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cause marketing, children, education, Invisible Children, Kony 2012, news, non-profit, non-profits, non-profits and social media, people, Political, social media, video, War
I wrote about Invisible Children in January 2011 as part of my Getting the Word Out series spotlighting non-profits’ use of social media. This week the organization and their new film Kony 2012 has been making news big time. The film, with its 15599387 Views, has once again established their understanding of social media and their ability to use it well. It is a powerful use of video to give a name and a face to the large-scale problem of how children are affected by the war in east Africa.
Yes, it has been a controversial sort of success. There has been criticism of the organizations financial allocation and of the possible neo-colonial message of the film; there have been questions about Invisible Children’s advocacy of violent solutions as opposed to peace talks, and whether several people clicking Like or Retweet should count as advocacy. All are, of course, valid questions. The organization has got the limelight it was hoping for, and now it has to address all the questions.
This whole story is like a case-study in action for other non-profits. Kony 2012 has got the kind of over-night exposure that most causes can only dream of; however, with that kind of rapid spread, there’s little control over the core message and its nuances. It can seem like scary territory for those who like the message to be packaged in the proper context. Does this mean non-profits have to be wary of social media? I don’t think so.
Any organization engaging in advocacy understands the need for transparency; it is best to adopt a “Caesar’s wife has to be above suspicion” philosophy in managing non-profits. This is probably more amplified in the context of social media, but the core idea applies in the real world as well. So, there’s no reason to fear social media or to avoid it for fear of how things will appear. It makes more sense to embrace it with enthusiasm and use it as an opportunity to address all aspects of the organization from mission and vision to philosophy and finances. Here are tools that can help you take your message to more people than ever before; here are platforms that take away the reality of physical distance; here are instruments that can accelerate change. The promise they hold far outweighs the problems.
Awareness is better than ignorance. Engagement is better than apathy.
Great post, Shoba!
It seems sad that a well-intentioned non-profit’s efforts could be sabotaged by their own carelessness, and it sets up those calling them on their faults to be seen as cynical and obstructionist.
It’s a lose-lose-lose, and it all can be prevented, as you say, by transparency and taking as much care with things like their accounting practices as they do with crafting their message.
I really like you lose-lose-lose framing of this, F & B. In playing with a shiny new toy, people sometimes forget that what is being promoted has to be rock solid. This is true across industries, but I believe it is non-negotiable for non-profits.
OK, you are making a much stronger case for social media to me than my son saying, “Mom, I’m setting you up a Twitter account and you’re going to use it, if you want to get your message out there.” In 3 months I’ve never tweeted. I may play with it now…maybe.
Transparency. I like all that it implies, BUT at the core shouldn’t it be honesty and dignity…your clarity? If that’s not there, then what one will see through the glass is muddled intent diverted by alluring perts. I’m not talking specifically about this organization; I have only a cursory knowledge of the issue.
I guess my personal experience with nonprofits is that the righteous ideal is the impetus and that’s where all the energy is focused – on PR. Then when reality sets in and the force behind the movement doesn’t have a clue what to do with all the bodies that show up to ‘help’ – that’s when the disenchanment begins and stuff hits the fan. The idea people are often good at ideas only, but they need implementation people to take it the next step. That delay between gathering the troops and putting them on the field with proper training, equipment & goals can be deadly.
Imayfly, no questions – clarity is a biggy! I think more than one non-profit has lost its way because of not being sure about their one core agenda item.
In this post, I was emphasizing the transparency because sometimes even organizations with clarity forget that their choices will be questioned/examined; and not always by the most sympathetic people. So, if they adopt a policy of transparency, they are prepared early on to have to think in terms of explainable choices.
I like your analogy of gathering the troops and putting them on the field – I think that is very much a concern for mega-causes. But for small organizations with minimal budgets, PR is a major challenge and I think social media can be very, very helpful. It may be a matter of the demographics of the organization or just a reality of not having the time to spend on social media – but non-profits are yet to fully exploit this potential, I believe.
As for your Twitter account – I sympathize. I dont have enough time to engage in all platforms meaningfully and so I have never tweeted!
Thanks for stopping to chat.:-)
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