Tag Archives: activist

Fans of Superheroes Are Acting Like Superheroes

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Back in the 1990s, I noticed online communities of fans for the X-Files, Xena, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, other TV shows and various entertainers and sports teams engaging in volunteering, activism and philanthropy. It was more than virtual volunteering: it was the creation of intentional communities, where fans used their passion and sense of fellowship to support a variety of good causes. I noted that many of these online groups weren’t directed by any formal organization to engage in philanthropy; the fans decided to engage in these activities on their own.

I wrote and published an online article about it in July 1999: Fan-Based Online Groups Use the Internet to Make a Difference. My article includes examples of such groups at that time, with comments from members regarding their online philanthropic activities and what makes them successful.

That DIY fandom-for-good spirit has continued online, and I’ve paid attention to one of those more recent efforts in particular: The Harry Potter Alliance. The HPA has raised money for various causes and lead campaigns to create awareness about hunger, bullying, child slavery and more. The group also has the Granger Leadership Academy, named for the Harry Potter character Hermione Granger, and the Wizard Activist School, which create programming and workshops aimed to inspire and train members in a variety of topics, including feminism, environmental issues, fighting racism, social justice, conflict resolution, leadership styles, goal-setting, and on and on.

We founded the HPA in 2005 with a simple idea: what if fans used their passion and creativity to make activism more fun and the world a more loving, equitable place? For almost sixteen years that idea has driven hundreds of thousands of fan activists to organize protests and charity drives, to write letters and make calls, to donate books and time and money to make their communities better for all.

The Harry Potter Alliance is changing its name to Fandom Forward, and it’s now for fans of Avatar, Star Wars, Percy Jackson, Doctor Who, Marvel, DC and, of course, Harry Potter – and most everything else out there in the sci-fi / fantasy / superhero world. Its purpose is to turn fans into “heroes.”

We use the power of story and popular culture to make activism accessible and sustainable. Through experiential training and real life campaigns, we develop compassionate, skillful leaders who learn to approach our world’s problems with joy, creativity, and commitment to equity.

As it became more and more clear that our community had grown even bigger than the boy who lived, we started talking to friends from all corners of fan organizing about how to move forward together. We talked to you, our community members, about what you wanted to see next. Over 1,000 of you weighed in, and the answer was overwhelmingly consistent: this place we’ve built? It doesn’t belong to just one fandom. It’s for anyone who believes in the power of stories and fans to change the world. It’s for everyone, and our name should reflect that. 

Fandom Forward even offers its own virtual volunteering management guide. My favorite advice from the guide is section 4, on cultivating leadership among volunteers. The entire section is terrific. I like this especially:

Default to trusting volunteers. This is a big one, and something that is hard for a lot of people to grasp. After doing this for 15+ years, however, we whole-heartedly believe in the idea that you can and should default to trusting your volunteers. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should give anyone access to your organization’s most sensitive information. But if you have a task that needs to be done that involves giving a volunteer an organizational log-in to a website, give it a try! We’ve found that most people can be trusted. If anything goes wrong, you simply remove the volunteer from that task or the organization. However, most times it will go right.

I’m fascinated by this and other fan-based efforts for many reasons: because I’m a fan myself of many of these stories, because I love seeing the Internet used for good, because there are frequent stories and studies claiming that there is a decline in young people wanting to volunteer – stories and studies that ignore these efforts – and because of complaints that younger generations aren’t joining traditional civic groups like Rotary, Optimist, Lion’s, etc. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: younger generations ARE volunteering, ARE getting involved in their communities – but they are doing it in different ways. Maybe the local civic group didn’t bother to create any social media channels to talk about their work, haven’t updated their web site in years, and have spent more time complaining about declining numbers than trying to do an honest assessment of why that is happening. Maybe the local fire station makes it clear that only career first responders are the superheroes and volunteers are just there to roll hoses and serve coffee, or doesn’t make it crystal clear how a person would become a volunteer first responder. Maybe these groups need to pay more attention to Harry Potter fans.

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Wizard Activist School & A Leadership Academy

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Back in the 1990s, when I directed the Virtual Volunteering Project, I researched and wrote about the phenomena of online fans of TV shows, performers and sports teams using the Internet to organize volunteering, donations and other support for various causes and nonprofits. I thought it was such a splendid example of both online volunteering and DIY volunteering. Fans of The X-Files, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek and various sports teams were engaging in largely self-driven activities to raise money for certain nonprofits and raise awareness about what those nonprofits were trying to address. Often, these fans started engaging in philanthropic activities with no direct prompting from any charity or celebrity.

