\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Slacktivism is defined thus: The idea that sharing, liking or retweeting will solve a problem.<\/p>\n
Someone has to actually do the work and make the problem go away people \u2013 just passing the problem on and going \u2018WTF\u2019, \u2018OMG\u2019 or \u2018WWJD\u2019 helps fokol mense.<\/p>\n
Some background to this latest wave of Slacktivism:<\/strong><\/p>\n According to non-profit, Invisible Children<\/a>, \u201cJoseph Kony is the world\u2019s worst war criminal. In 1987 he took over leadership of an existing rebel group and renamed it the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army (LRA).<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe 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 \u2018wives\u2019 for his officers. The LRA is encouraged to rape, mutilate, and kill civilians\u2013often with blunt weapons.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe LRA is no longer active in northern Uganda (where it originated) but it continues its campaign of violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan.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.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cInvisible Children has been working for 9 years to end Africa\u2019s longest-running armed conflict. U.S. military advisers are currently deployed in Central Africa on a \u2018time-limited\u2019 mission to stop Kony and disarm the LRA. If Kony isn\u2019t captured this year, the window will be gone.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The cynic in me always says; \u201cNo-one actually does something good for no reward \u2013 not even the Pope!\u201d. Allied to that I am a firm believer in; \u201cFollow the Money\u201d. Especially after the rumblings that have come my way with regard to Public Benefit Organisations in our neck of the woods \u2013 see: Guidelines for PBO\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n So whilst the sheep were wagging their stumpy tails and passing these links on others such as Mashable<\/a> and Visible Children<\/a> have been raising questions about the legitimacy of Invisible Children\u2019s claims to be ALL ABOUT stopping Kony.<\/p>\n Visible Children said; \u201cInvisible 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\u2019t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Download the Invisible Children financials here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n We have to be cognisant of different country tax laws governing non-profits though.<\/p>\n Invisible Children say this about their financials; \u201cInvisible Children\u2019s 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<\/a>. 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.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSee a screen-shot (click here<\/a>) 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n 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\u2019ing even greater amounts of money out of their slacktivist pockets.<\/p>\n The Invisible Children have climbed into your pocket \u2013 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.<\/p>\n Although \u2013 maybe you should be giving your money to this wild Hillbilly who is actively hunting Kony down and has started an orphanage in Uganda \u2013 Meet Sam Childers<\/a>, the Machine Gun Preacher<\/a>, at least he put his life on the line and didn\u2019t just click a link!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1289,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-8729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mype","8":"tag-port-elizabeth-2","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}