The real story behind Invisible Children
The video above is part of a campaign by the charity Invisible Children and has become somewhat of a viral sensation online. The campaign aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. While I’m sure their intentions are admirable it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not doing it for large personal gains.
A user by the name Lord_Cade made the following post on Reddit which in turn led me to look into it some more. His post alone is enough but there’s more, the way Invisible Children go about solving the issues is plain wrong as pointed out by pussyhands in this thread on Reddit. While I concede Reddit is not the most reliable source of information, both posts have plenty of sources to back up their information. For example:
Theres ALWAYS two sides to every story. This viral film has caught the attention of heaps of young folk but you are all far too late. Watching that Kony video is essentially watching old news. They started filming in 2003, and northern Uganda has been free of LRA violence and war for over five years. In fact, the LRA have signed a peace accord! They are rebuilding and are restoring the peace.
Yes the leader is still out there however the recruitment of children has decreased 80%. This isn’t due to the Invisible Children organisation, its because Ugandan military and the ICC have intercepted. The Invisible Children group are trying to pass a bill that allows America to militarise the region… They are providing misinformation to woo idealistic followers. The group have combined multiple regional conflicts to make it appear that this is one rapidly increasing issue. When confronted about their dodgy tactics, the head spokesperson stated;
“I agree with you that leading people to believe that the war is still happening in Uganda is not ethically right. It’s something we’ve been addressing internally, focusing on getting all staff and supporters on the same page (of communication).”
That’s a quote from the second Reddit post, here’s one from the first regarding the Charity’s finances:
First of all, the guy who made that film get’s paid $90,000 a year. That’s for him and his family. This does not include him paying costs for film equipment, video editting software, nor does it cover travel or accomodations whilst in anywhere else. Those are all covered under the ludicrous budgets that the Invisible Children organization actually deal with.
If you go to the thread on Reddit he continues to breakdown the finances of the Charity. Still not convinced? Thankfully Grant Oyston, a student at Arcadia University, has grouped a lot of information with sources over at visiblechildren.tumblr.com. He goes over some of the points above as well as adding in some of his own personal views and thoughts. It’s definitely worth reading along with the two Reddit posts linked above.
Naturally this video has created a buzz on the internet with celebrities flocking to be seen to be supporting the latest great cause. Celebrities such as Piers Morgan and Derren Brown have already linked to the video. Thankfully Derren Brown later tweeted the other side of the arguement, but never fully retracted his apparent support for it.
This leads nicely onto my main point: people on the internet are too quick to jump on the bandwagon. If they see a nice-looking video they post it on their status, their friends get a hold of it without thinking things through and they repost it. This is what’s happened in this case; people have been too quick to get on board with this campaign when there are major underlying issues.
Hopefully this post opens a few eyes and in future will lead to greater personal scrutiny before everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
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Hi, first it seems you are committing the same mistake as the ones who “jumped on the bandwagon”. Now other “sources” are accusing Invisible Children for being hypocrites or misleading, but do we now if the other “sources” are legit? Grant Oyston brings interesting information, which if you analyze the real source you will realize that his arguments are based on information out of context. We shouldn’t just discard Invisible Children’s awareness campaign just because we have some doubts on their expenses, among other negative aspects raised by Oyston and the other “authors”(who don’t even cite their sources). The fact is that now just hours since the Kony 2012 video launch a huge number of people learned about Kony and the atrocities happening in Uganda.
While awareness is of course a good thing, giving money to a cause that doesn’t handles its donations effectively is not. I disagree with your bandwagon point; both Reddit posts cite sources. The first mainly uses Charity Navigator while the second cites many sources at the bottom. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
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Christian is right. Oyston’s argument is bias and out of context. eg. the organisation has a 4 star rating (overall) only a 2 star rating on transparency because they only have 2 members on the board. they are currently trying to rectify this. Also, IC clearly states that their mission is to promote awareness foremost, Which with a budget of 8mil or so, they have done incredibly well. They’re finances are open source so you can look at it yourself. But really, in terms of making a difference. (smart action plan) small following – small budget( lets say $50-100 per person donations gets them a couple mill from a pretty small base of support), use budget to increase following, increase following exponentially, large budget (multi million dollar budget – few dollars per person, following of millions) if you actually want to make an effective change, you need the finances to finish the job
As I said awareness is great but awareness isn’t going to save those poor kids in Uganda. Nor are their policies, such as militarising Uganda; that’s just going to make things worse! Furthermore, as stated in one of the links, the problem has actually decreased by 80%. Sure the problem is still there and Kony should be caught, but the footage is very old in that video. It’s all just a bit too shady for my liking.
Here is a response from Invisible Children to what the critics have been saying: http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html
I don’t see their stated goals as trying to militarize Uganda. It seems to me they are trying to work with military and civilian organizations to bring a war criminal to justice. And did you see the scholarships that they fund for children who are reintegrating after having been abducted, or the counseling centers that they have set up for these kids to help them get over the horrors of being sex-slaves, killers, and mutilating other people, or the radio networks they have helped to establish to warn remote villages of LRA activity in the areas (you know for that other 20%)?
I am in my 50s and have been donating periodically to Invisible Children for close to 7 years. I consider myself well-informed and a little idealistic, but not naive. I don’t know the people directly involved in IC and am in no way affiliated with them, other than being a donor. I look at both sides of an issue and even though I am a supporter of IC and have been for years, I posted critics’ blogs on my FB to make sure my friends saw more than one side because I consider that responsible. My daughter just came back from 27 months in a little country in Southern Africa called Lesotho, where she was a Peace Corps volunteer. Most people in the US have never heard of that country, in fact quite often when you speak of Africa in the United States, many people think it is a single country – an awareness problem.