More than 20 years later, this kind of fan-driven philanthropy is still happening – so much so that I long gave up trying to track it. But some initiatives still stand out, and one of those is the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA). I’ve written about them before, back in 2011, but one of their more recent efforts deserve attention: they now host an online Wizard Activist School. This online school allows enrollees to complete modules to develop skills regarding effective activism, including:

  • Elevator Pitches
  • Goal Setting
  • Mission Statement Development
  • Member Engagement
  • Hosting an Event
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Leadership Styles
  • Social Justice 101
  • and more.

This may be the most ambitious project by a fan-based philanthropic group I have ever seen. I absolutely will be taking it – I know how to do all this, I’ve led workshops in many of these subjects myself, but I want a Wizard Activist School certificate!

My only criticism: lots of “click here” links on the web site. The web site needs to be accessible, and that starts with descriptive links.

In addition, the Harry Potter Alliance also sponsors the Granger Leadership Academy, an annual onsite event now in its fifth year. The next one is in Philadelphia, March 21-24, 2019 and it is limited to just 200 people. “if you’ve ever wondered what your own heroic tale would look like, this is your moment.” The Academy brings in experienced activists and leaders to provide attendees – most, but not all, women – with training based on the kinds of dynamic, collaborative, strategic leadership Hermione Granger exhibited in the Harry Potter books.

One of the reasons I find all of this fascinating is that there are constant laments that younger generations aren’t volunteering, aren’t joining traditional civic groups like Rotary, Optimist, Lion’s, etc. And all I can say is that younger generations ARE volunteering, ARE getting involved in their communities – but they are doing it in different ways. Maybe the local civic group didn’t bother to create any social media channels to talk about their work, haven’t updated their web site in years, and have spent more time complaining about declining numbers than trying to do an honest assessment of why that is happening.

When “participatory” & “consultation” are just words

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social cohesionWhen you work in humanitarian initiatives in other countries, whether your project concerns water or HIV/AIDS or maternal health or vaccines or bridge construction or government web sites or whatever, your nonprofit headquarters and your donors will emphasize over and over that you must employ ways for the local people to participate in decision-making.1,2

Yet, too often participatory decision-making doesn’t happen in developed countries, by the governments that fund overseas initiatives and demand details about how participatory decision-making was assured.

The backlash against the European Commission (the government of the European Union), manifested most recently by Brexit and the Belgian region of Wallonia rejecting a long-planned free trade pact between the EU and Canada3, are great examples of lack of participatory decision-making.

So is the anger in Portland, Oregon regarding the new contract with Portland Police Department4, 5

And so is the anger and protests regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline is being built by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners and will transport as many as 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota to Illinois. The Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, a group that supports the pipeline, says 100% of the affected landowners in North Dakota, where part of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lives, voluntarily signed easements to allow for construction, and the Army Corps of Engineers, the consulting agency for the project, has a list of dates it said it contacted the tribe, or tried to and never heard back.6, 7 In addition, government officials believe they have followed the consultation process promoted by the President’s office in 2010.8

But the Seattle Times says “Environmental documents filed by the company show that during its permit application the tribe was not even listed in the entities consulted during a piecemeal, fast-track review of the project by the Corps. Company contractors contacted the county weed board, the Audubon Society, county commissioners and more. But not the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, permitting documents show.” The company has not allowed the tribe’s archaeological experts to review the ground in the path of the pipeline as it comes toward Standing Rock. The tribe’s expert, Tim Mentz Sr., in a review at the invitation of a private landowner, discovered some important artifacts, including stone effigies, burial sites and rare depictions of celestial constellations. The Seattle Times says, “So confident was Energy Transfer Partners that its work would go smoothly, that it started building the pipeline last spring, long before it had all its last permits in hand.”9

There can be no argument that tribes have been historically unable to influence projects that affect them and the land they hold sacred so this feels like just yet another land grab against native people in the USA that will marginalize them and hurt their lives. Sarah Krakoff, a professor at the University of Colorado specializing in American Indian Law and Natural Resources Law, says, “Sometimes what the agencies think of as adequate and with all good intentions do not feel adequate from the tribal side. Either because the process isn’t meaningful to them, it doesn’t accord with their timeframe or decision frame.”

