Archive for the ‘Spotlight’ Category
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Do Something, technology and social activism: a Q&A with Melanie Stevenson
We recently had the pleasure of meeting Melanie Stevenson, responsible for business development for premier US charity Do Something, whilst on her sabbatical, visiting London. With the largest national database of volunteer opportunities for teens, Do Something have been a truly instrumental force in helping change the face of social activism in the USA, inspiring millions of young people to engage with and take an active role within their communities.We caught up with Melanie to find out more about her role at Do Something alongside global attitudes towards social activism amongst young people…
It’s clear from the popularity of Do Something that young people in America are very socially conscious and proactive when it comes to volunteering. Have you seen any particular trends emerge over recent years? If so, to what extend do you feel trends have been influenced by wider political and social changes?
You’re right, teens in America are passionate about giving back. 1.2 Million of them will take action through DoSomething.org’s programs this year. Next year, we anticipate 2 Million Do’ers to activate through our programs.Some trends we’ve noticed are:
- Customisation – This is the ‘Starbucks generation’ (think grande java chip frappucino with whip no drizzle). Young people today expect volunteer opportunities to fit their personalities and lifestyles. Whether they have a minute or a year, whether they care about global human rights or the environment, they should have opportunities to give back. It’s our job to make it easy to find them.
- Self-Starting – Young people are more likely than ever to see a problem, plan a project, and take action. They’re opting for direct activation over traditional “volunteerism” which is a more scheduled and structured experience. A few tips and resources help them get started, but they’re truly becoming “social entrepreneurs”.
- Social Shopping – Not only does a brand have to be cool and functional to win a young person’s heart – it has to have heart itself. 89% of young people today will switch brand loyalty based on cause association. Where they spend their money is part of how they live responsibly.
Young people today grew up online, where they can find exactly what they’re looking for whenever they want. In an instant they can create a customized pair of sneakers, find any “how to” guide you can imagine, and dig up dirt about a store at their local mall. These trends are direct responses to the power of online.
You mention ‘the power of online’ – to what extent do you feel developments in technology and social media have aided awareness of volunteering and social causes? Are there any particular technological developments or innovative social media campaigns that have inspired you?
Developments in technology have absolutely magnified the power of volunteering and social good. The single best way for a young person to find out about something is from a friend. And social media has turned that peer-to-peer conversation into a public forum!One of our most exciting social media programs was a recent campaign called Make Art. Save Art.
Art is being cut from US schools every day. We asked young people to create and share works of art as advocacy messages for arts education. The designs were shared over 350,000 times on Facebook and Twitter, and posted over 1,000 times on senators’ Facebook fan pages!The technology we’re most focused on here at DoSomething.org is mobile. The average teen sends over 100 text messages per day with a 100% open rate! It’s their preferred method of communication and their phones are by their side at all times. We’re working actively to deliver our programs more and more via mobile, and reward young people for their participation.
You’ve had the opportunity to travel and meet other youth volunteering agencies around the world. Have opinions towards volunteering and social activism differed? Have any particular organisations or individual stories inspired you?
My recent travel to Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and England were such an inspiration! Each country has a unique perspective on the world of social activism. History, culture, politics, economy and even geography all play into how passionate the population is about social change, and how willing or able they are to take action. Everyone I met inspired me and challenged my perspective in some way. I was particularly inspired by the way the v20 are at the core of everything v does. We have an incredible Youth Advisory Council at DoSomething.org, but it challenged me to think of even more ways to collaborate with them and celebrate their accomplishments. -
Is it time for charities to forget advertising and provide useful services instead?
I recently sat on a panel alongside Scott Burnett of LoveLife, South Africa’s largest HIV initiative for young people. We were there to talk about digital innovation in international youth service programmes, and I found myself in the surprising position of being massively impressed by a WAP site called MYMsta.OK, stay with me here… WAP is the ideal way to reach young people in South Africa, where only around 10% of the population has access to the internet, but 75% of young people have a cell phone. What’s more, instant messaging via a mobile-based social network can massively undercut the cost of text messaging, giving it instant appeal for the youth market.
MYMsta (“Make-Your-Move-sta” – named by the youth so you’re not supposed to get it) is a mobile social network with a difference, seeking to connect the youth to their peers, but also to deliver positive health messages to its users. In short, why pay to advertise on other people’s communication channels if you can deliver a service yourself, and in doing so win the loyalty of your target audience by saving them money? And what better place to offer sexual health advice on demand than on a mobile phone, where dates are arranged and hearts broken?
Here in the UK, the popularity of Blyk shows that many young people are prepared to accept advertising messages on their mobile in exchange for a free mobile contract, but while there are a few apps using the “provide useful unrelated service in order to deliver important messages” logic (MacMillan’s find a coffee shop app, for example), I’m not aware of charities embracing the concept in a big way. (If you are, I’d love to hear about it.)
I’m hugely excited by the prospect of a social network service, which genuinely benefits the target audience, run by a charity whose mission is to help ensure a generation of complete, creative and connected youth who have the tools to stay HIV free. So I’ll be watching their progress with interest, and just a little bit of jealousy.
