Hank & John Start VidCon Early in the Morning (thus the rare shot of empty seats)

VidCon. In a word? WOW. As one friend put it, “it’s like the internet exploded into real life”. It was surreal, amazing, & awesome to meet people that I’ve only been able to see through my computer screen.

Even though there wasn’t nearly enough time, I’m in awe at how seamlessly online friends turned into “real life” friends. In most cases it’s like you’ve known someone for ages and are just hanging out.

This photo makes me look more epic than I ever have the right to be.

Hank & Me on Stage

It was also a real honor to be able to speak in front of 1,700+ people at VidCon. I can’t thank Hank & John Green enough for this opportunity.

In all honesty, if they were picking speakers solely based on number of YouTube subscribers & views, than I would never have been picked. But, that’s part of the reason I’m so grateful I had this chance.

I believe that YouTube is an unprecedented force for good in this world. Forget the haters – we as a community can do amazing things. But, I believe the power of this community remains largely untapped.

With the exception of YouTube featuring stuff, the conversation about global poverty is but a small teeny tiny fraction of the conversation going on YouTube. That’s something I’d like to change.

I’m trying my best – but I can’t do it alone. It’s hard because I can’t do what normal YouTubers do to climb the charts and become a success.

For example, I can be informal & casual but – given the subject matter – I can’t be too silly. Although I want to, I also can’t make videos on a regular & frequent schedule. I’m forced to balance doing a good job on-the-ground with spending time making videos.

In some cases, the projects I do take years to complete. They require planning, networking, budgets, on-the-ground trust building, and also need to account for natural disasters & political unrest which push back schedules.

The video I showed at VidCon is a perfect example. It took 1,000 days to bring this story to an audience. It’s hard to do something like that on a weekly basis. It’s for that reason I need the YouTube community to help me share & spread videos like this one:

So speaking at VidCon was very important because, not only is what I do funded by the YouTube community, the future success of this project is entirely dependent on how much support this work gets on YouTube.

This trip to VidCon wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Hank Green (VidCon event organizer and vlogbrother) who sponsored my flight to VidCon and Patrick Clinger at ProBoards who sponsored my room, board, and stay in Los Angeles.

If you’re going, here’s a sneak peak of a short 6 minute video I hope to show there. The YouTube version will go up afterwards.

The reason I’ve been inspired to write about this is because I’m a huge fan of this blog post critical of “hug-an-orphan” trips and charities.

If you’ve ever traveled to the developing world, you know what I’m talking about: you hear of some school for poor children (and/or an orphanage) that lets you volunteer for however much time you can spare. You can also photograph and film until your heart’s content – without restrictions.

And, especially nowadays, you can even book a trip just to go abroad to help people. It’s called voluntourism. And, unfortunately, it’s nothing like the long-term work required in the Peace Corps or VSO.

While I’ve had a hard time teaming up with big charities, I’ve had plenty of unrestricted offers by smaller charities, schools, and orphanages in Bangladesh to come over, film, photograph, and help the kids there.

And, you know what? That raises a huge red flag for me.

An open-door, unrestricted, policy on filming, photography, and volunteering to anyone who shows up is often not in the best interest of children and is more about making the volunteer feel good about themselves.

As the blog post critical of such establishments points out:

Generally volunteers will only stay at the orphanage [or school] for a few days, weeks, or at best months. While at the orphanage most volunteers seek to build emotional bonds with the children so they can feel they made a difference. Unfortunately, although well intended, this leads to a never ending round of abandonment for the orphans.

As much as it delays things, it’s actually a good sign when there’ s at least a bit of a struggle to film & photograph. I love it when I get treated with skepticism, prodding questions, and subjected to background checks.

Students studying by candlelight at the Dharmarajika Orphanage. This orphanage gave me a tough time to get access. Which is exactly why I wanted to help them.

You know why? It shows they actually give a damn about those they help. These hoops also filter out those who want to help just to feel good about themselves – and those who want to actually make a difference.

Save the Children's USA HQ (pic by Madge Canning)

After an hour of Keynote slides, graphs, and videos I was pleased to see that my presentation was well received. Lots of nodding heads. But I needed one more thing. I need to drive the message home. It was time to unleash what I called the secret weapon.

