I was buying a few items at my corner grocer this evening when a radio ad came on that made me think I was living in the US during the Bush years. It was referring to the recent gang slayings that have hit Vancouver, that are indeed a big deal, however this ad se
emed designed to clearly stir up a personal fear.
Called "Community in Crisis", it basically said the wave of recent gang slayings were coming to your door, and you should all be concerned for your personal safety, unless something is done. I found it incredibly incendiary, and wondered who was behind such a fear-creating campaign. Was it the Vancouver Province (BC's blue collar newspaper, whose motto is "if it bleeds it leads"), or the Conservative Party of Canada (who during the election last year leafletted my condo weekly with stray looking ruffians and a caption "the Liberals want to let these people loose in your community" or something like that). I couldn’t think of anyone else who would benefit from taking a current issue and making people even more afraid.
So I came home and looked for the website. Turns out it is a fundraising page for the United Way!
I was flabergasted that this kind of campaign could come from a charity, one of the "trusted institutions" helping us feel safe and making our world better. Which, please don't get me wrong, they most certainly do, and I am a huge supporter of any kind of charitable giving and community involvement, every bit helps.
But isn't this exactly the kind of campaign that in the long run, hurts their brand and creates cynicism about fundraising tactics in all fields? I think this campaign fuels the tectonic changes in philanthropy I've spoken about often, namely:
- people are over-marketed to
- they are tired of being manipulated
- they mistrust institutions and media
And they are either tuning out, turning to new, innovative models of "philanthropy 2.0" and social enterprise like Kiva, Pivot Legal, or my own BC Social Venture Partners, or starting their own organizations.
In today's world people demand authenticity. They want organizations to level with them and share real stories of not just problems but solutions. They want to see where their money is going. They want to know it's actually making a different in the world, not just today, but for the long term. They don't just want to fund "feel good" causes out of guilt, they want to roll up their sleeves and change systemic causes that create these problems.
So while the United Way microsite looks cute with a bunch of trendy Web 2.0 features, my critique is it's just the same old gal in a new dress:
- there are no real stories or authentic voice, just slick TV ads (not to mention the racial undertones of the video)
- there is no content about what they are going to do with your money
- nor about what they have already done to affect big change
- no way of engaging the public, outside of the standard "give us your money" and "tell all your friends about us"
But really, those are nit-picky issues, what sticks in my craw is how I feel the branding of this campaign directly contributes to a society that feels isolated, alone, and paralyzed in fear. How does this actually help our culture heal itself?
I felt so strongly I wrote a letter to 3 of their senior staff who had contact info on their website. An excerpt:
Gang violence is certainly an important issue, and very topical these days. However, when you examine the facts, most recent slayings have happened from gang member to gang member. As far as I know, no innocent citizen has been killed. There is literally no reason why an average citizen, living in 90% of the neighbourhoods of our cities, has any reason to be personally afraid of gang violence impacting them or their families.
This is not to say that raising awareness about our communities and the suffering that is happening in the DTES and other areas is not important. I have devoted my entire career to helping social innovators get their message out and garner more support for their work. However, stirring up base fears as your ad does, for the sole purpose of fundraising, and not even offering real reasons and stories why donating to your organization makes a real, lasting difference for the issue, strikes me as opportunistic at best, disingenuous at worst.
I have great respect for everyone in the charitable field, however ad campaigns like this are the reason why more and more donors – especially those of my generation and younger – do not support large mainstream charities. We are tired of being manipulated into giving, and campaigns like this further the cynicism, disengagement, and mistrust so many feel for our society’s important institutions.
I hope you will re-consider such campaigns in the future, in my opinion they serve to harm the objectives of our entire field.
What do you think? Am I just being a crank here, or is there something to this? If someone from the United Way is reading this, I'd really love to hear your opinions and strategy for this campaign, please fill out a comment below.
In response
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, ideas and concerns. We are very keen to hear all opinions.
The reason for this campaign is to instill urgency, not fear. Our aim: To empower our community to act together to support vulnerable children. By supporting vulnerable children now, we can prevent them from making the wrong choices in the future, choices that could lead them into gang violence.
