charity – SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DEVELOPMENT

OVEREXPOSED – should images of children be used in charity fundraising?

December 21, 2022December 22, 2022 Admin 3 Comments

Chance for Childhood is a relatively small charity with an income of just less the £1million. The first time I heard of the charity was when they recently launched their #OverExposed campaign which “seeks to reframe thinking and create better practices and policies around child-centred imagery and storytelling.” As part the campaign they have taken the decision to remove identifiable features of children from imagery and video footage, including removing children’s faces from all fundraising campaigns.

The campaign was launched at the House of Lords (I’m not sure how this was achieved?) and is also supported by David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham and Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs.

David is no stranger to debates around charity imagery and accused Comic Relief of White Saviourism when they sent Strictly Come Dancing winner and journalist Stacey Dooley to Uganda to document some of their programming work. Like David, I applaud the decision by Chance for Childhood to remove images of children from their fundraising appeals, but can you solve ethical storytelling by simply removing children’s faces? I suppose it’s a start.

The narrator in the launch video, who is anonymised, asks 4 questions:

What is a segmented, multi-channel donation campaign?
Why is my picture on social media profiles that aren’t mine?
Why is it ok for my image to be published all over the internet, when most parents would not allow it?
Is that ok? Is that ethical? Is that fair?

I like the video, and a great deal of effort has been put into this campaign. The House of Lords launch, support from a prominent MP and the establishment of a resource hub which includes an introductory webinar and five videos:

How do we centre children’s rights and well-being in our stories?
What is informed consent and what are the challenges we face?
Using positive strength-based language in our work
Reducing the risks of telling stories online
How does power impact the collection and usage of stories and images of children?

I confess I haven’t watched the five videos but I did watch the hour long webinar which is chaired by Chance for Childhood staff member Lucy who leads a discussion with Grace and Felicien from Rwanda, and Bokey from Kenya. It’s worth watching and I won’t go into too much detail here but I will just raise a few questions and comments. Firstly, Lucy says that they launched the campaign as “no one is having a public conversation”. This is a bit odd as the Resource Hub Introduction document references “three key guides” – the Dignified Storytelling Handbook, Putting the People in the Picture First: Ethical Guidelines for Collection and Use of Content and DOCHAS Code of Conduct on Images and Messages. Considering that the DOCHAS Code of Conduct was written in 2014, I would say this discussion has been going on some time! I don’t deny the #OverExposed campaign comes from a good place, but the focus seems very much like an overt piece of PR for Chance for Childhood.

For me, one of the strongest statements in the webinar is from Grace, who is a former refugee in Rwanda who says “they take pictures of our pain”. Another statement that resonated with me was from Bokey who is the founder of Glad’s House Kenya. Bokey says that there are two problems trying to stop organisations using images of children: locally people believe negative imagery gives them priority to funding to alleviate the situation and secondly, international donors want to see the situation to justify the needs to send funds. Bokey has also written a blog post “Real change only comes if INGO or International donors don’t ask for photos”. In the blog Bokey says:

The world is smaller now. You can easily lose control of the image you share, and it can be used somewhere else…That image will haunt them forever. Children will be defined for the rest of their lives by a moment in time.

On the whole I think this campaign (like the others before) is an important addition to the discussions around protecting the dignity of “distant others”. Removing children’s faces is a start, but more needs to be done to improve agency and ensuring that children know their rights when people ask to take their pictures. In the webinar Grace says

We no longer say giving a voice to the voiceless because we all know there are no voiceless, there are people who are given the support to speak up.

INGOs must think about how they will give that support for people to speak up!

One small last criticism of this campaign – if your policy is to remove identifiable features of children you really should go back and delete old photos from social media too – there are still lots there….

Charity videos: how to measure ROI

February 16, 2014February 16, 2014 Admin 1 Comment

How do you measure the success of your YouTube channel? Should you set objectives for every video you make? The simple answer to the second question is yes. The answer to the first is a bit more complex.

I’ve had a lot of discussion with people working in NGOs, large and small, about how to measure the success or return on investment of their video production. I’m still amazed that people ask me this question without first understanding their own objectives for the video. I often get asked “What makes a successful video?”. This is impossible to answer without knowing what you are seeking to achieve and who the main audiences are?

Firstly, you need to establish the overall objectives for each video and how they sit with the organisations brand values. Whether we like it or not, there is often an internal conflict between departments within NGOs and therefore very different objectives at play. Here are a few generic objectives to consider before making them SMART (specific / measurable / achievable / realistic / timetabled).

