Grassroots Digital Volunteerism During Crises: Mutual Aid Networks, Platform Logics, And Social Policy Implications

Journal of Social Policy Studies. 2026. Vol. 24. No. 1. P. 143–158.

Aleksandra Briukhno, Telitsyna A.

This article examines grassroots digital volunteerism as a form of civic self-organization in the context of s large-scale socio-economic disruption, using the 2022 refugee crisis in Russia as an empirical case study. It focuses on the mutual aid networks that emerged on the VKontakte social network and the Telegram messenger, analyzing their organizational characteristics, modes of participation, and functional roles in supporting vulnerable groups. Methodologically, the research is based on an interpretative quantitative analysis of digital trace data, drawing on open-source metrics such as audience dynamics, engagement indicators, publication intensity, and patterns of information circulation. The analysis reveals a functional differentiation between platforms: VKontakte primarily operates as an informational space that facilitates the articulation of needs, whereas Telegram serves as an operational infrastructure that enables coordination, task distribution and sustained volunteer interaction. The findings challenge growth-oriented approaches to assessing civic activity by demonstrating that the effectiveness of digital volunteer initiatives depends more on the stability of active participant cores and the density of communication networks than on audience expansion. The study also identifies hybrid and predominantly informal forms of inter action between volunteer networks and public authorities, highlighting how digital self-organization can complement institutional systems of social support during crises. Overall, this article makes a valuable contribution to research on digital civic engagement and social policy, showing how platform-specific logics can shape mutual aid practices and redefine the boundaries between informal participation and institutional responses during crises.

Keywords: социальная политика, социальные медиа, social media platforms, grassroots digital volunteerism, mutual aid networks, digital self-organization, crisis and social policy, цифровое волонтерство, сетевая самоорганизация, цифровая самоорганизация

Publication based on the results of: Self-organization of citizens and the public administration system: a theory of mutual influence, the experience of Russia and other non-western countries and ways of improving the effectiveness of productive interaction (2025)