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Attract support for ignored disasters

Attract support for ignored disasters

Have an idea for this challenge? If you haven't already, be sure to join the site (upper right hand corner) and post up your thoughts below!

How can Mercy Corps attract more support for disasters that are ignored? Please post ideas, comment to engage other contributors, share resources and ask friends to sign up at http://www.ChangeAgentsUnite.com!


CHALLENGE DETAILS: Why do some disasters attract donations while others are ignored? The Earthquake in Haiti and the Tsunami in Japan created record contributions while the drought in Africa is just as tragic and attracts very little support. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeC-5C2-lQQ

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW:
Mercy Corps helps people turn the crises they confront into the opportunities they deserve. Driven by local needs, our programs provide communities in the world’s toughest places with the tools and support they need to transform their own lives. Our worldwide team in 41 countries is improving the lives of 19 million people. http://www.mercycorps.org/aboutus

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PRIZE SPONSOR: Nau - (pronounced "now") is a clothing company based in Portland, Oregon. They make sustainable urban+outdoor apparel - integrated designs for the modern mobile life.
PRIZE RECIPIENT DETAILS: Mercy Corps will reward one winner whose idea helps the most.
CHALLENGE END DATE: 12pm PT on June 22, 2012

PRIZE YOU CAN WIN: The winner will be rewarded with their pick of Nau's Down Load Jacket. Combining tailored, urban style with slope sense, this completely waterproof, seam-sealed down jacket is built for the coldest of days for premium warmth without the bulk. The face fabric is created from 80% recycled polyester and the Lining is created from 100% recycled polyester. Men's: http://bit.ly/s9ORP5 Women's: http://bit.ly/vjks6q

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Latest activity

  1. Courtney Timm

    Congratulations to the winner! Posted by: Courtney Timm

    • On Aug 1, 2012, 11:32:23 AM Central Daylight Time
    • Topics: (None)

    Congratulations to Alexander Salkever! Your idea has been selected as a winner by Mercy Corps for the "Attract support for ignored disasters" challenge and you will be rewarded. The challenge sponsor, Nau, has been contacted and will be in touch with you to sort out the details on getting the prize in your hands. If no contact has been made by August 15th, please let us know.

    Thank you for being a Change Agent!

  2. Benjamin Brink

    Attracting support for ignored disasters Posted by: Benjamin Brink

    • On Jan 14, 2012, 1:23:37 PM Central Standard Time
    • Topics: (None)

    Mercy Corp associates,

    Amy Scerra, Bethany Burgee, and Alexander Salkever make some important points about getting the message out, and appealing to the conscience of those who are able to provide support.

    In advertising, it's well known that some products are more successful at gaining market share due to marketing prowess in spite of some of the products having less quality or value. To the extent that "support" is “revenue” and “the product” is "helping others", efforts should be made to investigate how attracting support through advertising can be more effective. In a sense, this challenge is an example of crowd sourcing the investigation.

    Sometimes the message just doesn't reach or connect well for a specific disaster. For cases like these, an NGO can rely partly on support from its general pool of donations.

    Changing the nature of the problem through innovation is another approach –by surprising people with really great results using breakout solutions. What better way to attract general support than by delivering a happy message with a surprise that suggests limitless hope and opportunity?

    Core77 recently posted an article entitled “Redesigning International Disaster Relief”[1]. It concludes that leveraging data visualization, social networking, and good design for the benefits of the underserved populations of the world should also be considered for international disaster response.

    Here are some innovations that could could really inspire support and participation:

    1. A collaborative tool that uses systems modeling for communicating and proposing solutions from the field. More than “Information Dissemination”[2], this is information dissemination that explains the dynamics of the situation. This tool addresses long-term, chronic disasters that are sometimes amplified by donor fatigue. (I'm developing a tool like this.)

    2. A low-cost, high displacement boat to navigate water-based humanitarian crises. Over half of the world population lives near sea level, and the sea level[3]. As insurance companies are learning, climate change can create (water-based) disasters most anywhere[4]. In a humanitarian crisis, the victims of a crisis are the first emergency responders. An NGO that anticipates this crisis with preparations that save lives; will be remembered at the first crisis and thereafter. Boats able to handle treacherous waters and be stored indefinitely should be available most everywhere. (I'm developing a boat design like this with a maximum build cost of $200, and have outlined a collaborative continual-improvement program for it.)