Even when participatory decision-making is emphasized, the actions taken that are supposed to provide ways for lots of different people to influence what’s happening can be just for show; any community activist can tell a story about meticulously capturing the input of a group through a variety of listening exercises, only to have all that feedback utterly ignored in the final plans. I don’t know that this happened in the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline, but I’ve seen it happen overseas in my own humanitarian agency work; it’s infuriating.

And even well-done participatory decision-making isn’t always enough to keep protests at bay: until 2016, the ongoing consultative processes regarding the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge between local people, including ranchers, birders, outdoor enthusiasts, environmentalists, tribal members and others was considered a model for other communities. But that process, including a landmark 2013 agreement, didn’t stop people from far outside the area from using guns and force to invade the refuge, occupy it and cause many thousands of dollars in damage, including to private property and tribal lands.10, 11

On a related note, social media posts the Dakota Access Pipeline are often tagged with #NoDAPL, and slackervism / slactivism abounds, with people posting memes in support of the the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, or adjusting their Facebook page to show they are at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation when they actually aren’t.12 It’s supposed to somehow create support for the tribe and to confuse law enforcement authorities regarding who is at Standing Rock and who isn’t, but Snopes points out that there’s no record that such has helped at all, including in attracting more “material assistance.”13

Since I’m really not fond of slacktivism, here are ways to REALLY help re: #NoDAPL without leaving your house or coffee shop or wherever you are with Internet and phone access :

(1) Call North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple at 701-328-2200, leaving a RESPECTFUL, firm message on this subject (I find writing out the statement & reading from it helps me).

(2) Call the White House at (202) 456-1111 or (202) 456-1414 & tell President Obama to rescind the Army Corps of Engineers’ Permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

(3) Sign the petition at petitions.whitehouse.gov

(4) Contact the executives of Energy Transfer Partners that are building the pipeline:

Lee Hanse, Executive Vice President
Telephone: (210) 403-6455 or email: Lee.Hanse@energytransfer.com

Glenn Emery, Vice President
Telephone: (210) 403-6762 or email: Glenn.Emery@energytransfer.com

Also see:

Sources:

  1. Oil workers and oil communities: counterplanning from the commons in Nigeria, Terisa E. Turner 1997
  2. LEFT BEHIND; As Oil Riches Flow, Poor Village Cries Out, New York Times
  3. Wallonia rejects EU ultimatum over Canada free trade deal, EuroNews
  4. Portland City Council approves police contract amid unruly protest, Oregon Live
  5. Why protesters are mad about the police contract, Oregon Live
  6. What to Know About the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, Time
  7. Tribal Consultation At Heart Of Pipeline Fight, insideenergy.org
  8. Guidance for Implementing E.O. 13175, “Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments” , whitehouse.gov
  9. The violent Dakota Access Pipeline protest raged for hours — until this tribal elder stepped in, Seattle Times
  10. Audubon Society of Portland Statement on the Occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
  11. Beyond the Oregon Protests: The Search for Common Ground, Environment 360, Yale University
  12. Standing Rock Facebook Check-in, CNN
  13. Facebook check-in at Standing Rock, Snopes

Still don’t like slacktivism… but…

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I’m not fond of slacktivism (or slackervism). The word and its variations are a combination of the words slacker and activism. It’s a pejorative term that describes easy activities that make a person feel like they’ve made a difference for a group or a cause, like putting a bumper sticker on your car to “support the troops” or changing your profile photo on Facebook to show support for gay marriage, but the activity is more about making the person doing it feeling like they have contributed – but it doesn’t cost any kind of time, money or sacrifice on the person’s part, and probably doesn’t really affect the cause in any tangible way.

I’ve ranted about slacktivism a lot (see end of this blog for my other pieces on the subject), because I worry that people will choose to post a meme on Twitter that supports a cause they believe in rather than stand outside a grocery store to ask for signatures on a petition, or attend a rally, or staff an information table for a nonprofit at a community event, or donate money, or give substantial time to a political action committee or nonprofit trying to make a difference. I worry they think forwarding a message will end homelessness, stop female genital mutilation, provide mental health care services for veterans, feed hungry people, and on and on. I also I hate when people equate it with virtual volunteering; I have never considered it such, and I still don’t.

