UP | uncultured project

Inspired by this video by Tom (one of the World Vision Vloggers), I made this video response making my pitch why World Vision could benefit (and has the technical capacity) to be more like Charity: Water:

I conclude the video by pointing out that it’s not my intention at all to be a hater. I think that needs emphasizing because it’s far too easy for a charity to mistake well-meaning advice from a supporter to be cynicism & criticism from a skeptic.

It also must be said that when giving advice to a charity like World Vision, you gotta do it with a bit of humility. World Vision has been saving lives and helping people since before I even existed. But that’s part of the point.

My parents were born and brought up in a country where World Vision doesn’t come to raise donations – but rather to comes spend them. World Vision has had a presence in my mother’s rural Bangladesh village – a village where some people are too poor to even be buried – since the 1970s.

I mention this because, as someone whose extended family (but not my most immediate aunts & uncles) still live in that village and many of whom are beneficiaries of World Vision to this very day, extreme poverty is far more complex than can be expressed in any YouTube video.

If our goal is just to sponsor more children – than World Vision Vloggers is a perfect success. But, if our goal is to end extreme poverty within our lifetime, than I hope that initiatives like World Vision Vloggers are just the first step.

The tl;dr version: World Vision is the first charity to genuinely engage with the YouTube community. We need to support this – but we also need to make it clear we have more to offer than just vlogs.

I’ve also said the same thing in more detail (and with examples) in this video:

During my time away from Bangladesh, I’ve been talking to a lot of charities. I’ve consulted with UNICEF, presented at Save the Children HQ, entered talks with the Red Cross, and have been giving input to World Vision.

World Vision is the first charity that’s heard me out and created a plan of action to engage the YouTube community. I was glad to have some input on this. And World Vision has done it in a way that experts like Beth Kanter would be proud: they are letting outsiders come in and aren’t worrying about perfection on the first try.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’ve been advising charities to stop relying solely on Hollywood celebrities. Sending regular folks like Alex, Shawna, and Tom to Zambia have already generated over 300,000 views for World Vision on YouTube. See charities? I told you so.

The big challenge is the next step. My hope is that World Vision will use this success to do more ambitious things with the YouTube community. My fear is that, impressed by the amount of views they are getting, they won’t be challenged to try and engage this community in a deeper way.

If the support I’ve been getting is any indication, the YouTube community wants input on the charity work being on the ground. We want to see where the money goes, we want to see a project executed from start to finish, and we want to get to know the specific people our money has helped.

The technology to do this is here and it’s something I’ve been doing for a while now. But, after spending over 2 years to repair a school, what incentive does a charity have to do something like this again when I can only generate less than 40,000 views? Alex packing for his trip already got World Vision over 200,000 views.

This is an important moment for the YouTube community. We need to praise World Vision for engaging the YouTube community – but we also need to let them know we want more than just them replicating their celebrity-style visits with high profile YouTubers.

One way you can do this is let World Vision know. They are listening. On the World Vision Vloggers website, they have a place where you can leave a note (see the photo below for where the link is). Feel free to drop them a line. You can also tweet something using the #wvv hashtag and they will see it.

World Vision wants your feedback either through leaving a note (see link that I highlighted in the photo) or by tweeting #wvv as a hashtag.

Next week, I have a meeting with a charity. Although it is too soon to say, there might be the chance I can team up with them. Unfortunately, it will probably be outside of Bangladesh.

I know that I started this project with the idea that I want to make a difference on the issue of global poverty – but something keeps pulling my heart specifically to Bangladesh.

It’s hard to explain but, when I’m in Bangladesh, I feel that I’m more than the donations that I’m able to bring to a village. Or that I’m more than the technology and gear that I use to connect with you guys.

When I’m in Bangladesh, I’m able to connect with the people in these villages in a way that’s hard to describe. In a way, I’m not helping some foreign or alien group of people. I feel… like… I’m helping my own people.

As Bangladeshis point out, my spoken Bengali is rubbish. But, the same is not true for my ears. There have been many times when I’m talking to someone and I’m able to pickup a subtle tremble in their voice and read between the lines.

It was a subtle tremble in a young mother’s voice that led me to discover that she was hiding the fact she was living essentially as an indentured servant – working as a housemaid without getting paid.

A young mother working as an unpaid servant (working only for scraps of food) smiles while talking to me.

It was a subtle tremble in Shaeda’s voice which led me to discover that sometimes helping someone can cause jealously within a village – putting pressure on her to share the aid she received.

It was also a subtle tremble I heard from a young boy waiting in line for emergency relief (after losing his home to a cyclone) that I felt it was the right time to say a joke only Bengalis would get. Never in my life did I expect an entire village – having lost their homes and waiting in line for aid – to burst into laughter.

I'd tell you the joke I said that caused the crowd to burst into laughter… but you'd misinterpret it. It's was a joke for Bengalis-only.