– Increase brand awareness
– Promote awareness or educate on a specific issue
– Celebrate success
– Increase traffic to your website
– Increase social media followers
– Engage with stakeholders
– Attract donations
– Attract new volunteers
– Encourage signing a petition
– Promote an event

Depending on your objective(s) you might implement a number of the metrics below

– Number of views
– Number of likes / dislikes
– Comments – positive / negative
– Number of shares compared to views
– Estimated minutes watched
– Average view duration
– Subscribers gained / lost
– Annotation click through rate
– Click throughs on calls to action in the description
– Media coverage

It’s easier said than done, as staff are often working to tight deadlines on tight budgets. But without analysing the success of videos, organisations are potentially frittering away valuable funds which could be better utilised elsewhere. All of the above metrics should be compared against the cost of producing the video and benchmarked against previous videos as well as the videos of similar sized organisations in the same field. One metric I like to use is the cost per view compared to the average cost of a Google pay-per-click campaign. You also need to create shortened URLs to promote your video consistently through your other social media channels and measure these via a product such as Hootesuite.

Once you have this analysis you can also start to classify which category of storytelling works best for your organisation: informational, humorous, promotional, celebrity content, advocacy, arty, infographic etc. The method of storytelling will obviously depend on the content of the video. Although this process is relatively simple to implement, it is also incredibly time consuming. Other media such as direct response TV advertising (DRTV) and press releases are much easier to measure. Without evidence that your video and other social media channels are making a positive impact, these functions will always play second fiddle to fundraising and PR. This is disappointing as YouTube channels if managed strategically can be a powerful antidote to the often negative images portrayed by many DRTV campaigns.

Charity:Water have repeatedly been applauded for their video campaigns. Their content strategy is to inspire and present images of hope and positivity over sadness and guilt. Their strategy works! Read more about their metrics for success on YouTube’s official blog.

Top 20 International Development Videos

October 9, 2013January 25, 2022 Admin 2 Comments

While there are a lot of great places to market your business, none are as successful as YouTube. It provides you a platform for making videos solutions for HR, which can be a great way to connect and provide benefits to your customers. No matter what kind of product you are working with employee morale, creating your own YouTube channel and making it part of the mix will make a big difference in how successful you are, and here is a Great site for more info !

Some of the things that we will discuss in this book about marketing on YouTube include:

Getting started with YouTube
Doing your first video
Understanding your audience
Providing value to the audience
Tips and strategies for you channel
How to use a conversion video to upsell your product
Promoting your videos
Creating your own AdWords campaign
Using YouTube Analytics to track your performance

I blogged about my Top 10 International Development videos a few months back. At the time I wondered whether to do my Top 20 or Top 10.

There are too many videos not to give you the full list……

1. WaterAid – 1 in 3 women

This chilling video is so effective and talks directly to a western audience. Many people have no idea that millions and millions of people do not have access to sanitary facilities. This video makes that point very clearly. I’m surprised it has only around 5,000 views.

2. Invisible Children – Kony 2012

I’m not a huge fan of this video, but no one can doubt it’s phenomenal success as a “vital video”. It’s been debated to death so I won’t comment here – see my earlier blog if you are interested in a critique. If for some reason you haven’t watched it – please be patient and watch all 29 minutes. Apart from the oversimplification of the storytelling, my other big criticism is that they have turned off the comments.

3. Mismanagers Folliers – Development Boy

Very professionally executed and so catchy. A great parody. I haven’t been able to get the song out of my head for the last 2 weeks, which is why it gets such a high position in my “chart”.

4. Oxfam – Pregnant women dancing in London

A staged flashmob to highlight the dangers of pregnancy and birth around the world. I also love breakdancing. Not personally, just as a spectator. Are they pregnant or aren’t they?

5. SAIH Norway – Africa for Norway

A simple but clever idea with brilliant production values. Not only has this video had over 2million views it also received international media coverage within a couple of days of its release. Read more about the seeding of the video in one of my past blogs.

6. Greenpeace – Barbie, It’s Over

I must have watched this video 20 times and it still makes me laugh. Brilliant scripting and production. Most importantly it succeeded in its goal. Love it!

7. Price Tag Lip Dub by 500 Ugandan Women.

This is superb! Really made me smile. It’s fun, well produced, well rehearsed, educational and has a simple message. “We Africans Want the Same Things You Want. Survival is Not Enough.” Excellent!

8. Rainforest Alliance – Follow the Frog

I really can’t say why I like this video so much, it just makes me smile. I’m not sure if it will increase ethical purchasing much though.

9. Mama Hope – African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes

Another interesting video in a similar vain to Africa for Norway. It seems that there is a new paradigm of development communication emerging.

10. Comic Relief – Ricky Gervais

A great sketch for Comic Relief with a few surprisingly funny cameos. See my blog on the Huffington Post about irony in development communications.

11.International Aid Worker Meets African Villager

A tongue in cheek look at development workers in ‘Africa’. Note the negative comments in the YouTube comments.