I went to my laptop, loaded up YouTube, and played one last video. This time the video wasn’t filmed in some rural village, it didn’t have fancy editing, and it didn’t have nice background music. It was filmed in the parking lot – just before I stepped into the room.

Yes, I too am mind boggled how my videos could be seen more than any video of her. Do charities need celebrities?

Within the brief time I was giving this presentation, not only did people leave comments – but many people made video responses which I was able to play for staff right then and there. The message of each video was the same: let’s team up and do more projects.

Finally, to hit the last nail, I compared the views of this video to Save the Children’s slickly edited video staring America Ferrera on location in Mali. In less than a couple of hours, this video had more views than America Ferrera had got in over a couple of weeks.

“If this is what I can do for you in your parking lot, imagine what I can do for you in the field”. This, in essence, was my pitch to Save the Children. In fact, it’s my pitch to any charity. It’s not complicated, it’s not bureaucratic, it’s simple. Here are the facts:

• Fact 1: Any charity that uses donations for PR, outreach, or social media needs to justify that it’s spending it wisely for maximum impact.

• Fact 2: To date, all the various branches of Save the Children, are spending millions of dollars (from your donations) and hiring hundreds of staff to raise awareness on YouTube, Twitter, and elsewhere in “social media”.

• Fact 3: Part of these millions of dollars goes to sending videographers, bloggers, and other PR personnel around the world. Including personnel video blogging from the World Cup in South Africa.

• Fact 4: Despite this, the online reach of all those efforts combined is still less than the online reach of this project. This project is the #1 “social media” source about Save the Children.

• Fact 5: For less than the cost of hiring me, Save the Children can team up with me as a “free agent” again and continue to have access to the reach of this project backed by one very awesome community.

Click for full size: A chart I showed at my presentation showing total YouTube views generated. Blue is Save the Children USA efforts (under 200k views) and Red is globally funded efforts (under 1 million views). Orange is me (over 2.1 million views). Identical trends exist on Twitter.

Despite this, in over a year of discussions, there still isn’t a concrete plan to team up with them in the developing world again.

This has been described as “Not Invented Here” syndrome. Beth Kanter might call it a “fortress” mentality. But the end result is that charities like Save the Children overspend on social media and reach far less people than they could by collaborating with free agents.

A big hit on the ground & online for Save the Children. But I had to beg and borrow to get there and film the conclusion.

If you’re familiar with this project, you probably are familiar with the water project I completed with Save the Children. The video of that got over 100,000 views - that’s far more views than any official Save the Children video has ever got online.

Despite that, during the conclusion of that project, I had to find my own funds to go to the village to film it. Save the Children would not even support the creation of that video by letting me hitch a ride with them from the city to the village.

Bonus Fact 1: As more charities become more like “Networked Non-Profits”, charities that are “fortresses” or have “Not Invented Here” syndrome are either going to have to evolve or make way for better charities.

Bonus Fact 2: I wouldn’t be trying so hard if I didn’t think Save the Children was a charity worth supporting. And part of this comes from the fact that I’ve seen how they conduct themselves on the ground.

Beth Kanter

I don’t believe the reason extreme poverty exists is because of a lack of charities. In my lifetime, the number of charities fighting global poverty has grown astronomically. Yet, we haven’t seen a proportional decrease in global poverty.

The reason I haven’t formalized, disadvantages aside, is because global poverty won’t be solved with yet another charity. Instead, I believe we need to change the conversation and change how we work to solve this problem.

Before starting this project, I never realized how competitive and insular many charities can become. Some charities won’t even talk to their sister branches in other countries! And many charities expect outsiders like me just to stick to signing petitions and checks.

Whether or not it’s through my project, I want charities to be more about communities – not corporate structure. I want them to collaborate – not compete. I want individuals like me to be able to “plug in” and help.