Since it is so hard to find charities to team up with, I feel like I shouldn’t be picky. But, my fear is that, if I’m in some foreign country where I don’t understand the culture, I don’t speak the language, and I’m seen as a foreigner whenever I step into a village – I won’t be able to connect with those I help.

Because I won’t be able to pickup the subtle trembles.

I just logged into my Google AdSense account to see I’ll be earning a whopping 3 cents today. This is usually the norm for the income I generate.

In fact, features and traffic surges included, since starting this project I’ve earned well under $2 a day. To put it simply: Technically, I am just as poor (if not poorer) than the people I help.

OMG I'm rich!.... okay maybe not.

With that in mind, I thought now would be a good time to talk about what role I feel ads through my YouTube partnership play in this project and how I hope it will fit into the big picture.

More after the jump…

Continue reading ‘Working For Free Only Works for a While’

Jason Sadler

Inspired by some recent comments on this blog and tweets, I’d like to talk about the direction I feel this project needs to be going. And it starts with the story of Jason Sadler.

Jason Sadler is an entrepreneur who has successfully used social media to generate fame, attention, and wealth for himself through his business called I Wear Your Shirt. Hoping to use his momentum on social media, Jason decided to form his own non-profit organization.

Jason’s non-profit was about providing free clothes to people in Africa. He called his organization “1 Million Shirts” with the goal of getting people to donate 1 million used shirts which he would then ship to needy families in Africa.

A lot of us donate our gently-used clothing to local good-will. And, when I’m overseas, I often find myself parting with some of my favorite shirts because I find people who could benefit from them more than I could. But, on the scale Jason was aiming to do, this could do more harm than good.

Click the jump to read more…

Continue reading ‘This Takes Time’

Earlier this morning I was having a frank conversation with a friend of mine who works at an international charity that I respect a lot. He was explaining why it’s been nearly impossible for them to team up with me.

Basically, I have three strikes against me:

1. I’m asking to give restricted donations: that is donations which I can track so that I can show you guys what exactly you funded.
2. I’m asking for no cut be taken for overhead: that is I’m insisting that the donations I give them not be used for their marketing campaigns, administrative overhead, etc.,.
3. I’m not fully data sharing: that is I’m keeping your personal data that PayPal provides (like your address) private from them so they can’t use this data to solicit you over phone, email, and/or snail mail for more donations.

So, let me throw this out there to whoever is reading this: am I doing it wrong?

Are these three issues something I should change my stance on in order to make myself more appealing to charities? Or is the fact that I stick to these things the very reason you guys support my approach?

Also, as full disclosure, I do share full donation info with friends who help and support my work (like John Green) – but I’ve never sold this info and/or given it over to charities to use for their marketing and soliciting campaigns. Is this wrong?

I decided to write this blog post because I was inspired by my friend Dan Brown’s recent video called “Bad Day”. If you don’t know who Dan is and what “Dan 3.0″ is about – watch this as a primer.

You could basically write a list as long as my arm as to how Dan and I are very different people, with different backgrounds, different cultural upbringings, and different global experiences.

Yet, despite all our differences, we seem to have wound up on a very similar path. YouTube is a big part of our lives, we both have extremely ambitious projects, and we both walked away from institutional education to pursue our respective visions.

It’s for this reason, I couldn’t help but see myself in Dan’s latest video.

I’ve been there. One some days – I’m still there. It’s not the ambitious scale and scope of a project that gets you down, it’s small technical hurdles which derail things. It’s like death by a thousand paper cuts.

I’ve done the sleeping during the day – where you’re too stressed to sleep but sleep enough to screw up your sleeping schedule. I’ve had the “OMG what was I thinking when I started this project?!?” moments all too often.

So Dan, if you’re reading this, I have just one thing to say: hang in there. This maybe the first bad day you’ve had in your project – but it won’t be the last. But you know what? It can be worth it.

You may find yourself one day doing something that you never imagined you’d do or finding yourself touching and inspiring people in ways you could never imagine.

And when that day happens, you’ll know in your heart that it was worth every frustrating moment, every bad day, every sleep-but-too-stressed-to-sleep night you’ve had.

You also have a lot of things to your advantage that I wish I had (your massive online audience aside). You have tons of confidence. The first thing I think of when I turn on the camera is “OMG I’m too fat, ugly, and stumble on words too much to be on camera”.

In fact, in much the same way that your videos are condensed moments when your the most cheerful, my videos are the condensed moments when I’m the most confident and am able to silence my inner-critic long enough to be on camera to say a few lines.

That’s actually why I’m blogging this. I would never have the confidence or courage to film myself during a bad day. On really bad days I just go silent: no vlogs, no tweets, nothing.

So thanks for sharing this and hang in there. And, for anyone else reading this, I wonder how many other people can relate to this in whatever projects you guys are undertaking…