'Liking' your way to impact

Social Media is a powerful tool; it has the ability to sway public opinion and shed light on issues that would otherwise never see the light of day: Kony 2012 anyone?

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, donations to the charitable sector stood at 2% of the gross domestic product and posited that if everyone gave up a morning coffee, $220-billion more could go to charity on a yearly basis. Easy, direct, and something that won't break the bank...but we're not doing it...why?

Because social media, has created a "new" way for individuals to feel like they're making a difference-through likes and retweets. The buffer that the social media sphere has created insulates many from actually doing...as a result, liking something on Facebook or getting something retweeted is the new way of defining impact...what I don't understand is, how can you claim impact when a 'like' doesn't really do anything.

While exposure to a message is good, as Unicef so cleverly illustrates, it means nothing if there is no action to back it up. The awareness generating machine that is social media can quickly create exposure for a cause or group (Kony/Invisible Children), however, the goal of the charitable sector is creating impact and change, and that can only be accomplished through action, and likes or retweets aren't designed to do that.

So why, if likes and the social currency generated from them, are doing little to actually advance the missions of charitable organizations, is so much time and energy being placed on getting more of them? When you read about the US State Dept spending $630,000 on Facebook likes, it makes you wonder, to what end? Are those likes influencing foreign policy? Do they really matter? Couldn't that money have been better spent elsewhere?

Some social media campaigns like tweetathons, or text to give, when successful, generate revenue, a clear cause and effect relationship that enables groups to continue carrying out their mission. The success stories while few and far between offer a foundation upon which growth and lessons learned can be derived from. However, with the ubiquity of social media, taking a stand no longer means sticking your neck out and running the risk of being associated with an issue by attending a protest, rally, community meeting, etc...it means changing your profile picture to this:

While supporting issues you believe is important, and social media enables broad exposure, what are you actually doing? Are you writing your congressperson? Are you donating money to support the causes that align with your societal views? Are you Volunteering your time to causes that make you warm and fuzzy? My guess is no...and therein lies the problem.

Social media is making it so that everyone is a brand, and how we market our brand has become more important than what we stand for. As Nilofer Merchant, from the Harvard Business Review so succinctly puts it: "Your Brand is the Exhaust Fume of the Engine of Your Life." 

Show me the money...

While not all disasters are created equal in terms of news coverage, scope of damage, and economic impact, etc...the desire to do something is powerful, and oftentimes that desire manifests itself in the form of making a monetary donation.

The knee-jerk reaction is to donate to the Red Cross, a response that can be seen in the high profile donations of Kevin Durant, Carrie Underwood, The Oklahoma Thunder, and Chesapeake Energy Corp. Following the Moore tornado, the Red Cross has received more than $15 million in donations which underscores the power donations have following an event. However, with the advent of crowdfunding sites, the landscape of how people donate money to response & recovery is beginning to change. With a stronger emphasis being placed on accountability, speed, and impact, donors are looking at new ways to ensure their donations go to the people who need it as expeditiously as possible.

This shift towards a higher degree of accountability and results reporting is best illustrated by the authority in non-profit rankings, Charity Navigator. They are introducing additional metrics as part of their ratings to include timely, detailed donor reporting on fund allocation and program impacts. To read more about the evolution of the non-profit rating system and how your charity of choice ranks, their site is a wealth of information.

In response to the donor desire for greater accountability and speed, sites like: indiegogo and gofundme are working to eliminate "the middle man" by empowering donors to give directly to impacted families. While donors feel a more direct connection, the potential for fraud increases significantly due to the fact that anyone can claim to be a survivor and need help.

With the understanding that millions of dollars are flowing into communities following disasters, coupled with the perception that traditional aid is too clunky and bureaucratic, I believe there will be a rapid proliferation of direct giving tools and applications aimed at shifting donations to impacted communities from traditional aid structures.