In economic inclusion programs, coaching is essential—it works because of the underlying human connection. A good coach builds trust, understands context, and helps people turn knowledge into action. But as programs grow, this strength becomes a challenge. Coaching is hard to standardize, expensive to sustain, and difficult to scale without losing quality; there’s a limit to how many quality coaches you can recruit from any given geography at a given time. 

Over the past few years, many organizations have tried to address this through digital tools. If we can digitize coaching content, we can reach more people at a lower cost. This has already worked in education, healthcare, and other fields, where we have seen learning apps, videos, and audio-based tools reach thousands, even millions. 

While digital tools have been successful in scaling content delivery, they have not always translated into better decision-making at the field level—and only a few pioneers have started doing this in economic inclusion programs.  

Where Traditional Digital Approaches Fall Short 

Some organizations have started connecting economic inclusion program participants with digital “coaches” via chatbots, but most of these digital coaching tools still operate as content delivery platforms. While these chatbots are good at pushing information, they’re not as good at supporting a participant’s decisions. At the same time, many of these systems collect large amounts of data, but this data often goes underutilized. While it is collected for reporting, it is rarely translated into simple, actionable insights that coaches can use in their day-to-day work. 

We have also seen another set of challenges that are less talked about: Organizations often get locked into vendor-led systems. Updating content becomes slow, and adapting the platform to a new country or context becomes costly. On top of that, introducing something new, such as AI-driven insights, becomes even harder, because the system was never designed for it. 

Rethinking the Role of Technology in Coaching 

This is where Trickle Up’s thinking around coaching started to shift. We’ve found that digital tools can be used to help coaches first, before actually reaching program participants.  

Instead of asking how we digitize coaching, we’re now asking a completely different question: How do we build a system that actually supports coaches in their day-to-day decisions? With support from the Cisco Foundation, we are now refining Coach Up—our digital coaching ecosystem that includes a mobile app and web platform—to address that very question. 

Coach Up’s goal is not to replace the coaches, but to support them. While doing this, we also make their work more consistent, more informed, and easier to manage.  

For example, a coach might be working with dozens of participants, some further along on their pathway out of poverty than others. Today, that coach often relies on memory, notes, or periodic reports to track who needs their support. But with a well-designed digital system, that same coach can see simple signals: who has not been engaged with recently, who is progressing well, and who might be struggling. Technology does not take the decision, but it can make the decision easier for the coach. 

From Content Ownership to System Flexibility 

In many traditional apps and platforms, updating a module requires going back to a vendor, making changes, and redeploying the app. But in Coach Up, we are moving toward a model where content can be managed through an integrated content management system (CMS). This means that teams can adapt content for a new country, translate it, or refine it based on feedback without rebuilding the system. It shifts ownership back to the organization. 

This flexibility also opens the door to future improvements. When the backbone is designed well, it becomes possible to integrate new capabilities, including AI. AI can help surface simple insights for coaches, such as which participants may need attention, what is a participant’s learning pattern, prioritize follow-ups, or provide timely prompts that support coaches in making better, faster decisions. 

Designing with the Field, Not Just for the Field 

Getting to that point, however, is not just about building features, but about making deliberate technology choices. 

We have had to think carefully about things like offline functionality, because many of our users operate in low connectivity environments. We have had to balance simplicity with flexibility, so the app remains usable for someone with limited digital literacy while still being powerful enough to support program needs. And most importantly, we have had to continuously listen to the field. 

The people who use these tools are not sitting behind desks. They are in villages, markets, and communities. If the app adds even more complexity to their work, it will not be used, no matter how advanced it is.  

Some of the most valuable insights we have received have come from small observations: A coach struggling to navigate too many screens, a participant losing interest because the content feels too long. These are not technical problems, but they do shape how the system evolves. 

The Bigger Picture 

We’ve learned that digital coaching is not just about an app; it’s about building the technological backbone that connects content, data, and human interaction in a meaningful way. Ultimately, the future of digital coaching lies not in replacing human connection, but in strengthening it by equipping coaches with the right tools, insights, and flexibility to turn content into better, more timely decisions on the ground. 

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