12. Greenpeace – KitKat

Don’t watch this if you are squeamish! Very effective video, which resulted in Nestle re-sourcing its palm oil.

13. Mama Hope – Call Me Hope

Clever with great sound track from Simon and Garfunkel. I love the split screen.

14. Save the Children – I Know You Care

http://youtu.be/tI1GR78A6yg

Chilling imagery and powerful use of celebrity endorsement with Ellie Goulding.

15. Water Aid – Pump Up the Volume

Silly. But it’s my era and I love dancing and ghetto blasters.

16. School of International Development, UEA – What is International Development?

I had to include this film somewhere as I helped produce it for the School of International Development. I hope you like it.

17. First World Problems Anthem

I don’t love this video, but you can’t deny its success.

18. British Red Cross – I am a Crisis

Dark and effective.

19. Action Against Hunger – The Share Experiment

I have young children. This gives me goosebumbs. If only life was this simple.

20. Thai Health Promotion Board – Smoking Kid

Says it all.by

UNICEF, Social Media and Tom Hiddleston

July 23, 2013July 23, 2013 Admin 1 Comment

I recently met with Laila Takeh who is Head of Digital Engagement at UNICEF in the UK. UNICEF is a ‘digital first’ organisation and topped the 2012 Social Charity 100 Rankings. I have been extremely impressed in the way UNICEF has adopted digital media as a tool for advocacy, fundraising and information dissemination so was pleased that Laila agreed to a meeting.

Laila and I had a long discussion about UNICEF’s use of social media. We talked about compassion fatigue and indeed social media fatigue, and ways of iterative re-packaging strategies to overcome this. We also discussed the much debated anti ‘slacktivism’ campaign by UNICEF Sweden ‘Likes don’t save lives’, but one of the first things I wanted to know about was UNICEF’s use of celebrity, which is an area that fascinates me. UNICEF have a large number of celebrity ambassadors or “high profile supporters” including Ewan McGregor, David Beckham, Eddie Izzard, Emma Bunton, Cat Deeley, Robbie Williams and many more. They have a long history of working with celebrities, in fact their first celebrity supporter was Danny Kaye in 1954.

Just before our meeting I had been looking at UNICEF’s YouTube channel to see what videos were most popular. 12 out of the 15 most popular videos are celebrity videos. The 6th most popular video was from someone called Tom Hiddleston, who I’d never heard of even though his filmography is very impressive. If you are interested in social media and celebrity, which I am, then Tom Hiddleston is a great case study. Tom is very active on twitter and has 573,633 followers. I just had a look at Tom’s twitter feed and 5 out of his last 7 tweets mention UNICEF. Those 5 tweets have had a total of 919 retweets. Just think of the reach of those 5 messages.

One of his tweets about the #IF campaign was retweeted 417 times and favourited 486 times. Tom’s fans are digitally engaged and on cause. According to Laila, just one of his #IF tweets generated several thousand pounds on their fundraising platform. Tom’s fans (Hiddlestoners) also raised over £30k as part of a Hiddlestoners Have Heart campaign, they even set up their own twitter account for the campaign.

Tom visited New Guinea for 5 days to write a series of blogs. It was UNICEF UK’s first ever ‘digital trip’. He traveled with two members of staff from the UK office, plus his photographer and met up with one member of staff from the country office. The digital team back in the UK regularly updated Tom on daily activity and feedback from the various social media sites. They also asked followers what they would like to see Tom do whilst he is in New Guinea.

Tom’s post are beautifully written, with emotion and great detail. They help to build a picture of the work that UNICEF carry out in New Guinea. They discuss development problems such as water, nutrition, sanitation, vaccination and education, but they also tackle more sensitive issues such as female genital mutilation. I was particularly interested in Tom’s blog on Day 3 where he discusses participatory communication after visiting a rural community radio station and meeting a ‘traditional communicator’.

Kapoor (2013) believes that celebrity humanitarianism is an ideological phenomenon which often tackles the symptoms rather than the causes. He suggests that celebrities bring their ‘star power’ to raise public awareness about development issues, but there is often a tendency to individualise and isolate problems and that broader issues of politics and cultural imperialism are often glossed over.

It is probably fair to say that Tom’s blog posts do deal with the symptoms rather than the causes, but he does touch on politics and history within education. He also talks about development projects needing to be self-educating and self-sustaining. His posts are interesting and engaging with many comments from readers. I think that the ”Tom Hiddleston’s Guinea Field Diary’ was a roaring success and I’m sure there will be many digital trips to follow.

UNICEF have a long history of working with celebrity ambassadors. Unlike some other development/humanitarian organisations they have quickly adopted digital media strategies and learned how to engage with their supporters and their ambassadors’ supporters though social media.

Reference
Kapoor, I (2013) Celebrity Humanitarianism – The ideology of global charity