    3. A green alternative to concrete. This is less about helping third-world disasters, and more about using the technology of the third-world to innovate concrete. After the Haiti earthquake, the world saw that the properties of concrete vary wildly. In addition to performance/quality issues, manufacturing concrete is one of the main contributors to green-house gas emissions (and climate change), because of the amount of energy used in the process. What if an alternate could be developed to save the energy? What if sand could be converted to sandstone bricks? Progress has been made in this area. Most have been commercial and patented, just like concrete. What if an NGO spearheaded an open-innovation, open-hardware initiative? (I've working on it, but this should be a group effort.)

    4. Data Centers to serve resource challenged communities with potable water, electricity and heat that it produces as waste. Remote data centers(DC) help provide business continuity. A strategically placed, remote DC can provide benefits to an under-served community as well. Could a humanitarian crisis wipe out Wikipedia/Wikimedia? Shouldn't its resources be duplicated around the globe? Might the edubuntu program benefit from this scenario? With the DC connecting via satellite, could cell or radio towers connected to it help with remote communications? This is an untapped opportunity for NGOs working together. Imagine being the NGO that spearheads this! (Here's what I have so far: http://openarchitecturenetwork.org/projects/lotusgreendatacenters )

    Contact me if you want to pursue any of these innovations. I may have something useful to offer.

    best wishes,

    Benjamin

    1. http://www.core77.com/blog/social_design/redesigning_international_disaster_response_part_1_the_players_20987.asp
    2. http://www.core77.com/blog/social_design/redesigning_international_disaster_response_part_2_the_challenges_20988.asp
    3. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/impacts/sea_level_rise/
    4. http://www.climatewise.org.uk/

  3. Alexander Salkever

    Multi-pronged Media / PR Effort Required Posted by: Alexander Salkever

    • On Nov 25, 2011, 2:40:19 PM Central Standard Time
    • Topics: (None)

    Big media drives big coverage of disasters, which in turn drives big funding. This is not as much an option for Mercy Corps because they are dealing with the everyday disasters that befall people all over the world and the general difficulties they must overcome on a daily basis to survive and thrive. So what needs to be created is a multi-pronged plan based on and built from practices put in place by other highly successful aid organizations such as Partners in Health and Kiva, to name two. Here's my quick take (as someone who has been both a journalist in national media and a marketing executive in greentech and cloud computing).

    1) Capture Images and Videos. Make them accessible via Twitter, Flickr, YouTube. Some of this is already occurring, I am sure. But because you never know what is going to go viral, you have to keep throwing things at the wall and making sure that this is an ongoing, daily process. Ideally, someone at Mercy should be fully charged with recruiting image capture helpers (it can be equally if not more powerful if those capturing images are not even in Mercy, itself) and then making sure that the pipeline is always full. A secondary benefit of this is to create an expectation of these images so that people will miss them if they are not in their streams.

    2) Build Stories Around the Images. The stories are what make the images really come to life. Tell the rest of the world not only what is happening in that particular image but also what the backstory is and details. Today every non-profit is / can be / should be its own media organization. Telling the stories of the people you aid in conjunction with compelling images is essential. If you are doing this only periodically, it should be a regular activity - perhaps even daily or at a minimum several times per week.


    3) Syndicate and Serialize the Stories and the Images. Make it very, very easy for others to use your images and your stories. In this day and age, the cash-strapped media is more than happy to get great stories from non-profits. If that includes images, even better. License your stories and images under the creative commons. Become an active participate in Wikipedia. Let Flipboard and Skydeck know about your streams. Get the word out as much as you can. Create video and audio podcasts that you offer for free from your site. Maximize chances of virality and visibility by syndicating and serializing. Equally important, stories must not stop with the single reportage. Follow a family or a village with regular updates for your readers / viewers. Tell their story not as a snapshot but as an ongoing journey. You will build stickiness.

    4) Up Your PR Game. Build a list of every journalist who has covered the topics relevant to your work. Put them on your mailing list and email them updates and newsletters. They are looking for story ideas and you have them. Share. Make it easy to unsubscribe but remember - every journalist expects to get this sort of email as part of their work at a news organization and so its fairly standard practice. If there are journalists you want to speak to personally, call them. Make a point of meeting them in person if they happen to be speaking or traveling close to where you are located. Building out a personal relationship will ensure not only that they know you but also that they are more likely to contact you as an expert on stories (another key way to gain visibility). Be polite and persistent. Don't rely on a PR agency to do this for you because your response rates will be infinitely higher if the email comes from you rather than from an agency.

