Social Justice - Servant of Chaos

Now is the moment you’ve been waiting for

Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Enterprise, Social Justice

There are a great many “changemakers” who have been working diligently to create positive social change in their communities around the world. They create systems, reimagine futures and galvanise communities to bring this change to life. Sometimes this manifests as consultation, social impact hackathons, or placemaking innovation. Other times, it involves developing peer support networks, educating those at the margins of our society or raising the profile of others working on systemic change at community or government levels.

It is hard, emotional – and often largely under-funded work.

To understand how social change actually happens, we look to “problems worth solving” – the large scale, deeply ingrained, intractable problems that, if solved, would generate both economic returns and social impact. We call this creating “shared value”. Often the problems that are worth solving don’t get the attention that they deserve because, by their nature, they are difficult to solve. Often the core issue is well known and well understood by domain experts and those who live with these challenges each and every day. And in most cases, the problem worth solving has been tackled many times – yet persists. One high profile “problem worth solving” is climate change. Another is homelessness.

What is often missing in the social change program is the “burning platform”. Yes, climate change is urgent. Yes, homelessness needs to be fixed. But tackling these issues can be delayed when messaging is obscured, or when political energy is easily retargeted. By their very nature, “shared value” programs require multi-stakeholder buy-in from at least three groups:

Citizens
Governments / formal bodies
Other stakeholders – corporate or community.

Without all three, the program will fizzle out and fail.

In Australia, Beyond Zero Emissions have set out The Million Jobs Plan. It covers seven key sectors, from energy, building and manufacturing to transport, recycling and land use through to training – where targeted investment and activation would transform communities, industries and the lives of Australians. It is an ambitious program that has begun the hard work of galvanising multi-stakeholder groups.

Living with COVID19 has provided a unique opportunity. COVID19 has delivered the burning platform that many changemakers have been waiting for. As Dave Marvit explains:

As the virus fades, it will once again become hard to effect change. Systems will ossify and resist improvement. But we have this unique moment when the cement has, temporarily, unset. We should use it.
Dave Marvit, Grey Swan Guild

The time to make change happen, is now. Let’s get to work.

World PR Forum – Using the Power of Stories to End Global Poverty

Audience 2.0, Conferences, Good Works, Mobility, Social Justice, The Social Way

With the World Public Relations Forum arriving in Melbourne 18-20 November 2012, there’s bound to be plenty of on and offline conversations around the changing role of communications. But with a theme of “Communication Without Borders” – it appears the organisers are setting a broad agenda.

One of the more interesting sessions scheduled for the three day event will be hosted by Michael Sheldrick, from the Global Poverty Project (GPP). His view is that the world of PR has plenty to learn from the practices of seasoned social campaign-focused organisations like the Global Poverty Project.

The GPP engages people in a new way that shows progress in the fight against global poverty. Through their work and directly via their communications at all levels, the GPP aims to “show people that movements can still change the world”. The key to this, Michael explains, is to “craft stories that captivate large numbers of people”.

He sees that there are four elements to a successful campaign:

Grassroots advocacy – tapping into the personal power and passions of your grassroots supporters
Media engagement – enlisting celebrities and activists with loyal followings provide a focus for media engagement and storytelling
Public engagement – extending the conversation on and offline (from YouTube and image sharing, petitions through to local activists making phone calls to local MPs)
Government relations – lobbying and working with political advisors, ministers to provide them with the “public ammunition” they can use to effect change

But how does this work in practice? Is there a measurable impact?

The GPP measure by outcomes – not likes, follows, impressions or even reach and frequency. By way of example, Michael shared details of the recent The End of Polio campaign.In Australia, there were two goals – to have Prime Minister, Julia Gillard raise this campaign at a regional summit – and for the Australian Government to contribute $50 million to polio vaccination programs. Both of these goals were achieved – and Prime Minister Gillard went a step further, urging other leaders to contribute – resulting in a total of $118 million being contributed.

But there is also plenty of experimentation in the GPP approach. They are hosting a “free ticketed” music festival in Central Park, NYC, featuring Neil Young, Foo Fighters and the Black Keys later this month. To attend, you have to download the app and then earn points by learning, sharing and taking action against extreme poverty. Concert goers go into the draw to win two tickets only AFTER earning “three points” on the Global Citizen App.