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Is it time we started sharing our cock-ups?
When charities or voluntary organisations get together at events, it’s usually the successes you get to hear about. So hurrah for Sidekick Studios’ latest (beta) innovation: Cocktails and Cock-Ups, an evening of confessional presentations from charities and social enterprises about the disasters you never got to hear about – and, most importantly, what they did to fix them.
Dan Jones from Amnesty International UK, Andrew Dick from Envision, and Darren Taylor from EcoComputer Systems were impressively candid about the mistakes they’d made and the lessons they’d learnt. What struck me was how sharing failure led to frank discussions and a sense of shared experience which is often missing from the usual “look what I achieved”-style presentations.
I was surprised to notice how rarely – if ever – I’ve seen someone deliver a PowerPoint presentation which actually highlighted the things that went wrong. Reviewing mistakes is something we do a lot in Agile web development; at the end of each two-week section of work, the whole team comes together to talk about what went right, what went wrong, and what we could change to make the next iteration more productive. But sharing that learning with other organisations? I don’t do that much.
So what did I take from the event?
- In the third sector, we’re so used to reporting to funders, trustees and bosses on what went well, that we’re in danger of forgetting that the lessons we learn from failure are valuable – not just to us, but to others, too.
- Talking about failure, rather than pretending we can prevent failure, can help us to expect and manage it. It’s also fun, and quite cathartic, once you get past the initial fear.
- “Failing fast” – building prototypes, running pilots, get feedback early on, not trying to plan everything up front in immense detail and instead being willing to embrace negative feedback and change – can actually help to avoid more catastrophic mistakes on a bigger scale.
- Sometimes a perceived failure actually leads to something better.
- It’s easier to admit mistakes with a cocktail in your hand.
So if you’re looking for valuable lessons, I reckon you’d learn more from inviting others like you to share their cock-up tales over drinks than from any of the usual seminars or conferences. Find out more about Cock-Up Cocktails on the Sidekick Studios blog.
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South London volunteer radio station ‘Reprezent’ gets a licence
Reprezent, an on-line radio station created as a platform for young volunteers to air their views, has been granted a license by Ofcom and will hit the airwaves in 2011.
‘Reprezent’ was launched in 2008 and was the first FM station to be programmed solely by young people. Created with support from Choice FM, the station provides a voice for underrepresented minorities in mainstream media. Believed to have positively encouraged the youth of South London to communicate with one another, the radio station became a popular platform for debates on burning issues such as knife crime, teenage pregnancy and career aspirations.
Many youth volunteered their time, skills and creativity in ensuring the success of the radio station. Aaron, 17, has been presenting his own show online for a year. “This is about giving young people the chance to represent themselves and get involved in something positive. Everyone hears the bad things, but Reprezent is about our music, our culture, and what we can bring to society,” he says.
The station will reach out to over 160,000 13-25 years old, providing many young people with broadcast and media training. Schools, councils and businesses alike will rejoice at the prospect of a broadcast platform in which the youth, the general public and the officials can amicably highlight issues, discuss options, and settle on resolutions.
The radio station is a real boost at a time when youth unemployment is on the rise, and young people are looking for practical experience for their CVs. Finances have already been secured for the station to work with over 300 young people over the next year, and ‘Reprezent’ plans to continue growing in creativity, community support and cultural significance for a long time to come.
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Youth Venture: awesome inventions to change the world
Anyone who doubts young people’s ability to create innovative solutions to the problems faced by their communities should check these amazing inventions from young people.Ashoka’s Youth Venture project ran the Invent Your World Challenge to reward 16-25 year olds from all over the world for inventions that help their communities. The winners were a big hit at the recent Tech4Society conference in Hyderabad, India.
Still only 16 years old, competition winner Javier Fernández-Han invented an algae-powered energy system that combines a dozen new and existing technologies to treat waste, produce methane and bio-oil for fuel, produce food for humans and livestock, sequester greenhouse gases, and produce oxygen. The VERSATILE system is targeted at developing communities which need sources of power and waste disposal – and while it hasn’t actually been built yet, you’ve got to admire the sheer ambition of the project.
We also love Tractor Factor, designed by 23-year-old Shailesh Upadhyay from Velore, India. He found it difficult to study in the evenings at his home in rural India, so he came up with a system which uses the battery in a tractor to power a fluorescent light at night. It’s now being installed in homes throughout his village.
Really inspiring stuff for a Friday read – find out more about the winners here.
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“Volunteering is now cool” – rallying cry from rent-a-crowd for non-profits
We were always going to fall in love with an “unincorporated disorganisation” who state their vision as “a world where volunteering is as mainstream as cheeseburgers and breathing.” Youth Tree is a group of young volunteers from Western Australia who are shaking up volunteering Down Under.
They’ve just launched the Big Help Mob, a diverse army of 100+ young volunteers who regularly get together to do favours for non-profits. Then they celebrate with “enormous, ludicrous flash mobs”.
