Almost out of nowhere the sheep are sharing links to the Joseph Kony 2012 campaign without really investigating what they are doing. Millions of people across the world are poking their noses out of their slacktivist duvets and pushing a button to LIKE or TWEET just because it has become the thing to do.
Slacktivism is defined thus: The idea that sharing, liking or retweeting will solve a problem.
Someone has to actually do the work and make the problem go away people – just passing the problem on and going ‘WTF’, ‘OMG’ or ‘WWJD’ helps fokol mense.
Some background to this latest wave of Slacktivism:
According to non-profit, Invisible Children, “Joseph Kony is the world’s worst war criminal. In 1987 he took over leadership of an existing rebel group and renamed it the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
“The LRA has earned a reputation for its cruel and brutal tactics. When Joseph Kony found himself running out of fighters, he started abducting children to be soldiers in his army or ‘wives’ for his officers. The LRA is encouraged to rape, mutilate, and kill civilians–often with blunt weapons.
“The LRA is no longer active in northern Uganda (where it originated) but it continues its campaign of violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan. In its 26-year history, the LRA has abducted more than 30,000 children and displaced at least 2.1 million people.
“Invisible Children has been working for 9 years to end Africa’s longest-running armed conflict. U.S. military advisers are currently deployed in Central Africa on a ‘time-limited’ mission to stop Kony and disarm the LRA. If Kony isn’t captured this year, the window will be gone.”
The cynic in me always says; “No-one actually does something good for no reward – not even the Pope!”. Allied to that I am a firm believer in; “Follow the Money”. Especially after the rumblings that have come my way with regard to Public Benefit Organisations in our neck of the woods – see: Guidelines for PBO’s.
So whilst the sheep were wagging their stumpy tails and passing these links on others such as Mashable and Visible Children have been raising questions about the legitimacy of Invisible Children’s claims to be ALL ABOUT stopping Kony.
Visible Children said; “Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they haven’t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that.”
Download the Invisible Children financials here.
In South Africa the accepted legislated norm is that at least 75% of a non-profits turnover is used for what is termed direct services as above. So, here Invisible Children get a big fat FAIL in my book as they collected over $13 million in donations and, in the SA context that amounts to a distribution of only 20.41% of the funds.
We have to be cognisant of different country tax laws governing non-profits though.
Invisible Children say this about their financials; “Invisible Children’s financial statements are online for everyone to see. Financial statements from the last 5 years, including our 990, are available at www.invisiblechildren.com/financials. The organization spent 80.46% on our programs that further our three fold mission, 16.24% on administration and management costs and 3.22% on direct fundraising in FY2011. Invisible Children is independently audited every year and in full compliance with our 501 c 3 status.
“See a screen-shot (click here) from pages 35 and 36 of the 2011 Invisible Children annual report that detail our total expenses for Fiscal Year 2011. An expense statement by class is the way nonprofits present their expenses to the public because it’s the clearest way to show the purpose of different organizational expenses vs. a line item expense statement such as the one on Page 6 of our Audited Financial Report.”
So, once again the accountants have seen a gap, the creatives have seen a way to charge ever higher development fees and the sheep have shuffled along clicking and baa’ing even greater amounts of money out of their slacktivist pockets.
The Invisible Children have climbed into your pocket – come back this time next year to see if Joseph Kony is sitting behind bars or still flipping the bird to so-called intelligent and civilized people such as you and I.
Although – maybe you should be giving your money to this wild Hillbilly who is actively hunting Kony down and has started an orphanage in Uganda – Meet Sam Childers, the Machine Gun Preacher, at least he put his life on the line and didn’t just click a link!
