Beth Kanter

This blog post is for those who have found my work through Beth Kanter’s presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City.

First, don’t let the self-referential blog posts, tweets, and videos fool you – this isn’t about me as much as it is about the community supporting it. We are a group of idealistic people who want to be part of the generation that ends extreme poverty (in our lifetime no less).

But, we don’t like being guilted into donating with depressing images of poverty. We don’t like to donate money in a way we can’t track where our donation has gone. And we don’t like the fact that most charities can be fortresses which tend to keep us at arms length.

My role in this community is simple: I’m part journalist (telling stories from the field), I’m part philanthropist (raising funds as a private citizen), and I’m part implementer (executing the democratic will of the communities I meet on the ground and the community that participates online).

I call this community-powered “philanthropic journalism”. Beth calls it being a “free agent”. If this is something you’d like to engage – here’s what you should keep in mind:

On the Ground Access

5) I need on-the-ground access: I need to be able to bring my camera, cellphone, and laptop into the field with your charity or organization so I can write blogs, make videos, and tweet. This means I need both the permission from your organization to do so and technical capacity (i.e. internet connection & bandwidth) to upload content from the field.

4) I have a preference for Bangladesh: My parents were born & raised in Bangladesh – it has a special place in my heart. More importantly, if we team up in Bangladesh you don’t have to worry about needing a Bengali translator or worry about setting me up with mobile internet. I can figure it out.

3) I do more than report: I need to be able to provide your organization with restricted donations to do specific projects. Why restricted? Because it’s the only way I can guarantee to the community where exactly their money has gone. Ideally, I’d like to negotiate minimal (or no) administrative costs.

Connecting Communities

2) I do more than donate: I have learned the devil is in the details. Having control over naming rights, signboard design, and allowing for changes in project plans based on on-the-ground feedback and online input is how this becomes less about hand-outs and more about one community helping another.

1) I don’t do it for name or fame: If this was about self-aggrandizement, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post from Toronto, Canada. I’d already be back in the field with a fly by night “charity” which would let me do whatever I wanted. This is about doing good with good organizations.

I realize that these five things don’t make it the easiest for me to work or team up with. It would be so much easier for me to take photos while I hand you a big check at your home office. But, the community behind this project wants something more substantive. In exchange, you will find we’re fiercely loyal and passionate. And made of awesome.

If you’re a for-profit, you’re more than welcome to join what we could call a “threesome for good”: with me as a free-agent, a trusted organization as charity implementer, and a for-profit helping to fund the logistics (and the charity’s admin costs) behind all this. And hey, if there is a for-profit that will pay a man to dance around the world, surely there is a for-profit that will pay for this guy to go and help people.

You can reach me on Twitter @uncultured and by email at project@uncultured.com

I’m sure if you search my Flickr archive, you might find a few stoic & frowning kid faces too. I’m by no means an expert (or the standard-bearer) for how to photograph and film the poor. But, is there like some rule a charity ad can’t feature a smiling kid?

“NGOs come to the village here to take pictures of people. At church, at the market, on the road, at meetings. Only people who are dressed poorly.”

That’s what Edward Kabzela of Malawi said – and he’s not alone. Whether I’m traveling to Kakamega in Kenya, a rural village in Bangladesh, or a local food bank in Los Angeles – everybody hates being portrayed as poor and needy.

I’ve been inspired to write about this again because I just stumbled across this blog post by a fellow Canadian by the name of Duncan McNicholl. As Duncan puts it – in many respects – charities are like a business.

For a charity, their “revenue” is your donation dollars. And most of them think that the best way to get your donation dollars is by portraying the poor as objects of pity. They’d rather show you a picture like this:

Photo by Duncan McNicholl

Instead of a picture like this:

Same person, photo also by Duncan McNicholl

It still surprises me how many people, charities, and organizations still don’t get it. In fact, I’ve debated this with good friends of mine – some suggesting my portrayal of poverty is overly cheerful and glossy (with the exception of stuff involving disasters).

But my rebuttal is this: I’m only allowed to portray those I film & photograph as they wish to be filmed & photographed. Sometimes, especially during disasters, they want me to capture their sorrow. But, most of the time, the poor may want our help – but they don’t want our pity.

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.

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.

That’s why I want to talk about this.

And I want to bring someone else into this discussion – his name is Sharief:

Meet Sharief

I’ll keep the guilt-trip to a minimum – you can read more after the jump.