That’s exactly what Beth Kanter is talking about. Except she does it from a position of a well-respected expert and scholar. Here’s what she has to say about how charities should be conducting themselves in the 21st century:

What I like about Beth is that she completely understands the frustrations I have to deal with. I’m what she calls a “free agent”: someone who does what a charity does, but as an individual. Both Beth & I think free agents should team up with charities – but many charities resist this:

Thanks to Beth and the Red Cross’s Wendy Harman, I’ve been making a lot of progress in teaming up with the Red Cross. In fact, I’ve made more progress in a few weeks with the Red Cross than I have with my year-long talks with Save the Children.

Prior to meeting Beth, I would have raised my arms in frustration at this resistance many charities throw up when it comes to teaming up with free agents. But, Beth has made me realize that I need to imagine organizations complexly. People inside may want change, but the organization itself might be a “fortress”.

And really, in many respects, people like Beth aren’t just talking about what charities should be doing. What Beth is really talking about is what charities must do if they want to exist in the 21st century. It will be interesting to see which ones evolve… and which ones become obsolete.

Torontonians Disrupted by Subway Suicide (Taken This Afternoon)

I’m writing this because this incident reminds me that no one lives in a bubble. We all live in this world and create ripples that affect – and “disrupt” – other people. Whether this “disruption” is positive or negative on others depends on how we live – and on what terms we die.

The value of a single life has been on my mind a lot today because I’ve been attending this conference here on Toronto for charities called “Net Change 2010″. As an outsider to the charity “ecosystem”, I’m often surprised how much charities act like (or at least talk like) dispassionate businesses.

Despite being surrounded by people & charities doing amazing things – saving lives in Haiti, helping the handicapped, providing assistance to the homeless – I felt like I was at an MBA seminar. “Marketing”, “Retention”, and “Branding Strategy” were all the buzzwords in most seminars.

Not only that, most people whom I’d talk about my project to would praise me but then ask “how do you plan on scaling this?”. How can I do more than “just one water project”? Since I can’t be everywhere at once, how can I help more than “just one village” during a natural disaster?

My question is this: why does it always have to be about the numbers?

I like that I do charity work as an individual. I’ve given reasons before, but one of the luxuries is that I don’t have to worry about the numbers. Well, except when I’m trying to network with charities that is.

If I want to change the world, all I have to do is meaningfully change one life. Just one. And then all I have to do to make it “scale” is sit back and watch the spark of that one life create positive disruptions throughout humanity.

And, you know what? If charities focused more on the value of one, I’m pretty sure all their concerns about “marketing”, “retention”, and “branding strategy” would fall into place by themselves.

Joey also travels to developing countries and photographs and films those living in poverty. Recently, he uploaded a video on his trip to visit the The Mentawai in rural Indonesia (WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK):

The reason this video is not safe for work is because it shows full frontal nudity of children. I’m not trying to hate on Joey. In his defense, this is probably nothing more than you’d find in National Geographic Magazine. I’m sure the intention was documenting – not pornography.

But, this raises a question, what are the ethics of filming and photographing the poor in the nude? Is filming for charitable purposes different than filming for documentary purposes? Are the standards different for those living in the West vs. those living in developing countries?

From what I can tell of Joey’s work, that seems to be the case. In this video, he blurs and blocks out nudity of himself and his assistant as they bathe in a river – but does not do the same for any of the naked locals in the same scene (WARNING: ALSO NOT SAFE FOR WORK):

For me, I come from a very different perspective. Even if families are itching and eager to be on camera – if they are nude, I say no. Or, at the very least, frame it to protect privacy. This helps because when I team up with Save the Children, I’m in line with their policies and practices.

But the fact is, no matter how much care & consideration one takes in filming and photography, there is always going to be someone out there who thinks you’re grossly violating the rights and disrespecting your subjects.

On-the-ground I know that my paranoia of not filming nudity seems to foster respect among those I film & photograph. It also stems from the fact that I share a cultural ancestry with most of the people I try and help.

It’s for that reason, I’m not going to change how I do things. But, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – especially if there are any professional photographers and filmmakers out there reading this.

Beth Kanter

This blog post is for those who have found my work through Beth Kanter’s presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City.

First, don’t let the self-referential blog posts, tweets, and videos fool you – this isn’t about me as much as it is about the community supporting it. We are a group of idealistic people who want to be part of the generation that ends extreme poverty (in our lifetime no less).

