. It happened because they were seeing Gram Vikas’ own LinkedIn posts get traction.

Now we have an ecosystem where people want to write and share professional updates. On Instagram, our people’s posts are more in line with their generation—popular, casual content—but LinkedIn has become a different kind of space for them. So both in terms of external visibility and internal culture, the investment seems to have paid off.

“Each step in building communications was contingent on the last, creating a system that evolved with us. Both in terms of external visibility and internal culture, the investment seems to have paid off.”

The five-year assessment captures a lot of the benefits, like influencing 12.3% of institutional donor funding during the time, or LinkedIn growing by over 500%. But I don’t always have a firsthand sense of the external response. Beyond the funding, what have you seen in terms of how the larger world has responded to our communications efforts?

The first thing is consistency of presence. We have been there—visible over time—so if someone comes across Gram Vikas in the media and looks back, they find a consistent body of work. It is not a flash in the pan, and that has been one of our deliberate strategies.

The second is diversity. Our communications have helped paint a multi-dimensional picture of what Gram Vikas does, without losing focus on our core work. The full range of our work comes through.

The third is style. We adopted a community-first approach to storytelling, and I think that has had a real effect.

Those three things—consistency, diversity, and community-first storytelling—have kept Gram Vikas in the mind space of donors, interns, and others who encounter us.

You were one of the first people who told me to set up Wordmatter as a social enterprise and offer other nonprofits what we did for Gram Vikas. I remember my first reaction—shaking my head and saying it was too much work, too intense an engagement. But you kept encouraging me, saying it need not always be as intense, but it could still be valuable for the larger non-profit space. Can you explain where you were coming from when you said that, and how you were looking at it from a sector-wide perspective?

If we talk about the first principles, there is a lot the sector can take from our experience. Things like consistency—being present over time, not just in bursts. Truthful projection—telling your story in a way that is accurate, not just vanity. And making it community-first in a strategic way.

Those are not dependent on budget size; they are about mindset and approach. For us, that is what made the difference. If organisations were to take these principles into action, it would give them a lot of benefit, even at low levels of financial investments.

The key is to see it as an investment for the long term, not just an immediate expense. The level of investment we made at Gram Vikas might not be the same everywhere, but the approach can be scaled to fit different realities. Even something like a website—which for us was a significant investment—can be done at a level that matches an organisation’s size and resources, as long as it’s part of a clear, long-term strategy.

“The principles - consistency, truthful projection, community-first storytelling - that worked for us can be adapted to any organisation, regardless of size or budget.”

But this model is also one of external anchoring, rather than having a full-time internal person. What does that mean in practice?

To me, it is the same. If I could have brought you inside the organisation and paid for you to be here full-time, I would have. The fact that it was externally anchored was only because of the financial structure, not because of the work itself.

You never behaved like an external person. You worked as though you were part of Gram Vikas. So I don’t think of it as “external” in that sense.

Yes, the contract structure was external, but the commitment and dedication were the same as if you were in-house. You were not a vendor doing business with us—you worked as a part of the organisation.

Our flagship service, The Method, is what we did for Gram Vikas—a communications capacity building programme. We adapt it to what an organisation can afford, where it is in its journey, and whatever constraints it is working with. We start where they are, but we ask for leadership commitment to play the long game. One of the challenges we face is that leaders often expect immediate results, like in three or six months. Can you talk about why it is essential to take the long view, especially for grassroots nonprofits where resource constraints are a reality?

The problem is that people mistake communications for resource mobilisation. The moment they look at communications, it becomes about fundraising—and that is why there is so little patience for results.

Organisations need to see themselves as going concerns, not just as project-implementing agencies. That requires founders and leaders who can look beyond their own time frame and imagine the organisation as an ongoing system.

In our sector, there are very few like that, and those are the ones who will be willing to make this kind of commitment in the initial phase.

I never did communications for the sake of communications alone. I could not have justified it with a short-term view—it only made sense as part of a longer horizon.

“The moment they look at communications, it becomes about fundraising—and that is why there is so little patience for results. Organisations need to see themselves as going concerns.”

But the returns—our own experience shows that even though we didn’t approach communications purely as a fundraising exercise, the visibility has brought in partnerships.

Obviously. I never saw communications as something to be done for its own sake. 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.

And this is something I think is missing in the sector. Organisations being seen as going concerns are not clearly imagined. It is not a situational constraint—it is a leadership constraint.

Postscript

Over 2018–2023, Gram Vikas’ first dedicated communications function contributed to 58% of all donor partnerships established in this period, either by initiating contact or sustaining interest to work with us. This translated to ₹7.03 crore in institutional funding. The team produced 2,325 unique content pieces and over 25,000 images covering all 15 districts. More than half of this content came from staff across the organisation, while trained field teams contributed 40% through stories, photographs, and videos from the ground. The website saw a 128% growth in visitors, while LinkedIn followers grew by 557% and Facebook reach doubled. Communications-led crowdfunding raised ₹43.7 lakh, alongside media coverage in 77 outlets that brought in ₹1.75 crore in new donor partnerships — proof of the gains from a sustained, strategic approach.