My earliest memory of being an activist is around the age of 10. I spoke to the board of directors at my summer camp to encourage them to lower the fees so that everyone could attend. I invited other campers to share personal stories and persuaded the board to offer scholarships to those who couldn’t afford to come. Later, in secondary school, I rallied my fellow students to sign a petition and attend a school board meeting when our beloved English teacher was being unfairly ousted.
All my life I have worked to campaign and fight for those in need of help – and I have never done it alone. To be an effective activist you need to encourage others to take action and get involved in a way that will create tangible change.
So now, as a leader of an organisation whose mission is to advocate for a specific and underserved population, I find it beyond frustrating that slacktivism is more common than true activism or advocacy. Moreover, I find it frustrating that our sector often encourages it.
Slacktivists carry out feel-good measures, such as sharing a post about an issue on Facebook, signing an e-petition or adding a Twibbon to a Twitter account, which can have little or no tangible outcome for the charity. Individuals shout loud on social media, but don’t follow through with a single action. I have seen it time and time again.
And, even worse, I have seen my colleagues perpetuating the idea that slacktivism is the same as true advocacy. Every day you see charities encouraging their supporters to share images and videos on social media, but for me, it isn’t an effective way to create real change and influence policy. I recently attended a conference for charity professionals where many of the sessions were focused on advocacy. Even the conference facilitators had difficulty giving us tangible examples and instead defined the term advocacy over and over again. This failure to create true activists will have a detrimental impact on the charity sector’s work. Individuals will think that raising awareness on social media means they are an advocate, and as a result will not engage more deeply in campaigns or lobbying. Instead, a social media post saying “We should do something!” or a simple graphic share makes people feel like they have done their part.
Slacktivism is infuriating to those of us working to unify the community and inspire action for change in ways that require people to show up and give their time, energy and thought to a cause.
In the communities my charity supports, people are dying because they cannot access their medicine. I can’t deny that social media has been fantastic in raising awareness about important causes and informing people about issues. I hope that its ability to unite and rally people towards action will become more impactful, but I worry that slacktivism will only get worse. As charities we need to ensure that we have clear ways to engage people in our campaigns.
Confessions of a charity professional is the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network’s anonymous series where charity workers tell it how it is. To pitch us an idea read our guidelines here and email voluntarysectornetwork@theguardian.com.