Sharief is ten years old and he’s a fishermen. Taking the old phrase “feed a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish you feed him for life”, Sharief learned how to become a fishermen at a very early age. Every night he, using the same equipment and putting in the same hours as adults, fishes in his village. His income? 30 cents (on a good day).

Teach a Man to Fish? Cliches Oversimplify the Problem.

So, with the knowledge of fishing not being enough to survive, Sharief decided to put his entrepreneurial and hardworking spirit to even further use by investing in a rickshaw. Most days he rides the rickshaw himself and earns a fare from passengers. On other days, he rents out the rickshaw and earns money from rental fees. With these two jobs, do you know how much he earns? About 50 cents (or 60 cents on a really good day).

He's Ten Years Old & Holds Two Jobs & Earns about 50 cents a Day

It’s stories like this – and a reality that breaks all our tired old cliches – which is why I  to work on this project.

To be clear: I don’t do this project for a sense of self-satisfaction. Indeed, I was more self-satisfied sponsoring children from afar when I didn’t have to be confronted in the immense reality on the ground. Nor is it to fill some void in my life – as more skeptical people have claimed. Indeed, if I wanted to fill a void, should I really have removed myself from my friends, my family, and all the hobbies and interests that I had?

The reason I do this project is because there is a reality on the ground most of us cannot fully comprehend until we see it with our own eyes. There is a discussion about global poverty that needs to change before we can end it. Even if you spend your whole life reading every academic piece there is on this issue (as I have spent much of my life doing), there are still stories and viewpoints left untold and unshared.

What this project has taught me is that those that who say “unless you do _______ what you are doing is totally useless” are always wrong. It doesn’t matter if that person is in favor of direct aid, spurring entrepreneurship, or is an extremist advocating some sort of Che Guevara-style world revolution. There is no one path to ending extreme poverty. Anyone who says otherwise is simply trying to marginalize perspectives they disagree with.

More importantly, reducing the fight against global poverty to a cliche is insulting not just those trying to help, but its also insulting to those in need. The people I have met in Bangladesh are some of the most industrious, hardworking, and intelligent people I’ve ever met. They don’t need to be taught how to fish – instead, they need an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.

A mosquito net may only protect a family for as long as it lasts (and if it’s a PermaNet that means a min of 5 years). But everyday they sleep under that net, they have the opportunity of living a life free from malaria. Everyday a villager drinks from a Pond Sand Filter, is a day with the opportunity of not having to take a loan (or waste their meager savings) buying medication to get rid of the newest water-borne illness they could have otherwise contracted.

What some see as “hand outs” or “totally useless things” I see as opportunities. Opportunities people can then use to further improve their circumstances on their own.

For example,when I gave the son of a young rickshaw driver the books needed for him to stay in school and enter the ninth grade, I helped him ensure he gets the literacy skills needed to command a high paying job. Even if he drops out the very next year, he’d be more educated than 60-70% of the entire country. But, by buying him brand spanking new textbooks, I put him in a position where he could resell those books after grade nine and use the proceeds to buy used textbooks (by himself) in grade ten.

My job, a charity’s job, or any concerned citizen’s job isn’t to provide a top-to-bottom solution for the poor. We aren’t suppose to hold their hands and build their life for those we help. Hell – I think we’d be resented by all if we even tried! Our obligation is to do enough to break them out of the cycle of poverty. We do that by creating opportunities. This includes the opportunity to live free from malaria, free from water borne illnesses, and in a position for them to better their own lives… by themselves.

People, organizations, and charities are starting to realize you can’t guilt your way into getting people to support your cause. Many charities are also starting to use the internet in a way that’s just more than uploading their TV spots.

I’ve talked about a lot of charities that are taking the lead in this. But today I’d like to talk about an unlikely source in helping to change this conversation – CollegeHumor.com.

CollegeHumor is one of my favorite sites. They’ve helped create amazingly funny videos like the Powerthirst 2 commercial, Where the Hell is Matt spoof (NSFW.. kinda), Jack Bauer in 1994, and much more.

Their recent spoof is a stab at what I consider the most annoying, guilt-inducing, charity commercial in the history of the world. First, take a look at the original (the charity has disabled YouTube embedding so that their video cannot be used in blog posts like this):

[Please Click this Link to See the Original Video]

It’s got all the hallmarks of what I hate about charity commercials. CollegeHumor’s spoof takes this on – almost phrase by phrase. They also make fun of grad students which – as a former grad student – I can especially appreciate the humor.

Sometimes criticizing something doesn’t work as well as spoofing it. Hopefully, the only time we’ll be seeing Mr. White Beard of Guilt from now on is when he’s trying to help grad students.

