There was a time when charity meant dropping coins in a box and activism meant taking to the streets in protest. Now, all it takes is a few keystrokes or the click of a button.
Illustrating this new frontier of activism and charitable giving is Kony 2012.
The wildly popular film has been viewed more than 100 million times since it was posted on March 5.
The film’s purpose is to promote the charity Invisible Children’s “Stop Kony” campaign, which calls for the arrest of the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony by December 2012. The filmmakers raised $5 million in donations for the charity from viewers in just 48 hours.
The film’s content aside, it raises a broader question about how we give to charities in the Internet age.
“Slacktivism” is defined as feel-good actions that require little effort or sacrifice on the part of the individual. These types of actions work to spread the message of an organization but have little lasting impact.
Online activism, or clicktivism, is one branch of this laissez-faire ideology. Individuals sign a petition with their email address, join a Facebook group or share a video via social media, then promptly forget about their involvement.
These types of activism assuage guilt and make people feel they don’t need to do more. Petitions prompt people to actively consider an idea, but don’t do much more than that.
A more deeply ingrained type of slacktivism is “cause marketing”, a strategy of profit masquerading as social-consciousness. It refers to a type of marketing that sees for-profit companies teaming up with non-profit organizations for mutual benefit. The Pink Ribbon campaign is the most prevalent example.
The campaign started in the United States by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation.
Consumers buy Pink Ribbon branded items, under the impression that a portion of the proceeds going to the foundation. Everything from toilet paper and M&Ms to cosmetics and handguns are branded. According to the Komen group, the organization raises over $35 million a year from over 60 partnerships.
However, a recent National Film Board of Canada documentary called Pink Ribbon Inc. reveals how companies use the branding to improve their public image but only give a small fraction of the profit is given to cancer research and disease prevention.
Recently, students at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University took part in the national Five Days for the Homeless campaign. The campaign is a fundraiser for the Centretown charity Operation Come Home, which helps homeless youth.
For five days university students slept outdoors with only a pillow and a sleeping bag, no pocket money and subsisting only on food donations all the while attending classes and completing coursework.
While the initiative has admirable goals, the actions don’t speak to the seriousness of the issue. It is a simulated experience that trivializes the difficulties they seek to represent.
Students sleep on a security patrolled campus. Most important, however, the students know they have a soft bed, hot shower and fridge full of food waiting for them once their stint is over.
All of this is not to say that this base level of engagement should stop happening. It’s good that people are finding movements they care about. But individuals need to step away from their computers and realize that actions speak louder than clicks.