But, we don’t like being guilted into donating with depressing images of poverty. We don’t like to donate money in a way we can’t track where our donation has gone. And we don’t like the fact that most charities can be fortresses which tend to keep us at arms length.

My role in this community is simple: I’m part journalist (telling stories from the field), I’m part philanthropist (raising funds as a private citizen), and I’m part implementer (executing the democratic will of the communities I meet on the ground and the community that participates online).

I call this community-powered “philanthropic journalism”. Beth calls it being a “free agent”. If this is something you’d like to engage – here’s what you should keep in mind:

On the Ground Access

5) I need on-the-ground access: I need to be able to bring my camera, cellphone, and laptop into the field with your charity or organization so I can write blogs, make videos, and tweet. This means I need both the permission from your organization to do so and technical capacity (i.e. internet connection & bandwidth) to upload content from the field.

4) I have a preference for Bangladesh: My parents were born & raised in Bangladesh – it has a special place in my heart. More importantly, if we team up in Bangladesh you don’t have to worry about needing a Bengali translator or worry about setting me up with mobile internet. I can figure it out.

3) I do more than report: I need to be able to provide your organization with restricted donations to do specific projects. Why restricted? Because it’s the only way I can guarantee to the community where exactly their money has gone. Ideally, I’d like to negotiate minimal (or no) administrative costs.

Connecting Communities

2) I do more than donate: I have learned the devil is in the details. Having control over naming rights, signboard design, and allowing for changes in project plans based on on-the-ground feedback and online input is how this becomes less about hand-outs and more about one community helping another.

1) I don’t do it for name or fame: If this was about self-aggrandizement, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post from Toronto, Canada. I’d already be back in the field with a fly by night “charity” which would let me do whatever I wanted. This is about doing good with good organizations.

I realize that these five things don’t make it the easiest for me to work or team up with. It would be so much easier for me to take photos while I hand you a big check at your home office. But, the community behind this project wants something more substantive. In exchange, you will find we’re fiercely loyal and passionate. And made of awesome.

If you’re a for-profit, you’re more than welcome to join what we could call a “threesome for good”: with me as a free-agent, a trusted organization as charity implementer, and a for-profit helping to fund the logistics (and the charity’s admin costs) behind all this. And hey, if there is a for-profit that will pay a man to dance around the world, surely there is a for-profit that will pay for this guy to go and help people.

You can reach me on Twitter @uncultured and by email at project@uncultured.com

Just thought I’d follow up that post with a video. Here’s something a Microsoft employee sent me about the work they do with CARE to save lives in Kenya:

I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro and I just recently came back from a pilgrimage to two Apple Stores in search of a Camera Connection Kit for my iPad. I’m a fanboy.

But I dare you to find Apple doing anything like this.

Many charities think the best way to raise awareness of their work is to get a celebrity endorsement. Don’t get me wrong: Hollywood celebrities can do a lot for a charity – but not as much as you think.

As I’ve blogged about before, especially on the internet, charities may actually get more mileage by giving regular folks (with online supporters) the same opportunities that charities give celebrities.

I’ve been doing more than just ranting on this blog – here’s six (among many) charities that I’ve talked to about this.

Save the Children

In April, I was invited to speak at Save the Children USA’s global headquarters. Just before speaking, I used a flip camera to make this video which I uploaded to YouTube. At the end of the talk, I showed them results.

In less than 2 hours, it had three times the views that their 2 week old video of some famous Hollywood celebrity in Mali trying to fundraise and build a school with Save the Children.

My take home point for them was this: if this is what someone like me can do for them in their parking lot, imagine what I (or fellow YouTubers) could do for them in the field.

In fact, to sweeten the deal, I mentioned that I’ve already fundraised enough to get us within striking distance of building a school. All I asked was that Save the Children give me the identical opportunity as this celebrity.

Thus far, there hasn’t been any indication that Save the Children is interested in doing this. They like me. They like my work. So, really, this is just about how sometimes a big multi-national charity can take a lot of time to come to a decision.