I stand by all my previous blogs ranting against slacktivism. But I’m now having trouble with exact definitions of it, because I have experienced, first hand, how posting memes and other messages to Facebook in support of a cause actually has caused someone to change their mind – and even voted differently as a result. There’s no absolute definition of who is and isn’t a volunteer, so I shouldn’t be surprised that the borders of the definition of slactivism have turned out to be so permeable.

I work very hard to keep my political views separate from my professional work. As I’m often in a communications officer position on behalf of a nonprofit, NGO, or government initiative, I often am not allowed to write letters to a newspaper or blog to express a point of view about current political affairs, or even just attend a protest rally. As a frequent consultant to the United Nations, I need to be perceived as politically neutral and respectful to those with whom I’m working, and I work hard to meet that requirement. As a result, many people I work with have no idea just how politically active I have been. None. This comes as a massive shock to my friends who know me outside of work, who know that I’m quite passionate about many issues, and that I’ve been an activist for many causes, long before the Internet, when I’m not in a communications officer position: I’ve worked to register voters, written and edited a newsletter for a group working to promote women’s right to abortion services, and spoken on behalf of political candidates I’m supporting. My friends have seen me VERY angry over various human rights issues, and act out on that anger, and can’t believe I can turn that button off so easily in certain circumstances.

Sometimes, through my activism, I’ve changed minds. Sometimes, my words have caused me to lose friends. I don’t know of an effective activist who hasn’t made people angry, no matter how hard they may have tried not to, no matter how much they’ve stayed away from anything that would seem personally insulting and tried, instead, to stick to education and patience. I’ve had my life threatened or put into danger twice because of my activism. Being an activist comes with costs that can be painful to pay.

Per several shootings in the USA of unarmed black Americans by white police officers, several online campaigns started, such as tagging posts on Twitter and Facebook with #blacklivesmatter. The tag was used by many people who have been on the streets and in community meetings and at political events, spending many hours to bring to light the very real, justifiable fear black Americans – particularly black American men – experience in encounters with the police. The tag was also used by people who’ve never done any of that kind of activism at all, as a way to show their support and outrage. That lead to some arguments online: should people who have not been traditional activists, should people who have never marched or attended meetings or put in the hours for the cause, should people who are white and would never experience the kind of fear and persecution so many black Americans experience regularly, use the tag? And white people using the tag – shouldn’t they do MUCH more, like march, register voters, write their elected officials, donate money to organizations working long-term on these issues, etc.?

Per the recent Supreme Court decision saying that all adults have a right to marry, including couples of the same sex, millions of people changed their Facebook profile photo to show a rainbow filter over the image, as a way of expressing support for the decision. And most of these people who did this are straight and have never done any traditional activism in support of gay rights: they’ve never stood outside a grocery store getting people to sign petitions, they’ve never marched in a rally, they’ve never donated any money to an organization working for gay rights, etc. In fact, they may never have told anyone before that they supported gay rights. That’s lead some posts online deriding straight people for their attempt to be gay allies – including a very angry direct message to me from a friend who seems to think that’s all I’ve done on behalf of gay rights. Others praised “straight allies”.

The underlying messages of these criticisms of white allies for #blacklivesmatter and for straight allies of gay marriage is this: you haven’t suffered for this cause, you haven’t worked for this cause, you haven’t sacrificed for this cause, you aren’t really a part of this cause, you shouldn’t get to celebrate a victory or be counted among those supporting the cause – and using a tag or a photo filter is just slacktivism.

I understand that criticism, I do. I understand what it can feel like when you work hard for something, you sacrifice, you experience hardship, and at a victory, people you’ve never seen alongside you in the trenches are there for the celebrations. I understand what it’s like to be an activist on an issue that is VERY personal to you, and to work with people who are supportive but who cannot experience the issue the way you do – men at an organizing meeting to support abortion rights, people of faith defending their atheist friends – and to wonder, can they ever really understand this? 

But consider that some of those people who have never said a word on Facebook or Twitter or at the family dinner table or even to you about these causes before, and then have then dared to post a meme about Ferguson or Baltimore or Cleveland or anywhere else there has been a shooting of a black American by a white police officer, or have changed their profile to the rainbow filter, have suddenly received very hurtful comments – some of it quite public – from family, friends, neighbors and work colleagues. And some of them have received direct messages from family, friends, neighbors and work colleagues saying, “I’m so glad you posted that. I agree – but I can’t say anything because I’ll make too many people around me angry.” And some of them may have started to changed the mind of someone that a regular, traditional activist NEVER could have reached – a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a work colleague, who is surrounded by only one kind of messaging, and here is someone they know and trust and maybe even love, making this simple, challenging statement in opposition to what they believe. I’ve gotten private messages from three people who said my private, friends-only posts on a personal account on an online social network changed their minds about who to vote for in an upcoming election. I’ve had friends and family members write me private messages saying they can’t be so vocal, but they agree with me – and it’s been shocking who these messages have been from – I never would have guessed those sympathies in many cases. I’ve never had anyone tell me that in those long hours standing at an information booth on a hot day at a community event – though I like to believe it’s happened.