We are saddened by the fact that some of our children have made the choice as they've grown up to join violent gangs. You say no innocent person has been harmed, we would disagree. At this critical time in the shared life of our community, we want to provide a way for people to act together to help break the cycle of violence and strengthen the community. A lot of us are feeling helpless in the face of gang violence, but it’s dangerous for us to accept it as the ‘new normal’.
United Way focuses on prevention, by funding programs that provide children with opportunities and support, we, as a community, can prevent some children from being recruited into violence; into a life that with the right support they would never have chosen for themselves.
Recently released research in Canada shows that early learning prevents youth violence (Source: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development report "Early Learning Prevents Youth Violence", published November 2008).
In addition, every dollar invested in preventive preschool programs produces a $7 benefit by the time the child is a young adult and a $13 benefit by the time he is a mature adult. 41% of students in grades 4 to 7 say they are victims of bullying and/or bullied others monthly. United Way funded research shows that there is a deteriorating sense of wellbeing during the middle childhood years (6 to 12). Children are increasingly disconnected from others.
We can do something about it. And it isn't simply about more police and arrests. It comes down to prevention, helping vulnerable kids at a time in their life when the right support can make all the difference in the world.
The preschool years are the critical time to teach children the fundamentals of social interaction—sharing and compromise, cooperation and verbal communication. Those who fail to learn these lessons early in life—about 5 to 10% of Canadian children—are more likely to run into serious trouble later, from difficulty at school and substance abuse to risk-taking, mental illness and criminal activity.
By working with our community and acting on the root causes of social problems, we can keep our kids from falling through the cracks or making the wrong choices. United Way gives kids a way out through early childhood development initiatives like Success By 6 and through out-of-school programs at agencies like Boys & Girls Clubs.
I would like to share with you an example of the youth programs we support. There is a video on our Facebook wall about RespectED, a youth empowerment program. http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/pages/United-Way-of-the-Lower-Mai...
Your comments are very important to our analysis of this on-line campaign and we thank you for the time and effort you have taken to share them and we hope others will share their thoughts with us on Facebook.
United Way of the Lower Mainland
Kudos
Thanks for this blog Jason. I couldn't have said it better. I really dislike hearing fear inducing ads and editorials on the radio. They leave me feeling disempowered and isolated. Thanks for suggesting other ways that United Way and other great orgs like it, can adjust their campaigns in a way that inspires people to help rather than leaves us feeling rotten.
Vancouver IS the North American capital of gang violence
The campaign is fear mongering in the extreme - but sometimes extreme situations call for extreme responses. You may not like their approach but many would argue it is necessary in order to get people to take this deadly situation seriously and your facts are actually wrong. You state that "As far as I know, no innocent citizen has been killed."
There have been several killings of completely, 100% no gang affiliation, mistaken identity innocent individuals. This "gang war" hit public attention with the slaying of 6 people in Surrey in 2007 - 2 of those 6 people were completely innocent and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One was Chris Mohan who lived in an apartment across the hall from the intended victims and the other was Abbotsford gas fitter Ed Schellenburg who was in the building working on a fireplace installation.
In addition to those two, there was a young father shot in killed in his pick-up truck because the truck looked similar to one owned by a gang member - he himself had zero gang affiliations or any criminal history. There was also a young auto detailer who had picked up a vehicle for detailing and was driving it to his place of work (being followed by his girlfriend who had driven him to pick the vehicle up). He was shot and killed being mistaken for the owner of the vehicle and his girlfriend (in the car behind him) was also hit by stray bullets but survived with hideous, disfiguring wounds to her arms.
These are just a few, but there are several more who have just been caught in the crossfire - some who have also been killed and some who have suffered life-altering injuries. Who can forget the woman watching TV in her PoCo condo and hit by a stray bullet who is now living with a major head injury unable to work or care for herself.
Go ahead and feel righteous indignation at this ad campaign, but at the very least please take the time to understand the issue precipitating these types of campaigns.