    5) Create Interactions and Feedback. The people you want to contribute and you want to pay attention are not only eager to help but they are also eager to interact. Include them in the conversation somehow. This can take many forms. It can be direct, as in, correspondence with those who are being helped. It can be indirect, as in correspondence and live chats with Mercy Corps personnel. It can be an invitation to help on specific campaigns and feedback based on those campaigns. Today the best campaigns of any sort must have a two-way aspect in order to truly engage and capture interest.

    So this is my quick take on a plan. It's not easy. It will take work. But its a framework I believe could be utilized to pave a path towards greater notice for Mercy Corps and, by extension, access to greater resources. Good luck!

  4. Benjamin Brink

    What disasters are being ignored? Posted by: Benjamin Brink

    • On Nov 11, 2011, 2:13:43 PM Central Standard Time
    • Topics: (None)

    Starting with the basics, what disasters are you referring to? "Ignoring" can refer to any disaster or its effects continuing without adequate response. Do you have a particular set of metrics you use to measure it?

  5. Bethany Burgee

    Creating Buzz Posted by: Bethany Burgee

    • On Nov 10, 2011, 2:06:36 PM Central Standard Time
    • Topics: (None)

    Dear Minda,

    I find that people respond in empathy to disasters that strike hard and affect many, like the tsunami in 2004 or the hurricane in Haiti. Yes, celebrities help to spread the message and raise money - but I feel it’s the large-scale impact on a short time frame that makes people reach for their wallets – there’s an immediate affect with the money being donated and a belief that donations will help the community rebuild. Why the Horn of Africa crisis does not receive as much attention or donations does not have a clear answer. Perhaps there is too much inundation from relief organizations, with the overall message being too much gloom and doom and not enough hope. Perhaps it's because people's general attitude towards Africa is that some part of the continent is always in strife - whether it's drought, famine, civil war or otherwise. Or maybe it’s because people do not think that a solution will come about by a donation. By no means does this make it less significant, but perhaps people just get immune to it.

    But that's not what you are looking for. You want an idea that will create buzz, get attention from people who normally wouldn't think to visit the MC website or donate to the disasters that don't receive much attention. You want to make the twitter feed blow up with people tweeting positive, affirmative things about hope, survival and perhaps - some of these people will turn into donors.

    My idea stems from the fact that people need to experience something in order to react. So this is my idea (and it continually formulates as I type). We all know about "flash mobs" - unsuspecting people meeting and organizing in song or dance in public places. What if Mercy Corps could organize a nation-wide (if not GLOBAL wide) flash mob? It would take a lot of organization, coordination and partnerships - but just think if you could get flash mobs all participating at the same time (nationally, 9:00PST would be ideal since it would be midday on the east coast and lunchtime in the Midwest) to promote a specific message. Say for instance, you choose the Horn of Africa for your message, you partner with big corporations and performing agencies. The message is in the dance or the song – or perhaps you use both in various locations. What is the result? People tweeting – seeing that other people are tweeting, postings of videos on Facebook from around the nation… something is stirring, something is taking over the social media sites. Buzz is created. Knowledge is spread. It’s a positive message about an issue that becomes hidden in the messages of hunger, starving kids, dying animals and no relief. It would take a lot of work to organize but the effect could be the “bang” you need to bring about awareness and increased donations.

    Happy to contribute ideas any day for Mercy Corps.

    Bethany Burgee

  6. Amy Scerra

    HelpersUnite - Great platform to raise money Posted by: Amy Scerra

    • On Nov 5, 2011, 12:41:13 PM Central Daylight Time
    • Topics: (None)

    Looking at the media attention Haiti and Japan received, each campaign had celebrities rallying support. There were very clear avenues the general public could follow to donate money. For Japan and Haiti, it was very simple to donate money to the Red Cross with a text message. Charity made simple for people seems to garner more support, and when it's done electronically, seems to go viral much faster.

    Have you heard of free platforms like HelpersUnite? http://www.helpersunite.com/faqs
    It could be a way for individuals to create fundraising events, post them for free, sell tickets, etc.

    Their words: Our mission is to help give a voice to anyone who is passionate about pursuing a dream and cares about the world around them. We welcome fundraiser projects of all types, whether they are creative, entrepreneurial, charitable or related to life events (such as funding for education or medical bills). We can also help you bring people to your special event or benefit through our comprehensive ticket-selling platform. Events can include concerts, film screenings, gala events, theater and more.