When it comes to international aid and development, we are all biased. It doesn't matter if you're a donor reading pamphlets, a celebrity or YouTuber endorsing your favorite NGO, a journalist interviewing villagers, an academic outside of the ivory tower, an experienced aid professional talking about "good aid", or even a free agent trying to be a bridge-maker.
There is nothing nefarious about this fact. We as human beings, while capable of untold capacities for empathy, will never have a complete verstehen and fully imagine the complexity of others. This is important because the arbiters of what is and is not ...
5 Steps for NGOs to Move from Guilt to Empowerment
My thoughts on how charities need to drop the guilt is getting tons of views. But the question remains: how does a charity drop the guilt? Can they do it overnight? Cold turkey?
As I mentioned some charities, like the US-branch of Save the Children, have already stopped using "poverty porn". I'd like to share something I've talked to them about behind closed doors.
I guess you can call it a 5 Step Program for NGOs using guilt:
3 Reasons Charities Need to Drop the Guilt
[caption id="attachment_3629" align="aligncenter" width="473" caption="A Charity Guilt-Ad Currently Airing in Canada"][/caption]
It's 2011 and we still live in a world where many charities think that the best way to raise funds to help those in need is by using guilt.
This needs to stop and here are three reasons why:
How Come the Poor Can’t Video Blog? Thoughts on the Digital Divide
This year I’ve been talking a lot about the “Digital Divide”. But what is that? And why does it matter?
The “Digital Divide” is basically a term to describe the technological gap which prevents the poorest of the world’s poor from participating in global online conversations that are occurring on the internet.
This is important because what we are doing on the internet is starting to have the power to shape our politics, our governments, our economies, and our own personal priorities, opinions, and tastes.
If the poorest of the poor are excluded from these global conversations, we can only use the internet ...
Imagine if a large organization could put out its project plans in a way that was appealing to comment on.
Imagine if there was transparency and accountability of ideas in development.
Imagine if there was involvement of donors and implementers – and (watch out!) the beneficiaries of projects.
Imagine if we could actually ask people in the developing world what they thought of projects before we started them.
Hello! *waves hand…. points at project* Oh wait, I should probably post some examples:
Imagine if a large organization could put out its project plans in a way that was appealing to comment on.
Imagine if there was transparency and accountability of ideas in development.
Imagine if there was involvement of donors and implementers – and (watch out!) the beneficiaries of projects.
Imagine if we could actually ask people in the developing world what they thought of projects before we started them.
UNICEF is one of the many organizations I’ve been trying to team up with. I would love the opportunity to get UNICEF (and staff like Christopher Fabian – whom I actually met and talked to about my project earlier this month) beyond just “imagining”
P.S. The last video which mentions that a Pond Sand Filter last two years is actually a bit off. Since then I talked to an engineer who told me that a community-maintained Pond Sand Filter (maintaining = releasing the waste valve, rinsing the sand, etc) will last 10+ years.
Keith Don is Digital Channels Manager at World Vision Australia. In response to my blog post on “YOU are the Fortress”, Keith left this awesome response which I thought I would share below:
Hi Shawn,
What you’ve said is exactly right – big orgs like us are fortresses. What Wendy has said is the reality but ultimately its not up to the ‘free agents’ to make organisations know who you are, its up to the organisations to be listening and understanding the social media landscape to know who are the voices that can help them deliver their message.
When it comes to traditional media usually we don’t and can’t dictate to newspapers and tv networks how to present our content yet we facilitate access. In the new social media environment NGOs often take a DIY approach. Generally speaking this will only get you so far. Distribution is key, and that ony comes from partnering with strong, influential voices on issues aligned to your organisation.
Another aspect is given more people are spending more time online than on other media forms, where are your ambassadors going to come from?
The world has changed – just because the big NGOs are big doesn’t mean that they can control the media landscape. They couldn’t before and they can’t now. The challenge for organisations like ours is to be smart and use our size to engage new media to bring our work to a new audience that can easily be drawn to smaller, more niche, less transparent organisations that have simply cracked the SM puzzle.
It can be done, I just don’t think anyone has really cracked it yet. The first one that does will lead the way – hopefully its us!
Keith Don
World Vision Australia
World Vision is definitely one of the charities I am trying to team up with. Whether it’s forward thinking people like Wendy Harman at the Red Cross or World Vision guys like Keith Don – there is no shortage of forward thinking people in non-profits. Hopefully, the fortress can be broke from within.
Although this project is called uncultured (a description of myself), culture matters a lot to me. This is because I seem to have to two feet in two very different cultures. There is the one I was born & raised (“The West”) and the one where my parents came from in Bangladesh (“The East”).
This duality has made me realize that people with both feet in a single culture often fail to grasp the other. To paraphrase my friend John Green, we fail to “imagine complexly” the cultures we were not raised in. And, when we fail to imagine complexly, we fail to see the real story.
The reason why I’m talking about this now is because I recently read a blog post by Adrienne Villani – a New Yorker living in Mumbai. She recently wrote about the difference between social entrepreneurship in “The West” vs. “The East”. I’m going to quote the article below:
The truth of the matter is that entrepreneurship is hard. It’s really hard. Venturing out on your own. No steady stream of income. No way to know that your idea will be the one that works, not the one that fails. No stability. No demarcation between life and work. People constantly questioning your progress. You get the picture. It’s hard.