With over 50,000 downloads, over 30,000 people have already accrued enough points to go into the draw for tickets.

One of the things that I like most about this is the strategy. There is clear alignment between the brand, the vision, the action and the lifestyle of their social consumers. There is an experience on offer but there is also a social compact. This shifts the relationship from merely one of transaction (buying a ticket, watching a show) to engagement (make an impact, join a movement).

Now – if only more of our communications achieved this much – we’d all live in a much better world. Or at least a world without poverty.

Don’t forget you can catch Michael Sheldrick at the World PR Forum in November 2012.

We are the 99% – #occupywallstreet

Politics, Social Justice, Social Media

When protesters across Tunisia and Egypt took to the streets to demand more transparency in government, democracy and equal rights, the West stood and cheered. Dubbed the Arab Spring, these people powered movements saw the disenfranchised 99% of the population rise up and protest the concentration of ownership and privilege controlled by the 1%.

But how do we respond to the same situation in our own backyards? The 400 richest Americans at the top of the economic pyramid have been able to amass more wealth than the 180 million Americans at the bottom – and I’d wager there is a similar disparity in Australia.

In an open letter to Join the Wall Street Occupation – The Revolution Begins at Home, Arun Gupta explains:

Our system is broken at every level. More than 25 million Americans are unemployed. More than 50 million live without health insurance. And perhaps 100 million Americans are mired in poverty, using realistic measures. Yet the fat cats continue to get tax breaks and reap billions while politicians compete to turn the austerity screws on all of us.

At Liberty Park in New York, hundreds if not thousands of people are gathering each day to discuss, debate and protest the state of democracy in the United States. The campaign #occupywallstreet is spreading to other cities and countries – from San Diego and Omaha to Toronto and even Brisbane.

We Are The 99% from socially_awkwrd on Vimeo.

And while there is a lot of conversation on Twitter and on social media, the mainstream media outlets are yet to deeply engage on this subject. And it makes me wonder – where is the tipping point … what level of social movement or activism is required before traditional media can no longer ignore the unfolding situation? And at which point does it become “contagious” – shifting gears from a protest to a movement?

Perhaps financial traders like Alessio Rastani, shown here in interview on the BBC will help galvanise such a movement.

Or maybe not. We may be part of the 99%, but many aspire to the 1% – and while a culture of aspiration (and entitlement) dominates our thinking, non-traditional media will have to work harder to reach that tipping point. If Duncan Watts is right, then we need about 15% of a closely linked social network to act before contagion begins. And that means we have some way to go.

The Long Scar of Australia’s Shame

Good Works, Social Justice

I was watching a re-run of the amazing SBS series, The First Australians, over the weekend – and was again struck by the power of the story, the horror of the impact white Australians had on Aboriginal people and the unbearable sadness brought about by government policies and the willing complicity of the Australian public.

But I was also heartened by the remembrance of The Apology to Aboriginal people by Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. I remember what it meant to hear and take part in. I thought it was a turning point.

But sadly, it seems that institutionalised racism continues to manifest in the thoughts and deeds of individuals and in the judgements of our courts.

Michael Brull writes of a case in the Northern Territory where “Top Blokes” Beat an Aboriginal Man to Death (via Derek Jenkins). The post details the exploits of five friends who drink, drive and terrorise multiple groups of Aboriginal people sleeping in the river bed of the Todd River. These events ultimately lead to the death of one man and leave yet another lasting scar on the heart of the Australian nation. In the case R v Doody in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, Chief Justice Martin, however, concluded that this “crime is toward the lower end of the scale of seriousness for crimes of manslaughter”.

Take a few minutes to read the details of this case and then consider this:

Justice Martin went out of his way to provide character references for every single defendant. Doody is ‘a person of positive good character’. Hird is a ‘solid, hard-working young man of good character’. Kloeden has an ‘underlying good character’. Spears is a ‘person of very good character’. Swain, like Kloeden, was a ‘person of underlying good character’.

On the face of it, this doesn’t seem to be “justice served”. And a judgement which COULD have been used to launch a scathing attack on the thoughtless culture and uncaring attitudes of “top blokes” everywhere, seems to have turned into little more than a slap on the wrists.

But if silence can be taken as complicity, I for one, say NO. Not good enough. This needs to be looked at again – in the courts, in our schools and in our hearts. Is this an Australia you’re happy to live in?