World Vision

If there is an example of a big multinational charity that doesn’t move slowly – it’s World Vision. They were one of the first to see the value of YouTube. Now, they seem to be one of the first that see the value of YouTubers.

World Vision is already actively approaching YouTube video makers (or vloggers). It’s still preliminary but it looks like they want to do something where vloggers get the same opportunities as their Hollywood celebrity spokespeople.

I’ve given input to the staff spearheading this, but I’m not involved in anything officially. I do hope there is room for me and my project in World Vision’s plans. Also, I hope that the end result creates something that is more than just a photo-op for video bloggers.

Red Cross

I’ve blogged about the Red Cross recently. Simply put: they get it. And, I’d actually say the Red Cross is really the leader here. As my conversations with some of their staff show, they feel there is a limit to how much the can do on the internet by themselves.

Many Red Cross staff believe that the key to their success is by creating relationships with people on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook with large online followings and bringing them into the field to tell stories about the Red Cross and their work.

The fact that Red Cross staff are thinking along these lines seriously gives me a lot of hope for the future of their organization. It’s really only a question of whether it’s the Red Cross or World Vision which gets the ball rolling first.

Charity: Water

If you know these guys, I think it’s safe to say they really are the leaders when it comes to connecting online communities to the work they do. They have over a million followers on Twitter, let anyone fundraise without taking a cut of donations, and show you where the money goes.

I got to talk to Charity: Water’s founder Scott Harrison during my trip to NYC in April. Scott seemed open to having non-celebs like me visit their operations on the ground, fundraise, and show people where the money they fundraised goes.

But, I guess the only reason they haven’t moved on something more solid yet is because of funding. For example, if I were to team up with Charity: Water, I’d have to pay the entire way – even down to the last mile.

Also, Charity: Water doesn’t actually have a presence on the ground in developing countries – it’s up to their charities on-the-ground that Charity: Water sub-contracts to do the work.

UNICEF

As the complete opposite to Charity: Water, UNICEF is probably the largest charity in the world – with funding right from your tax dollars and given via the United Nations.

UNICEF is actually one of the biggest spenders when it comes to social media. They have sent film crews around the world and have a large production staff which, in total, have produced over 1,700 videos on YouTube.

Yet – and I explained this to UNICEF when I was invited to visit their headquarters in New York – they are spending an awful lot of money to produce an awful lot of videos. But, most of those videos have around double digit views. Why so much for so little?

Not only that, UNICEF goes to great expense flying Hollywood celebrities like Mia Farrow into the field. But, as they showed me, their videos of Mia Farrow have maybe only a couple hundred views.

Based on my visit, I’ve written a formal proposal to UNICEF. I’ve pitched that they should use some of their massive investment towards teaming up with people like me. I’m nowhere near as attractive or articulate as Mia Farrow – but I promise their message would have a larger audience on YouTube.

World Food Program

If there is a dark horse in all of this – it would be the United Nations World Food Program. The staff I’ve talked to seem to be taking the best of all the other charities I’ve mentioned.

The World Food Program gets UN dollars, but they don’t spend it all on massive video production like UNICEF does. They go for a few interesting videos that they hope will catch on. They have nearly as many views as UNICEF – but with a mere fraction of the videos.

They also seem to “get it” like the Red Cross does. They already have an annual contest where anyone in the world can go into the field with them and video blog their journey. They also seem open to trying new things like a smaller charity like Charity: Water would do.

But, they still rely more heavily on celebrities and give more opportunities for celebrities to visit the field (such as in Haiti). I’m hoping that, even if it’s not with me, that will change and create opportunities for other non-Hollywood celebrities.

Final Thoughts

I’ve been away from Bangladesh for nearly a year now. Now you guys know what I’ve been doing all this time! I’ve talked to so many charities and made this pitch to so many of them – but there is nothing solid just yet.

It kind of makes me feel that, if you’re really passionate about helping others, you shouldn’t pack your bags and go to the developing world. Instead, you should pack your bags and try your luck in Hollywood!

I think the era where charities have two-tiers: one for celebrities & one for regular folks like you and me has to change. Especially on the internet, regular folks can do more for a charity than many celebrities can.