Any local non-profit can submit an idea for how this rent-a-crowd could help them out, via their website. The best ideas are taken on. So all kinds of causes, charities, people, animals or environments can benefit from a sudden, one-off burst of people-power.
Did we mention that we love it?
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Digital volunteers help Haiti
Back in June, we blogged about micro-volunteering project The Extraordinaries. In the wake of the Haiti disaster, the site is now catering to the huge numbers of people inspired to help by offering volunteers a real opportunity to make a difference to the relief effort.A new Haiti support page is harnessing the power of the crowd to help locate and identify missing persons. Volunteers can give just a few minutes of their time to sort and tag disaster images, and match sorted images with the faces of missing persons. The goal is to help desperate families find their loved ones.
Meanwhile, Crisis Camp Haiti kicks off in London tomorrow (Thursday 21 January). Crisis Commons facilitates partnerships and maintains a network of technology volunteers to respond to specific needs. The goal of the London session is to establish Crisis Commons London and a series of Crisis Camp events in London in support of Haiti, where both technical and non-technical people working together on tasks as diverse as coding apps, mapping work and translation.
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Cybermentors virtual volunteers take on the bullies
CyberMentors, the online peer mentoring scheme run by BeatBullying, is in the headlines today after its hard-hitting new advert was banned from TV for being “too brutal for younger audiences”.
But it is CyberMentors’ ability to forge partnerships with social networks that really stands out for me. YouTube is featuring CyberMentors on its front page all day today. And back in November, Bebo became the first social networking site to install a CEOP “report” button on the profiles of its 8 million users, featuring a link to the CyberMentors site.
By using social networks to offer reach out to young people in the very spaces where they might be bullied, CyberMentors helped over 176,000 young people with bullying and cyberbullying since its launch in March last year.
Lots of young people who’ve had horrible experiences are motivated to help others in the same situation. What’s great about CyberMentors is that it genuinely helps them to do that.
Young people, aged 11-25, are trained as CyberMentors, in schools and online, so that they can offer support to their peers. They’re also supported by trained counsellors, available online if needed, so site visitors always get the appropriate level of help, and younger volunteers are not in danger of having to deal with issues they’re not able to manage.
This video shows how using her experience of bullying to help others helped CyberMentors volunteer Georgia get her confidence back.
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Help-Portrait: “The greatest thing we’ve ever done with our cameras”
The vlabsblog team has been inspired and excited by the success of Help-Portrait, an innovative photography project which successfully spread masses of festive joy by creating 40,000 free portraits for people to treasure for a lifetime.
On Saturday 12th December, more than 8300 photographers and volunteers in 715 locations in 42 countries gave up their time for the project. The brief is beautifully simple: find someone in need. Take their portrait. Print their portrait. And deliver it to them. That’s it. Simple to do, but as the website shows, a photograph can mean the world to someone, perhaps making a person feel special for the first time in their lives.
Help-Portrait was founded by celebrity photographer Jeremy Cowart with his vision of the photography community and individuals giving back this holiday season. This event reached a magnitude that nobody saw coming.
“On December 12th, cultural borders were crossed on one side of the camera and competitive borders on the other,” reflects Cowart. “I honestly don’t know which side of the camera was blessed more. For many of our subjects across the world, Help-Portrait provided them with their first-ever family photo. However, we’re consistently hearing from many photographers worldwide that this is the greatest thing they’ve ever done with their cameras.”
It’s a lovely way for photographers to be able to share their skills – structured enough to form a template for collective action, yet open enough to let each participant stamp his or her mark on the project. Best of all, each portrait is a memento of a personal interaction between photographer and model, between someone who deserves to feel special and someone who wanted to help. You just can’t buy moments like that.
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Crowd-sourcing funding for voluntary projects
I’ve just discovered Kickstarter, a US-based website which allows budding entrepreneurs to crowd-source the money they need to bring their ideas to life. A service designer I know called it “my favourite website of all time”, and I can see where he’s coming from.
Project creators can offer products, services or other benefits (“rewards”) to inspire people to support their project: A hot-air balloon ride to the first person to pledge $300, an invitation to the BBQ for anyone who pledges more than $5. It’s up to each project creator to sculpt their own offers to inspire people to invest.
From crocheted yurts to plans to write everyone in the world a letter, the site is packed with weird and wonderful ideas, but it’s the voluntary projects which really got me thinking – such as this appeal to save a local community garden. Could it be that by stepping away from the format of traditional funding applications, we could actually inspire more creative volunteering opportunities? The very act of selling a simple idea, rather than a huge project plan, seems like a more natural way to test out your idea on the general public. Winning public support could inspire courage to test the boundaries and be really innovative.
I’m a big fan of Junction 49 and its commitment to supporting young volunteers in working together to bring their ideas to life, as well as v‘s vcashpoint project. I’d love to see what would happen if we could add crowd-sourced funding into the mix. Something tells me that these young volunteers could teach hardened fundraisers a few tricks, and inspire new creative approaches to promoting charitable giving.
I love the idea of voluntary projects having a whole group of supporters, right from the start, who care enough about a project to dig into their pockets to help make it happen. As Kickstart says, a large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.
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