Despite this, entrepreneurship, and particularly social entrepreneurship, are in vogue. They are cool. Everyone wants a piece of the action. What is cooler than chasing your dreams and having a social impact? No one is ever going to accuse you of selling out to the machine, of being a slave to the man. Instead, you are going to sit with your MacBook, in your Ray-Bans and Birkenstocks, eating organic dried fruit, and bring affordable drip irrigation to 5 million indian farmers in the next three years. Yep, that is what you are going to accomplish. No sweat.
Yet it is increasingly becoming clear to me that this is the western conception of entrepreneurship, the view in the hallways of western universities and western corporations. Romanticized. The holy grail of individuality, of being your own person, of choosing your own path. And this is where the stories are coming from.
In the east (yes, India is the east!), there is no such romantic vision of entrepreneurship. No one coming out of business school wants to chance this life of instability. Instead, they want to join the most lucrative graduate scheme – Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ICICI Bank. Their families will be happy because they will be professionals, something to brag about back home. No way does any Indian mother want to say “My son’s an entrepreneur.” She wants to say “My son’s a banker/doctor/lawyer/engineer.” She wants a son who she can marry off. This is the reality.
So, are we even having the same conversation? Do we need to be having two conversations? Is one somehow applicable to the other? Or not? Maybe we need to begin the dialogue anew, starting from the different cultural conceptions of entrepreneurship. And only then can we chart the way forward.
Click the jump to read my thoughts on Adrienne’s critique of Western social entrepreneurship.
Right now, I’m sitting in a hotel room connected to the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The red glow of the giant “CNN logo” across my room seeps through the drapes and into the room. My journey to help the poor in Bangladesh seems to be taking me everywhere… everywhere except Bangladesh.
Beth Kanter - Non-Profit Social Media Strategist
I’m spending so much time away from my passion – not because I like time off, but because convincing charities to team up with me seems to be an uphill battle. Imagine my surprise, when I found someone here in Atlanta who felt the same way as I do. Her name is Beth Kanter.
Beth was holding a seminar on how non-profits should use social media. I was in awe, captivated, and nodding to her every word. Then she started talking about how charities are like fortresses when it comes to opening up to social media & online communities – and I couldn’t help but stand up and speak out.
Beth handed me a mic, I stood up, and – as if taking a weight off my chest – told the crowd full of non-profits & charity employees and directors: “the problem isn’t social media, the problem is that YOU are the fortress”. That got their attention.
Beth's Seminar
“I’m coming from the opposite perspective,” I continued. “Social media is not my problem: I have over a quarter million followers on Twitter, 10,800 subscribers on YouTube, and 2.1 million views. Yet, despite that, I have a hard time having you guys take me seriously”.
I then turned to a lady in the front row. A lady by the name of Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross. Earlier in the seminar, Beth was praising Wendy’s admirable work for “breaking the fortress” at the Red Cross and for embracing social media for it’s operations with the Haiti earthquake.
Beth Kanter, Me, and Red Cross's Wendy Harman
While Wendy’s work is admirable, I had my own Red Cross story to share. “We need to talk” I told Wendy. “When the Haiti earthquake struck, I contacted the Red Cross. I offered to connect the community supporting my work with your efforts in Haiti. But I was dismissed as ‘just a guy on YouTube’”.
Taking a glance at Beth, I could see my time at the mic was coming to a close. “I know you have to move on in this seminar – but I want to give you two quick stories.” I pleaded. “Basically, whenever any charity does give me an inch – and does open their doors and doesn’t act like a fortress, amazing things happen”.
I told the story of how the Los Angeles Food Bank opened their doors for me. How I was able to not just donate thousands of dollars, but was also able to make a video on my YouTube channel that was seen over 300,000 times on YouTube. The story of my work with the Los Angeles Food Bank was also featured on CNN.
I told the story of how Save the Children, although a far more “fortress-like” charity, gave me the opportunity for me to help them with the Cyclone Sidr & Cyclone Aila relief operations. The results? More people learn about Save the Children through my videos than any other online video source on the internet.
I’ve struggled for the past 3 years and have consistently proven that – if a charity out there gives me an inch – I can do amazing things for them. Yet, despite that, to this very day and to this very night – no global development-centric charity has concretely agreed to team up with me in a consistent and sustained manner.
Why? Because they are a fortress. There’s no other way to put it. They would rather be a fortress than help more people, engage more supporters, or be a leader in a newly emerging form of interaction. A form of interaction that’s not going away, that’s not a fad, and is the future.
My time had ran out. Beth took the mic back. And the discussion continued to how the UN Foundation got great online exposure by bringing some American Idol celebrities to Haiti. I facepalmed and tried to grab the mic again (because I have thoughts on that too) – but there wasn’t enough time.
But, even if I had more time, I don’t know how long it takes to break a fortress.
This is not a charity, organization, or anything formal. It’s my journey to try and make the world a better place - one meaningful difference at a time. To learn more click here.