So I’m going to start being a lot kinder about what I brand as slacktivism. I might even be willing to consider it microvolunteering in some instances. But mostly, I’m not going to play the more-activist-than-thou game I see so many playing. The world needs all kinds of activism and activists, and I’m going to welcome them all. 

And I’ll always be thankful for every activist, every ally, for every cause.

See also:

Apps for good – two things I learned in Ukraine this week

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This week, I sat in on a presentation by a tech company here in Ukraine regarding the development of a citizen reporting system – one that could be accessed by a computer or a smart phone, where citizens could report on a particular issue, and these reports could be mapped and shared, etc. You’re probably familiar with these in other countries: where citizens can report pot holes, infrastructure problems after a disaster, incidents of corruption, incidents of street harassment, etc. Like in Chilé or Egypt.

The presentation was the best I’ve ever sat through on this topic, better than anything I have ever experienced in the USA.

Why?

The vendor used the language of the UN – and used it with real familiarity. He didn’t try to use some new snazzy jargon that’s big in the IT world now to talk about ideas we all understand: goals, clients, etc. In other words: he respected the audience to whom he was speaking as experts, and demonstrated that respect by being well-versed in the words they use and how they communicate. So, for instance, the representative talked about people’s capacities and the time and expertise needed by his staff to develop the tool – he didn’t substitute the word “bandwidth” for that.

He also talked to us, making eye contact, without constantly turning to his computer to show something shiny or colorful or otherwise just distracting. His slide show presentation was just background. He was there to connect, to help us understand. He was human – for a very human project. He completely understood that this isn’t a tech project – it’s a civic engagement project.

What a different experience it is to be in a meeting like this. Seven years ago, in 2007, no one talked about such a tool in Afghanistan in the government office where I was working, supported by UNDP – despite these tools already existing, despite the permeation of cell phones throughout the country, despite the golden opportunity to use such a tool in some way. Using tech in the field, even in the most remote of areas, to gather information and report it back somewhere in a centralized place as a part of humanitarian, environmental or other aid or development-related efforts has been a phenomena since before the new millennium – I wrote one of the first papers reporting on such efforts, for the UN, published online in October 2001. Back then, the UN yawned. I’m so glad things have changed!

Another great day on the job in Ukraine. Less than seven weeks to go.

learning from a campaign that went viral

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Sweeping the Internet this week: a viral video campaign by Invisible Children to make Joseph Kony, a terrorist leader in Uganda, a household name, and thereby get the media and politicans to pay attention. Viewership is through the roof, #KONY2012 is trending on Twitter, and the press is all over it. Even Lord Voldemort is on board:

voldemort protests kony

The video is here; jump to 10:30 on the video if you want to get to the heart of the video, and watch until 27:00, to get a sense of what the campaign is trying to achieve and how it will do so, without having to watch the whole thing – it’s 16 or so minutes of your life worth spending, both to learn about an important human rights campaign and to see how to make a campaign go viral.

This is already a wildly successful activism / digital story-telling campaign – but it’s not a campaign that can be easily replicated by *most* nonprofits.

Here’s why it is working:

  • it’s an easy-to-understand cause
  • it’s a cause that gets an immediate emotional-response by anyone who watches the video
  • it’s a slickly produced video – very well edited, compelling imagery, excellent script
  • it offers both simple and ambitious ways to get involved: at the very least, you can like the Invisible Children Facebook page, share the video with your online social network, and help get the word out further. At the other end of the spectrum, you can organize an event on April 20, per Invisible Children’s guidelines for such, garnering press coverage and participation on a local level for an international issue.
  • it builds up to a specific day – April 20
  • it has a wide range of items for sale for activists to wear and display on April 20, which will help publicize the event and help make participants easy to identify the day of the event, and the sale of those items helps fund the campaign
  • there are Invisible Children staff engaging with people on Twitter and Facebook for hours at a time – not just tweeting one link to a press release and hoping it catches on
  • it has an easy-to-remember Twitter tag that isn’t in use by anyone else: #KONY2012

It’s having that specific day of action and a video that creates in-depth awareness about a specific issue that, IMO, makes this go well beyond slacktivism/slackervism.

