{"id":80,"date":"2011-07-15T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyoteblog.posterous.com\/harry-potter-fans-make-a-difference-as-do-oth"},"modified":"2017-05-16T18:59:30","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T01:59:30","slug":"harry-potter-fans-make-a-difference-as-do-oth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2011\/07\/harry-potter-fans-make-a-difference-as-do-oth\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Potter fans make a difference &#8211; as do other fan groups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/socialcohesion.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1765\" src=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/socialcohesion-300x256.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/socialcohesion-300x256.jpg 300w, https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/socialcohesion.jpg 371w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Back in the 1990s, when I was directing the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotecommunications.com\/vv\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Virtual Volunteering Project<\/a>, I researched the phenomena of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotecommunications.com\/culture\/fans.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">online fans of TV shows, performers and sports teams using the Internet to organize volunteering, donations and other support for various causes and nonprofits<\/a>. I thought it was such a splendid example of both online volunteering and DIY volunteering.<\/p>\n<p><em>There are thousands of online communities for people who want to to share information and excitement about a particular television show, movie, sports team, celebrity, hobby or literary genre. And just as offline communities and groups will often &#8220;pass the hat&#8221; at their gatherings for a good cause, these Internet-based fan groups often come together online or in person to improve their communities, promote a cause or generate funds for a nonprofit organization. Often, these fans engage in philanthropy with no prompting from any charity or formal organization.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been almost 15 years since I wrote that, and I&#8217;m pleased to see that this tradition is continuing. The latest example: <a href=\"http:\/\/thehpalliance.org\/\" target=\"_hplink\">The Harry Potter Alliance<\/a>, a group 100,000 Harry Potter fans all over the world, has raised $15,000 for aid in Darfur and Burma and $123,000 for Haiti. Its <a href=\"http:\/\/thehpalliance.org\/action\/campaigns\/deathly-hallows\/\" target=\"_hplink\">Deathly Hallows Campaign<\/a> is attacking hunger, bullying, child slavery and more.<\/p>\n<p><em>We are an army of fans, activists, nerdfighters, teenagers, wizards and muggles dedicated to fighting for social justice with the greatest weapon we have&#8211; love.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"mw-headline\"><em><em>Accio Volunteers! <\/em><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Tags<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>outreach, networking, connections, friends, connect, network, volunteering, volunteers, community, engagement, volunteerism, social, business, Harrry Potter, DIY, books, movies, novels, fiction<br \/>\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in the 1990s, when I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project, I researched the phenomena of online fans of TV shows, performers and sports teams using the Internet to organize volunteering, donations and other support for various cause&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20,13],"tags":[79,1678,601,477],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-volunteer-engagement","category-community-relationsoutreach","tag-celebrity","tag-fan-girl","tag-online-community","tag-tech4good"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-1i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3197,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/3197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}