After reading the billions (understatement) of comments in my Facebook stratosphere, Emily Raven’s blog post, and Student Energy’s blog about the viral KONY 2012 campaign by Invisible Children, I have been hugely disappointed by the amount of often unfounded cynicism that the online community has reacted with towards the video. A lot of this skepticism about the campaign as a whole has been based on the organization itself, Invisible Children, which is a relatively young start-up of a not-for-profit. As a Facebook friend put it, these start-ups, like any organization, burn money faster than they make it because they incur larger operational costs and initial capital investments than World Vision or Free the Children, for example, which have been around for decades. Since Invisible Children’s mandate is to raise awareness for the issue of child soldiers through videography, it’s no wonder that significant portions of their annual budget goes towards things like buying and maintaining professional video equipment, professional editing, and thousands of labour hours not only filming, but also producing these spectacularly made videos. 31% of their money goes towards charitable programs like rebuilding communities and schools, etc. Needless to say, the amount of air travel and extremely basic accommodations for transporting volunteers and staff to and from the United States to the African continent doesn’t come cheap. So to those who think Invisible Children isn’t a financially transparent and accountable organization, I recommend a course in basic microeconomics. Or try starting up a not-for-profit organization without ANY substantial investments and 100% of your money going to charity, which is what people seem to think a not-for-profit is or should be.
My second issue with the negativity that KONY 2012 has faced has to do with people thinking that it will not change anything. If any of these people realized what the whole purpose of the campaign was, they would also realize that they’re contradicting themselves. The campaign’s purpose was not “RAISE X DOLLARS” or “SIGN THIS PETITION.” It was, simply, “MAKE KONY FAMOUS.” That people think that the campaign has failed and continue to blog, tweet, or update their Facebook about it is hilarious, because the only reason they know about the issue of the LRA at all is because of the video, which means that it was successful in its venture. The more people who know and care about the issue, the more onus there is on our governments to fix the problem.
Another equally ridiculous claim: that Invisible Children is in it to make a quick buck or to turn a profit. Invisible Children’s CEO graduated from the University of California with a job offer from Deloitte (which should be the first indicator that IC is financially run well). If the people behind Invisible Children were looking to make six-figure salaries, why turn down a secure, well-paying job offer from one of the Big Four to work for a not-for-profit? The name of the industry kind of gives away the kind of income you’d be making.
These points bring me to the culmination of my argument against the KONY negativity. Above all else, the people behind Invisible Children are world-class marketers. Any multinational corporation like Coca-Cola or PepsiCo would kill for the type of publicity and marketing that these videographers have done for their cause, and would likely pay five times as much as Invisible Children does for their talents. Those who think that International Children is burning money by paying for and investing in these people and their work are fooling themselves – the bottom line for IC and their entire value proposition is that they are able to get peoples’ attention, something that companies pay buckets of cash for on a daily basis. How many of us freak out over the amount of money PepsiCo spends on their advertisement? Or how many dollars Coca-Cola spends on sponsorship and freebies? Nobody. And that’s just soft drinks. But once a not-for-profit does that for an important social issue with a fraction of the cost? Different story. To those people, I recommend a basic marketing course to learn the value and price of fame.
Watch and learn.