Unfortunately, it was too late. After extensively corresponding with their volunteer coordinator, I learned that they had already left Bangladesh and were currently focusing on the water crisis in the African continent. Although they haven’t come back yet, they told me “Bangladesh is an area dear to us”. The charity? You know them as charity: water.

Even though I wasn’t able to team up with these guys, over the four months I corresponded with that organization (and even their founder Scott Harrison later that year), I was able explain a lot about my project and my philosophy and desire to change the conversation about global poverty – a theme many of you following my work may know quite well. This is an approach charity: water seems to have wholeheartedly embraced.

A few short months after I corresponded with Scott Harrison over Facebook, I noticed that charity: water posted a new video on their YouTube channel. Their new video wasn’t a TV spot or mini-documentary. Instead, it was just Scott.. standing on a roof… vlogging! What impressed me even more was what he was talking about. Taking a page out John Green’s “Nerdfighting in Bangladesh” video, Scott was vlogging about “showing exactly where the money goes”.

Top: charity: water founder Scott Harrison does his first rooftop vlog (2009), Below: I do one of my rooftop vlogs from Bangladesh (2007). This cheap, simple, and no BS approach can really be a great way to connect to people to the fight against global poverty.

That all looks and sounds familiar doesn’t it? In fact, in a recent interview Viktoria Alexeeva (the Director of Design & Branding of charity: water), basically took the words right out of my mouth by touching on the same themes I’ve been talking about for a while now:

I think one of the worst things a non-profit can do is have the poverty mentality. When it comes to asking people for donations, there are two ways to present the interests of your beneficiaries: the traditional way has been the charity case. We’ve all seen the kids with flies on their faces in bad infomercials at 2 a.m. This approach is just not effective anymore. I think one of the things a non-profit can do to get ahead of the game is present their cause as an opportunity. Which is what it really is! Every day we have the chance to buy a consumer product to satisfy ourselves in some way. It’s not every day that we have the chance to actually help another human being. The non-profit that recognizes its value in such a way will be able to blow their competition out of the water (no pun intended). Who says that charity has to be boring or a chore? I think we’re proof that it can as trendy, cool and satisfying as buying a new iPod. (source)

A good friend of mine once told me that a good idea (like my idea of changing the conversation about global poverty) can spread like a mustard seed caught in the wind. I brushed it off as flattery – but maybe that’s what is happening? Using this personal, interactive, and non-guilt inducing approach, charity: water has been able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars through social media like Twitter, Facebook, & YouTube, increase it’s profile and name recognition around the world, and help hundreds of villages around the world (including Bangladesh).

Hopefully this is just the first of many charities to follow this approach.

[edit: Also congratulations to charity: water for their nomination by The Webby Awards. Both The Uncultured Project & charity: water were honored with this year's Webby Awards - with charity: water getting nominated for best charity website and Uncultured Project becoming an Official Honoree in the area of Experimental Online Film].

YouTube is more than a website to host your videos.

That’s not how you build interest in your cause….

I’ve been trying my best to change the conversation about global poverty – that is making things less guilt-inducing, less donation-obsessed, more personal, and trying to use the power of the internet in a way formal organizations aren’t. Thanks to you guys, you’ve turned this informal project (with no next to no budget) into the most popular anti-poverty related channel on YouTube. It’s good to see that a lot of formal organizations are now following suit. Since starting this project, The ONE Campaign has started a vlog (of sorts), charities like Save the Children are really stepping up, and I’m now there are gems from organizations I never knew even existed.

But that’s just the start. There is so much more to convey about what charities and orgs should be doing that just following this blog or my YouTube channel isn’t going to convey it all. Fortunately, a good friend of mine has recently come out with a book which I hope will become the definitive guide for every charity, organization, and non-profit out there seeking to advance their cause on YouTube. It’s called “YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts” and it’s available from Amazon right now.

The book devotes a chapter to charitable causes on YouTube, talks about the Project for Awesome, and talks about the importance of the YouTube community. It also includes an exclusive interview with me If you see my approach as something your organization or charity should be emulating – I highly recommend you check this book out.

[Full Disclosure: I wasn't paid for my interview in this book, I don't make a dime off of any of the sales of this book, and even the Amazon referral link I'm using isn't mine but gives referral money to one of the authors]

It’s a great balance of the harsh reality but also combined with a really positive and hopeful message. If you were on the fence about how great Save the Children is – hopefully this video has erased any doubt