What did it take for this campaign to be successful:

  • money. Yes, I’m sure a lot of things were donated and a lot of expertise was give pro bono, but it still took money to pay for people and their time and knowledge to make this happen.
  • wide-ranging, deep relationships with key people (media, corporations, celebrities, politicians, communications strategists). These relationships took many months, even years, to cultivate – more than some tweets and email.
  • a very detailed, well-thought-out strategic plan. Somewhere, this plan is in writing, no matter how spontaneous the feeling this campaign is conveying.
  • a LOT of people to undertake the necessary outreach activities via traditional and online media. This isn’t just sending press releases; this is also engaging with people on Twitter and the phone for hours at a time. It took people to design the web site, to design the materials, to distribute those materials, to talk to the press – and it took those people MANY hours of work to do so, and it’s taking even more time to respond to all of the press and critics now focusing on the effort.

But while there is a lot to learn from this campaign for nonprofits and NGOs, this is not the campaign most should aspire to.

  • Most nonprofits and NGOs do NOT have the resources to make something like this happen – and never will.
  • Your nonprofit is probably engaged in something that’s only local, or that is a more complex issue to explain, and that doesn’t garner an immediate emotional response.
  • Your nonprofit might not be able to survive the incredible attention and scrutiny that a campaign like this would bring.

That doesn’t mean your nonprofit is less worthwhile than Invisible Children – it just means that having a video go viral nationally or internationally might not-at-all be what is best for YOUR nonprofit.

As you read about this campaign and see it get so much attention, think about what you really want from donors, volunteers, the press, politicians, clients and the general public regarding your organization.

Think about local celebrities, local policy makers, local leaders (both official ones, like elected officials, and unofficial ones, like prominent business people or local leaders of religious communities) and local activists – what do you want them to say about your organization, and how might you get them to?

Also see this TechSoup resource on Digital Storytelling.

Another lesson to learn from this campaign: don’t spam celebrities. I’ve seen a lot of celebrity Twitter feeds over-run with tweets from people begging for that person to follow or mention this or that nonprofit or cause. George Clooney probably gets 100 of those tweets in just one day! Don’t make George Clooney dislike your organization because you keep tweeting him, begging for a mention.

One of the things that has been amusing to see is the stampede of smug aid workers and other smugsters to condemn the campaign – the theme of the pushback falls into four categories:

Here’s why a lot of these criticisms are bogus:

Americans are some of the most globally-unaware people on the planet. I moved back to the USA in 2009 and have heard things every day by neighbors, people I volunteer with and people on TV that have reminded me of this every day. And this ignorance about the world leads to some profoundly ridiculous statements and actions by my fellow Americans. Maybe this campaign will help make a few people, particularly young people, aware of the world beyond the borders of the USA. BandAid/LiveAid did that for me once-upon-a-time – don’t laugh, but it did. I was a teenager in Kentucky as ignorant as a box of hammers. That record and that concert set me on a path for a lifetime.

Also, in the USA, no human rights movement has ever succeeded without a lot of outside pressure and support – and anyone who thinks apartheid was removed as an official policy in South Africa only because of pressure and evolution from within South Africa isn’t paying attention.

Some of the arguments I’ve heard about why the USA should not be focused on Uganda are the same arguments I’ve heard from China and Russia about why the world needs to not “interfere” with Syria.

Compassion for one thing breeds compassion for other things. No one – NO ONE – is saying, “Don’t be focused on local issues – instead, care about what’s happening in Uganda!” As this campaign ends, the people that have gotten caught up in it, particularly young people, are going to have a taste for advocacy and wanting to make a difference. If your local nonprofit is jealous, then start thinking now about how you are going to leverage what’s happening. Is there going to be an anti-Kony event at your local schools or in your local community? Then start designing the handbills you are going to give out at anti-Kony-related events to tell those energized young people about your local cause and how and why they can get involved.

By all means, offer legitimate criticisms of this campaign and Invisible Children. But some people are trying to kill this campaign – and I question their motivations in doing so.

