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30 April 2010
When Doing Good has Nothing to do with it
A recent debate has been sparked in the development community in response to the #1millionshirts campaign to donate 1 million t-shirts to Africa. As a lifelong activist turned social entrepreneur in the tech space, the issue of making recipient recognition and participation the main issue, is paramount to my understanding of healthy, effective and sustainable development projects. As someone who has been schooled by the very organizer of the chat, @katrinskaya, I was compelled to follow up with her by email regarding these concerns...and to open them up to the public for a grand 'ol hashing, uh, I mean healthy discourse.
My 'deep penetrating thoughts' after participating in the "first-ever global press conf/mea culpa / paradigm shifting dev convo from 5 continents originated on twitter":
1) Why is it not a relevant and huge issue to address that the project founder's intentions may not be noble. That they may not be good. He is a marketer, he insists. The 'problem' lays layers beneath him, in that the biggest corporations' bottom lines are now dependent on doing good and not looking like they are spilling metaphoric oil all over the world. I see this as the real root of the issue - that it is all about $, the aid complex, even this founder's 'good intentions' (which quickly shifted during the convo into an 'I'm a marketer' mantra).
2) This conversation reminds me of when the light went off for me on this issue, planning the first Twestival in NYC. When the biggest companies were begging to sponsor the event, not 1 of the 10 planners (myself included) had any ethic or guideline for the process as it related to the charitable recipient. My voice was silenced, and I honestly didn't know how to raise it effectively because the power of the 'herd' of the social media nyc digerati was so strong, as was the raw and authentic excitement among these PR professionals and entrepreneurs to be a part of 'doing good'. Many from that core ten planners blogged that doing Twestival was the most powerful experience in their life, something somewhat unfathomable to anyone who has taken up a hardship development post, well, anywhere.
3) Ways forward post convo: My personal approach as co-founder of Travelcology, was to approach NGOs before even starting our business, and to build this concept on a transparency model and modus operandi that includes webinars like this from the onset of our launch. My question to this community is: why should any entrepreneur or 'do gooder' now receive communique from various world leaders, who will now serve on his board and work with him, when he didn't do the homework of finding out that these people exist prior to launching a project? Why, I ask, should the lot of us devote an hour of 'free consulting time' to his cause, when the reality is that this circumstance arose out of a business whose founder realized he could market his product better if he gave some away. Arguably not noble or purely intended, nor having much to do with Africa at all! (Sorry Africa, I love ya!) In hearing Jason specifically speak, it reminded me of when folks get called out on being racist, after which they claim their best friends are black and usually a person of color has to step in to teach the uneducated person the harmful impact of their ignorance. My dream outcome of this conference call would not be that Jason get schooled (any single marketer or entrepreneur is inconsequential to the underlying issue). My hope would be that this community cocreates a go-to spot online for best practices in #ict4dev for these issues, as opposed to any social entrepreneur getting to make a buck out of our group thought, outrage, or otherwise.
4) It never occurred to Jason to contact local t-shirt dealers NOT because he is ignorant or doesn't think to partner with local organizations, but because this doesn't make him any money. A similar example would be the nyc organizer of Twestival, who took his new-found social media for social good fame and launched a cause related marketing campaign to crowdsource the inventing of a recyclable coffee cup (every digital strategist must have a cause-celebre). He scored sponsor contacts gained from Twestival and got Starbucks to give $20K to crowdsource the silver bullet cure all. What's interesting is the community response, as shown in this Fast Company article Link, where in the comments section, an entrepreneur asks why this venture didn't just partner up with the existing recycled coffee cup company that has 10 years of successful independent operational success under their belt. The answer given in the comments section is, well, because they are marketers.
I give thanks to every mentor I've ever had from childhood on who has taught me to question my privilege, know my history, and use both as a means for further education and the saving of one self before anything else. I hope this personal response, and the greater global chatter leads to us all getting better at what we do.
Though hard it is for me or anyone to swallow, we act out of ego. and when we get called out on it, it sucks. When we convince ourselves we are doing good, or saving others, it sucks even more.
~ danielle