Nonprofit Organization
Norwegian Refugee Council
Leveraging WhatsApp Business Platform to grow audience reach and support with utility messages
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is an independent humanitarian organization helping people who have been forced to flee. It responds to both new and protracted crises across 40 countries, offering essential services to save lives and rebuild futures. To meet the growing need for help, the organization understood it must find a communications solution able to keep up with demand and overcome the unique obstacles NRC faced in reaching its audience.
Challenge
More than 120 million people have fled from war, conflict and disasters, and the gap between humanitarian needs and available resources continues to widen. As a result, NRC wanted to scale its humanitarian aid operations quickly across countries. Reaching more people faster and more effectively would be especially challenging given refugees are often on the move in hard-to-reach places with limited connectivity options.
Solution
NRC’s Digital Community Hubs (DCH) provide a range of technologies to enable direct two-way communication with displaced people and facilitate the delivery of aid and personalized support including helplines, online cash transfers and message-based training via mobile phones. As part of the DCH solution, NRC leveraged the WhatsApp Business Platform to better engage with communities in real time, collecting feedback in multiple languages and formats, responding to queries efficiently and broadening reach. With the information NRC receives, it is able to share tailored content through lessons, forms, videos, articles, Q&A, images and quick reply buttons.
When war broke out in Ukraine, millions were displaced and in need of help. NRC used WhatsApp to connect with impacted people requiring cash assistance, via a Facebook post sharing the details generating a staggering number of responses. They used key WhatsApp features such as automated utility templates and easy call-to-action buttons to improve the speed and ease with which people could register for assistance. This helped reduce the intake time for refugee information, expand NRC’s level of outreach and reduced the cost of the program.
Results*
Using WhatsApp, NRC ran two rounds of automated participant registrations for financial help. The effort yielded significant results: NRC was able to deliver more than $20 million in cash assistance in partnership with financial service providers to people fleeing the war in Ukraine. Since launching on WhatsApp, the organization has reached more than a million people and continues to grow that number.
The integration of WhatsApp into DCH Community Feedback Mechanisms has significantly enhanced NRC’s ability to engage with affected communities. In countries including Lebanon, Sudan, Uganda and Colombia, WhatsApp has proven to be a trusted, inclusive and accessible channel.
WhatsApp has been especially valuable in Lebanon by connecting NRC to displaced populations with limited access to formal communication channels. In Sudan and Uganda, despite connectivity challenges, the tool has enabled continued engagement even during periods of restricted movement.
Overall, WhatsApp has contributed to greater transparency, accountability and responsiveness in NRC’s programming, fostering greater trust and improved relationships between humanitarian actors and communities.
$20M
Cash assistance delivered in partnership with financial service providers
>2x
Increase in the number of households registered for cash assistance
465K
Number of households registered in one month
130M
Number of messages sent and received in one month
“WhatsApp helped us connect with people when they needed us most. Instead of having to wait, they could get information, ask questions, and register for help in minutes, especially when they were on the move. Additionally, the technical support provided by the team at WhatsApp has been very valuable.”
Anand Nair, Global Project Manager – Digital Community Hubs
Learnings
1. Prioritize communication speed: WhatsApp allowed the NRC to quickly engage with displaced people during the Ukraine crisis, drastically reducing intake time and accelerating access to cash assistance when it was most needed.
2. Automate to save on costs: By automating registration via WhatsApp utility templates, NRC avoided the time and expense of hiring potentially thousands of temporary staff, allowing the organization to support more people in need of assistance.
3. Maintain a personal touch at scale: Through DCH, built in part on WhatsApp, NRC has delivered tailored content such as trainings, videos and Q&As while still managing two-way conversations with more than a million people in multiple countries.
4. Adopt platforms suited to real-world conditions: NRC chose WhatsApp because of its existing adoption in the countries they work in and that it works in low-connectivity environments, enabling ongoing communication in places like Sudan, where traditional channels were unavailable due to conflict or infrastructure gaps.
5. Use digital tools to enhance trust: WhatsApp helped NRC build trusted, multilingual, multi-format communication across regions, enhancing inclusivity and accessibility