Also see:

Use Your Web Site to Show Your Accountability and To Teach Others About the Nonprofit / NGO / Charity Sector

How to Make a Difference Internationally/Globally/in Another Country Without Going Abroad

Ideas for Leadership Volunteering Activities to make a difference locally

Advice for volunteering abroad (volunteering internationally)

Cell phones & activism: not a new idea, still a good one

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10 years ago, I published this on the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) web site:

Cell phones, beepers and text messaging are used by a growing number of demonstrators and grass roots activists to stay connected and facilitate activities on-the-spot. Wireless technology can allow widely separated participants to coordinate activities in real time, and communicate emerging information quickly.

That’s the introduction to chapter four of Handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy, a paper I wrote for the UNITeS initiative. It presents examples of volunteers/citizens/grass roots advocates using what we then called handheld computer/personal digital assistants (PDAs) or phone devices as part of community service/volunteering/advocacy, or examples that could be applied to volunteer settings (the term smart phone wasn’t one I knew back in 2001).

Yes, that’s right: activists were using text messaging and cell phones as a part of their organizing more than a decade ago; the earliest example I can find is the 1999 Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (archived versions of the web site for the Ruckus Society at archive.org is a good place to learn more). The debate in our office about whether or not this was online volunteering were quite lively back then (I came down firmly in the yes camp).

I also got major cool points for quoting Jello Biafra on a UN web site, but I digress…

The grass roots organizing that’s lead to the Occupy Wall Street protests is fascinating to watch, per its use of so-called social media, but let’s remember it’s not new – this has been done before, and I hope the organizers are using lessons from those previous expereinces, as well looking into how rumors and urban myths could interfere and even derail their activities (and how to prevent or address such).

Oh, and, indeed, this is also a volunteer movement. A DIY volunteer movement. Wish that got talked about more as well.

Social media: cutting both ways since the 1990s

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Social media — those avenues to send instant, short, widely-distributed messages and images — cuts both ways:

  • It can be used to organize protesters, but it can also be used to identify protesters and arrest them.
  • It can be used to spread information, but it can also be used to spread MISinformation.
  • You can use it to promote your organization and cause, and others can use it to tear down your organization.

And it’s been used to organize protests since the 1990s – so can we stop now with how “new” it all is?

Back in 2001, while working for UNDP/UNV, I researched how handheld computer technologies were being used, or could be used, in community service / volunteering / advocacy. It wasn’t called “social media” or “micro volunteering” back then, but even without the snazzy jargon, I knew something very exciting was going on, something that was changing the way communities are engaged and mobilized. Among the discoveries in my research was that grassroots advocates had used handheld computer or phone devices to help organize and direct protesters during the 1999 Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization, and that in 2001, protesters in the Philippines used cell-phone text messaging to mobilize demonstrators to help oust President Joseph Estrada. In addition, in China, also in 2001, tens of thousands of followers of the spiritual group Falun Gong continued to exist-despite a harsh crackdown-in a vibrant community fed by the Web and encrypted text messaging. I created a web page just on the subject of using text messaging for advocacy – but I was not the first to do so, as you will see on the page.

I also noted in that page that hand held technology can lead to widespread misinformation as well: “Musician and U.S.A. Green Party activist Jello Biafra noted in an article on Zdnet.Uk: ‘Be careful of the information gossip you get on the Internet, too. For example, late in 1997 I discovered out on the Internet that I was dead.'”

We’re not hearing enough about how effective Web 2.0 tools are in promoting misinformation and negative speech. For instance, micro-blogs, tweets, texts and other technology spread misinformation about and within Haiti, as well as other disaster zones (it will be interesting to see what misinformation gets spread in Japan). During the swine flu panic in the USA a while back, we saw Twitter’s power to misinform, and rumors still affect polio eradication campaigns. So-called “new” media has helped spread misinformation to derail government health initiatives here in the USA rapidly and efficiently.

It’s not just the misinformation that’s a problem in trying to use social media to mobilize community activists and educate the public: in an interview with Radio Free Europe, Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, noted that internal security agencies welcome the use of new- and social-media tools. “The reason why the KGB wants you to join Facebook is because it allows them to learn more about you from afar,” he said. “It allows them to identify certain social graphs and social connections between activists. Many of these relationships are now self-disclosed by activists by joining various groups.” Al Jazeera profiled cases in Azerbaijan, Tunisia and Moroccans where the government or those opposed to any change in government were, indeed, using Facebook accounts to anticipate protests and easily monitor and arrest protesters.

