Yesterday’s post for Earth Day, about social media and the energy/climate change/green movement is already getting some tremendously insightful and interesting comments. It’s just the kind of conversation starter I wanted to throw out there!
Last night I had the privileage of attending the awards ceremony for JustGiving‘s CEO Zarine Kharas who was awarded the RSA’s 2008 Albert Medal for ‘democratising fundraising and technology for charities’. During her excellent presentation, I started thinking about this new world we live in. I have written before about the way I believe causes are shifting be the way individuals identify themselves, group up, and organize. JustGiving’s success, the sheer numbers (in millions) of people using the peer to peer platform for fundraising, campaigning and awareness, shows that people are ready and willing, jumping at the opportunity even, to integrate philanthropy and social change work into their every day lives.
So that got me thinking about the idea of cause fatigue. I believe that cause fatigue should be redefined: instead of the idea that we are each faced with too many inputs and calls to action every day that we are rendered actionless (the delete all syndrome); the real cause fatigue is that calls to action, cause alignment and advocacy are so mainstream that none of the calls or campaigns are revolutionary or important, shocking or compelling.
So how does a cause, an organization, a campaign re-emerge?
What do you think? I can’t wait to hear your ideas on this and to share mine, too.
Want to talk about in person – I’ll be at the NTC and will be eager to continue the conversation there as well (will update the blog with highlights from those offline conversations!).