Tapping our Digital Behaviors to Ignite Social Change

This is a repost of an article I wrote for my work blog in October on how digital technologies are being used to impact positive social change.
___________________________________________________________

The rise in digital technologies is empowering social change on an unprecedented global scale. While it is true that digital technologies fueling social change have allowed for some negative consequences such as increased surveillance and the ability to mobilize riots, this article is specifically focused around positive examples. This is evident in the use of social media to change regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, to monitor elections in Kenya, and to aid earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. One particularly interesting example is the Cairo Harass Map, which empowers women to report sexual harassment via email or SMS. The purpose of this project is to end the social acceptability of sexual harassment in Egypt.

Many social change projects focus around fundraising platforms that tap into existing digital behaviors:

• 50/50 is a 50-day creative collaboration fundraising campaign encouraging creative projects that generate awareness and raise money for the famine in East Africa. 100% of the donation goes directly to UNICEF. 
• Thanksforteaching.us is a 30 day campaign, hosted by tbd, dedicated to thanking teachers all over the world by sharing the actions, dreams and passions they inspired. This campaign aims to bring the spotlight back on the teachers that make our classrooms thrive in a time when funding for schools is being cut. 
• Africa Needs You is trying to raise money to combat the famine in East Africa through leveraging the cultural phenomenon of paid celebrity tweets and turning it upside down. It is asking people to challenge celebrities via twitter to donating a tweet – the equivalent of $10,000.
• Charity Swear Box looks for swear words on twitter. When a person enters his or her twitter name in the search box on the Charity Swear Box homepage, it checks all his or her past tweets for any sign of a swear word. These are added up to a suggested amount to donate to a favorite charity such as Unicef, WWF (World Wildlife Fund), and Feed the Children. 

Digital technologies are simplifying and enhancing the communication required to get social change moving. For example, in the past year, the Social Change Impact report stated:

• 110 million Americans expressed an opinion on an issue by posting a comment on a blog or Web site.
• 93.8 million Americans joined or created a group on a social networking site devoted to a cause.
• 82.1 million Americans texted to make donations, voted, organized a demonstration, etc. related to a specific cause or issue.

Digital technology is allowing people to get involved in social change issues faster and more frequently than ever before. And, digital technology as a conduit for social change is cross-generational. As noted in the Walden study: eight in 10 American adults, from Gen Y to through the Silent Generation agree that thanks to digital technology, people are getting involved in positive social change issues faster and more frequently than ever before. This belief is strongest among the Baby Boomers.

A number of brands are leveraging this momentum to align with specific social change campaigns:

• Levi’s WaterTank game was a Facebook game that inspired consumers to participate in online water-saving challenges. Each challenge completed “unlocked” water from the Levi’s WaterTank and ultimately supported Water.org’s life-saving clean water projects worldwide. This game has evolved into Levi’s Go Forth Platform.
• Aviva USA’s Status for Youth made the brand's new Facebook page a catalyst for good. "Status For Youth" asked people to donate a status update to a youth-related charity. In lending their voice, people also influenced the amount of grant money given to each charity.
• Pepsi Refresh is funding programs across a number of disciplines that “refresh” the world through local communities. Projects are focused around education, communities, art and music.
• Chase Community Giving’s American Giving Awards is Chase’s first-ever celebrity tribute to community heroes, offering 5 charities a chance to share $2MM in grants so they can continue their work helping others.
• Starbucks’s Create Jobs for USA is a partnership with Opportunity Finance Network to create and sustain jobs through providing capital grants to select Community Development Financial Institutions. Additionally, this platform wants to build a community of interested people via Facebook and Twitter to express opinions and ideas about to improve and take action in local communities.

As the world becomes increasingly more interconnected, it will become more important for brands to think about ways to incorporate social change platforms into their brand promise.