When I saw the first movie – Invisible Children, it appeared to me that the organization was started by young, idealistic kids who saw something horrible and decided to try to do something about it. Maybe it’s not the most efficiently run NGO out there, but they are trying to be innovative in their approaches to solving issues, and I would say that they have been INCREDIBLY EFFECTIVE in one of their primary stated goals – AWARENESS. Everyone is talking about it, good or bad.
You say that this is old news and the problem has decreased by 80%, so is it just too bad for the children that are part of the remaining 20%? I know if my child was part of the 20%, I’d want people to still be advocating for her. The film maker states at the beginning of the film that this is an experiment, they are trying something new, something different. I can’t help but wonder why some people just want to shoot it down. If you don’t feel it’s a good fit for you to donate to – don’t donate, but why are you telling other people that are donating that they are foolish and naive and wasting their money? How do you know? Have you been to Uganda or any other country in Central Africa or the rest of Africa? Have you seen how governments, societies and cultures in Africa work? If so, can you give specifics of why this won’t work? Do you have a BETTER idea for catching the man?
Apparently, there are people in Congress and the Executive Office, who after hearing what IC had to say, thought sending assistance was a worthwhile idea. Do you think they just jumped on the bandwagon without having their staffs dig deeper into what was actually going on? Do you think that THEY don’t reallize that the problem has decreased? They just committed troops last year.
For my money, just the fact that the youth of America are discussing Joseph Kony instead of Snookie and The Situation, alone almost makes every penny I’ve donated worth it. And what if… what if it works? What if making Kony famous gets him captured and tried? Doesn’t that set a precedent for other war criminals? You can run but you can’t hide because with social media we now have the tools to make sure you are found. Wasn’t this the premise behind America’s Most Wanted, which has been highly successful? Maybe it’s just the “naive”, idealist in me that wants to believe Margaret Mead was right when she said ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
This morning I too was excited by the viral video released by Invisible Children. I am not easily taken in. It is very well made. I don’t recall anything in the video that claimed the LRA was still operating. The old footage was described as such. The African boy matured to a young man in the course of the story. The story, to me, is about how grass roots people activated and impacted the world through the political process … they stirred their elected officials to action. Now, if President Obama sent military aide without ever hearing of Invisible Children, I agree that would be a dishonest portrayal of the organization. More research required. The stated purpose of the campaign is to make Kory ‘famous’ for the purpose of his capture for trial before the Hague on international crimes. On its face that seems to be a legitimate endeavor. If the organization has knowlege that Kory is already dead, obviously the it would be fraudulent. I won’t donate $ until I know more about this organizations finances, but I have no qualms with a $90k annual salary for a non-profit founder, director, camera man, videographer, creative talent and marketing manager. How much do the directors of large non-profs make? Much more than $90k. I’m moving quickly here so I didn’t re-read, but if the organization posted the salary openly, where is the deception? Another interesting wrinkle in our rapidly changing world. I am giving the makers of this video my creative seal of approval and Invisible Children the benefit of the doubt for now.
” It’s all just a bit too shady for my liking.”
Well, Ashley says it…so everyone, follow Ashley.
OR
Now that Invisible Children Inc (& Kony2012) is well known (their intent) and is spreading awareness of the issue (capturing and bringing to justice Kony)…perhaps WE THE PEOPLE funding this awareness campaign, along with the “skeptical media” – rather than trying to simply shut them and shut them down (which is exactly what this criticism is coming off as) – perhaps we should be helping to build them up, and FORCING THEM to be as ethical and transparent as possible.
And also, help them shave off the stuff that makes less sense – like militarizing Uganda…
though, most nations ARE militarized, so why cant the Ugandan people do that if they want? Militarization costs money…I suspect, Uganda isnt flush with cash?
And had they been militarized…would KONY ever have been able to do what he did?
The answer, no. So you can see why this group – which is likely run people who mean well but arent the best at running an organization of this scale – logically took that leap.
Ultimately, id rather help grow and shape this group to ensure it does good things…
rather than shut them down because we are scared they MIGHT be shady…
and this is why evil continues to triumph, good people do nothing…and like Ashley, cast shaddows on everything that COULD BE GOOD, making sure we sit idle…and just not worry about it
afterall, these atrocities happened to black people in central africa, why should good white christians care at all
right Ashley?
While your optimism is wonderful unfortunately you’re being a little naive. People are too quick to trust, a large number of people a day are victims of online scams because they’re naive and trusting. I am not saying Invisible Children is a scam, I am merely saying that people are too quick to trust in something before properly researching it.
The awareness the campaign has created is wonderful, however the idea of some guy getting rich off of it is not. Their finances are clearly in an atrocious state and wouldn’t you want to know that your money was being used to its absolute maximum potential?
I’ll largely ignore the final couple of paragraphs, for obvious reasons. However I don’t regret writing the article and I certainly don’t regret my stance on Invisible Children. Just because my point of view doesn’t align with your point of view it doesn’t make it wrong, evil nor idle.
In fact someone taking a critical look at their organisation, as I and others have, is far more likely to “help grow and shape” Invisible Children. If people were to, without thinking, throw money at them with no constructive criticism they would just continue as they are; wasting peoples’ money (as in, not using it as effectively as they could).
Please read stories about The Other Invisible Children. Imagine — our state’s most vulnerable children, betrayed by a state system that was supposed to protect them — and we have no idea who they are.
Learn more about them…..Please read their stories. http://suncanaa.com These stories touch the heart of some people, but after the news dies down, it’s as if it never happened.