And then there’s social media, like YouTube and blogs, being used by GOTCHA media advocates, as I blogged about yesterday: there could be just one person in your community with a video camera and a dream of humiliating your organization right out of existence, and social media makes that easier than ever to do.

Don’t roll out the comments saying I’m anti-social media. Don’t start pulling your hair and gnashing your teeth, chanting, “Jayne hates Web 2.0!” I love the Interwebs. But it’s long-overdue for a reality check on all these “Twitter revolutions.” Yes, there are lessons to be learned – but we’re not focusing on the right lessons. Back in 2001, the Ruckus Society featured Longwire’s Communications Manual for Activists on its web site, and included tips for using various hand held devices and avenues-two-way radios, CB radios, cell phones, pagers, satellite communications and more in community organizing. Those lessons from a decade ago could teach current activists a lot about using social media tools effectively.

Slackervism on Facebook again

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Back in January of this year, those of you on FaceBook probably saw lots of female friends, family and colleagues posting a colour/color in their status updates  — just one word, or a group of words, like “pink” or “blue” or “nude” or “white with black trim.” It was the color of the bra the posting person was wearing. Some people claimed it was an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer.

However, there is no data whatsoever saying that this what-color-is-your-bra campaign increased the number of women getting medical checkups regarding their breast health, doing self-examinations regularly, etc. There’s no data whatsoever that says someone knows about breast cancer now and how it impacts women that didn’t already know that before the campaign. Yes, Susan G. Komen for the Cure said they got some donations they think may have because some people followed up their bra color status with a link to its web site. But others reported no donations at all.

Lately, people are changing their Facebook profile photos to a cartoon character. They say this is to raise awareness about child abuse. Yet, there is no information offered on child abuse, no information offered on how to prevent such, etc. And there’s no data whatsoever that says someone knows about child abuse now that didn’t already know that before this “campaign.” No one is discussing child abuse; they are discussing cartoon characters.

I think it is yet another example of slackervism, where people clicked something online, or did something equally simple online, and walked away thinking, “Wow, I really made a difference”, but they didn’t. My fear is that these people then do not do what’s really needed — like volunteer or make a donation to an organization like Parents Anonymous, or Prevent Child Abuse America or know how to report suspected child abuse — because they think what they’ve done on Facebook has real impact, that that’s enough to make a difference.

And it’s interesting to note that when I challenged friends and colleagues about this — when they would post the cartoon photo and say, “This is to raise awareness about child abuse”, and I would post a comment asking “how”, people because very defensive, claiming that I didn’t care about child abuse or was “spoiling the fun.” Yes, it’s a lot of fun to change your profile to something silly — I do it often on my personal FaceBook page. But creating this false sense of activism is dangerous. Here’s what so many people are thinking as a result of campaigns like this: Why make time to volunteer or why reserve any money to help others when just clicking helps someone somehow? I can change the world just by clicking something or changing my Facebook status, right? Have a look at the Community Service section of YahooAnswers or similar online fora to see how often people ask for ideas for “just click and help” web sites, because they “love helping without having to really do anything” (do a search on FreeRice if you doubt me).

I made recommendations regarding the bra color-to-raise-cancer-awareness last year, detailing what would have taken this from slackervism to real activism. So, what would have made this cartoon-charater-as-a-profile-pic a true social marketing/health marketing campaign, with real impact (changed behavior, new awareness, etc.) regarding child abuse?

    • Encouraging people to not only change their profile picture, and not just saying it’s to prevent child abuse, but also, to link to a web site for more information about child abuse, including specific aspects of such: child neglect, shaken baby syndrome, child sexual abuse, etc., and information on what to do if you suspect child abuse.
    • Having a banner on the home page of your child abuse-prevention or information site saying, “Did you change your FaceBook status photo to a cartoon character?”, which links to a page focused on educating people about child abuse and encouraging people to participate in the campaign.
  • Having a FaceBook fan page specifically associated with this campaign, and using it to not only educate about child abuse, but also, to survey fans about the impact of the campaign regarding their actions (did they have a discussion this week with friends about child abuse, or just cartoon characters?)

Online volunteering / virtual volunteering is not slackervism. Here’s more on what ROI for online action really looks like. Also see the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) status updates on Facebook from Nov. 25 – Dec. 2, 2010, for an example of an EFFECTIVE online awareness campaign using Facebook regarding preventing and responding to abuse of women.