Innocent people are dying if that makes it any more palatable for you. But, if it does not, consider that even the members of the gangs do not deserve to die just because they made some very stupid choses when they were teenagers. Choices made as teenagers because they didn't have anything better to do with their time. Choices that might have been avoided if organizations like the United Way had more funding to give these at risk kids better choices in the first place.
Your heart is in the right place - but you may want to look a little closer as you will find a war zone right under your own nose with innocent civilians being killed and maimed with shocking regularity.
What actions are you taking to both stop and prevent this kind of senseless violence?
Right on. I live with gangs
Right on.
I live with gangs all around and have ended up having to raise my kids in the midst of them (one of the unknown "perks" of having to live in subsidized housing - prostitutes are the new addition in more recent years). The landlord - a multi-million dollar company funded by government, civic, provincial and national - has specifically designated these housing complexes for families but consistently turns a blind eye to what goes on in them. The more recent "partnering" with the police to proclaim that these complexes are now designated as crime-free is just a token act - a PR stunt to cover their behinds/white gloves to cover the stench of where they keep their hands as they go about their busyness. (They're not desperate for tenants to occupy their sub-standard buildings, though; their waiting list is 2-3 years long. Maybe their Resident Managers get a cut? Who knows.)
Kids who are raised on real life family culture instead of any media-based culture and who know they are loved by their mom and dad (or just one) are naturally immune to the lure of gangs because they are secure with who they are - money and/or fame from drugs and b&e's doesn't hold any appeal no matter how far down you are on demographics or any other measurement scale. (I raised mine on $16,000/yr and some years it went down to $10,000. We were malnourished for more than a decade and cold every winter (read: outside temps of down to 40 below celsius with wind chill) and the effort needed for learning was exhausting for my kids - and some of the mean-well but ignorant/self-righteous paragons in the school system a tremendous stress for me as well as my kids. It's evidence of a sick society that even one of their members have to live like that, let alone raise children with such inadequate resources and support in the midst of more than enough. I'm not talking about the supposed poverty of immigrants here - that's another story; I'm talking about indigenous/born in Canada to Canadian parents Canadians.)
Intelligent, sensitive, ethical parents who commit to being parents to their kids raise strong kids - regardless in what neighborhood they live in or what clothes they wear or whether or not they have whatever is deemed to be important.
Appearances are absolutely deceiving. The real gangs operate in the corporate world. Truly. I'd rather be seen as a "loser" or "drop-out" of society than come anywhere close to that - any day.
And what I have observed over the twenty plus years of my occupancy in this ground level rank of our "first-class" nation is that social service agencies regularly operate with an astounding level of audacity to undermine the authority other adults have been given over their children, in sacred trust, when they become parents. To wit: the children of other adults, albeit poorly dressed and groomed in comparison to you and your "friends" (real ones in person and fancied ones on sit-coms), are NOT your "kids" - they never were and never will be.
The presumptousness with which many members of the "helping" "professions" regard their role and activities is despicable, regardless of any rhetoric they publish. It passes unnoticed (or noticed and, when acknowledged publicly, defeated with more words and stats and pictures and, if the speaker persists, some well-couched disparagement and even discreditation added.) Sleeping is easier/less scary/more self-gratifying/less threatening to one's status and security than waking and engaging with the day.
I know whereof I speak: had I not encountered the tragedies that came my way and had to face reality (with much tears and fury), I would still be asleep, a nice housewife with husband and home, career in place, vacation planned, grocery list in hand, housecleaner and lawn & garden contact info on my cell/blackberry, Oprah and Law & Order on the TVO, all kids in organized sport every year. And attributes like competent, responsible, caring, successful would be ascribed to me because of appearances: I would walk the walk and talk the talk of Good People; I would be seen as a legitimate member of The Club. Truly, we - our society - is largely functioning at the level of those who are our weakest link - and I am in no way referring to those who are conventionally classified as "developmentally disabled" here.
People with a sense of self and dignity have no desire to take from anyone else and no desire for power over someone else. God save us from those who do. Thanks for playing your part by writing, Jason. You have acted on behalf of many. Keep up the noise.