As part of this year's Community Council consultation on defining GV's strategy, we conducted a poll comprising three questions arising out of the Issue Paper we published in September.

Building on the outcome of the 2021 Council poll, in which a large plurality of Council members selected the model “building understanding across communities,” as their preference, the poll addressed three key aspects of the concept of “understanding”: Challenges to understanding; What motivates understanding; and Defining and measuring understanding.

79 people responded to the poll—here are the results.

Question 1: Challenges to understanding

The first poll question asked Council members to complete the statement

“When we find ourselves operating in difficult political and rights situations, we should aim to build understanding by—”

by selecting one of the following:

• Working only in countries where people can participate in GV’s work safely
• Creating ways for people in high-risk environments to participate in GV’s work
• Creating projects that seek to change the information environment in high-risk countries
• Working with international and governmental institutions to reach people in high-risk environments

Question 2: What motivates understanding

The second poll question asked Council members to complete the statement

“To promote understanding and increase our impact, GV should—”

by selecting one of the following:

• Continue with the personal connection model and diversify GV’s community by encouraging active participation from underrepresented groups
• Shift to a more professional storytelling approach, covering popular topics and building partnerships with large media
• Focus on smaller, more specialized audiences by targeting specific issues and communities

Question 3: Defining and measuring “understanding”

The third poll question asked Council members to complete the statement

“To create a Global Voices branding of “understanding” we should—“

by selecting one of the following:

• Continue to use the concept of understanding as a broad goal
• Identify the “understanding” element of our project, and build explicit goals and outcomes based on that
• Promote a Global Voices approach to understanding as a brand to represent our work