DigiActive.org

Tactic: Twestival – Tweet, Meet, Give

Description: On February 12th, over 175 cities will be holding Twestival events as a fundraiser for Charity: Water, a nonprofit organization that works to provide clean and safe drinking water to developing nations. All money raised during the event will be used to drill wells which can cost anywhere from $4,000 – $12,000. Twestivals are a new opportunity for people everywhere to take action at a local level in order to collectively help the global movement.

Digital Tools Being Used: Twitter

How These Tools Are Being Used: Twitter is rapidly gaining popularity and pushing into mainstream media. The idea of doing Twestivals came from a group of people who knew each other through twitter. The event is a combination of a twitter meetup and a fundraiser. This idea can be easily replicated for any organization, grassroots group and/or cause. The internet and social networking sites have made it possible for people to get their cause out to massive amounts of people. This is a great model of activating a large network of people all across the world.

Outcome: The goal of the Twestival is to raise $500,000. Beth Kanter brings up some interesting questions about how the Twestival works and questions if this is a massive opportunity or just a distraction for nonprofit organizations. I guess we’ll see what the outcomes are after the event is over.

Sources: Twestival, Charity: Water, Beth’s Blog, Mashable

Campaign: Courage Campaign

the courage campaign's "Please don't divorce..." community photo project

Description: “Please don’t divorce…” is a community photo project put together by the Courage Campaign. The project contains hundreds of photos of same-sex and straight-ally couples who are voicing their opinions about Proposition 8. The passing of the proposition will nullify over 18,000 same-sex marriages in California.

Digital Activism Tools: Flickr

How These Tools Are Being Used: Over 500 people have taken photos of themselves holding signs with “Please don’t divorce us” or similar slogans. The photos are uploaded onto the Courage Campaign’s Flickr where they stream a slideshow of all the photos onto the action page on their website. 

Outcomes: The project has gathered over 600 photos of people voicing their disagreement with Proposition 8. The project also puts a face on the thousands of couples in California who will be affected by Proposition 8. 

Sources: Courage Campaign, Flickr

Campaign: Protests against Proposition 8

credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mvjantzen/

Description:
The approval of Proposition 8 outlaws same-sex marriages in the state of California, which only recently passed a law to allow same-sex marriages to be recognized. LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer) activists all around the country have been speaking out against this blatant form of hate and discrimination with protests, rallies and boycotts.

Digital Activism Tools:
Facebook

How These Tools are being used:
A group called Join the Impact has been organizing national Days of Actions all over the Country. Prior to the first call to action rally held cities all over America, Facebook groups and events popped up days leading up to the big event on November 15th. Almost immediately after the event on the 15th, I received another Facebook invite to the “Day without a Gay” event also organized by Join the Impact. The event which will take place on December 10th, is a direct action where over 100,000 LGBTQ people and allies will go on strike by calling out of work and not making any financial purchases. The Facebook event explains that “LGBT workers, business owners, consumers and taxpayers contribute over $700 billion to the American economy and we deserve the same rights as all other Americans.”  

Boycotts have been increasingly popular in California since Californians Against Hate started a Dishonor Roll list of people, businesses, organizations and churches that donated large sums of money to Pro-Proposition 8 Campaigns. The Dishonor Roll includes, and boycotts and protests have been staged against, Cinemark Cinemas, A-1 Self Storage, Hoehn Motors, El Coyote and many, many Mormon Churches. 

Outcome:
The LGBTQ movement has been re-energized and they are not going to sit back anymore. The numbers on these Facebook groups show that there is a huge movement going on and lots of support behind it. Join the Impact plans to keep this momentum going by providing actions and ideas for ways to create change. 

Campaign: Sex Education from a Mobile Ringtone

A ringtone that repeats the word “condom” sung in different melodies to spread the word of safe sex in India. According to Yvonne MacPherson, this is the “first time a mobile ring-tone had been used to communicate a social or public health message.” So far, the ringtone has been downloaded over 270,000 times and is helping to spark conversations about safe sex and to break condoms out of being a taboo subject (no pun intended).

Digital Tools Being Used: mobile cell phones (more info at MobileActive and ICT4Peace)

Tempest in Cresent City – An online game about Hurricane Katrina

Description: To follow up on Talia’s post about the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a game has been developed by Global Kids and Game Pill in efforts to raise youth’s awareness about the “ongoing relief efforts in New Orleans“. The game, Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Cresent City, is played from the point of view of Vivica Waters, a fictional character who is searching for her mother in the aftermath of Katrina. Along the way, Vivica must help her fellow neighbors-in-distress while dodging debris and braving the rising flood waters. The accompanying website is full of resources and educational information about Hurricane Katrina’s impact in New Orleans along with ways to get invovled to help out.

PLAY THE GAME NOW!

Tactic: Using Twitter to increase participation at Blood Drive

click to watch video footage

Description: The Austin Social Media Club and the 501 Tech Club recently had a meet up. They also gave blood. These two things happened simultaneously at the “Tweetup Blood Drive” in Austin, Texas.

Tools Being Used: Twitter

How These Tools Are Being Used: Twitter is a great micro-blogging tool that helps people get short and urgent messages out to a large audience. It has a viral effect that echo’s on and on.

Outcome: The Tweetup Blood Drive was a huge success! The Blood Center of Texas confirmed that the two groups helped double the amount of blood donors. This tactic can easily be replicated by many other cities, blood drives, and all sorts of events especially as twitter continues to gain more popularity.

Tools: The Hub

Tool Description: Witness, an organization dedicated to creating exposure of human rights violations all over the globe through the use of video, has launched a beta version of The Hub. The Hub is a collection of videos that focus on human rights issues. Anyone can create an account and upload a video as long as it relates to human rights. Each video page has information and resources about the issue and links to the campaigns where you can take action.

Activist Application: Activists in China have been uploading videos to The Hub to show instances of police violence upon civilian protesters. The videos were originally uploaded to Chinese video hosting sites, but were quickly taken down. There is also a heavy focus on the 2008 Olympics and how bringing the Olympics to China has only made their human rights worse.

Ease of Use: If you or your organization have a video already made, the ease of use is simple. Just follow these steps to create an account and upload your video.

Tactic: Using Ad Clicks to Protest Corporations

Description

Grassroots organizers have been attacking big corporation by using their ads against them. Have you ever seen an ad for a makeup product that has been tested on animals? There’s no way you would ever buy or support that company, so clicking on that banner ad would probably never cross your mind. Now, activists and organizers have been actively seeking out these banners by searching for specific keywords to find them so they can click on them and NOT buy their products, resulting in a loss in ad revenue for the business. Once they are at the website of the company, they then go to the Contact page to send them an e-mail explaining why they are protesting.

Organizer

When doing a search to see exactly which organizations were doing this type of protest, information could not be found. This may be because of the anonymity that organizers wish to keep so they are not held accountable for costing these businesses money.

Purpose of Action

The purpose of the action is to cost businesses money by clicking on ads with no intent to purchase their project. This costs the company money and also tells them that people are boycotting the purchase of their product for certain reasons.

Organizing tools

A computer with internet

Outcome

The tactic sounds great in theory, but just like in most cases, most things are in favor of big business. There was an instance where Google was sued due to click fraud and ended up refunding the businesses that were affected.

Ease of Replication

This would be a fairly easy tactic for any organizer and can be used for many different issues