chasekennedy63
18.06.2021 19:21:12
17 Eastern Congo Initiative, "Grantmaking", http://www.easterncongo.org/about/grantmaking
See full version: Do Celebrity Humanitarians Matter
17 Eastern Congo Initiative, "Grantmaking", http://www.easterncongo.org/about/grantmaking
Finally, celebrity humanitarians should take seriously the responsibility of speaking for others and accept that there may be negative consequences for their work. Affleck's prominence as an advocate for DRC gives his proposals greater significance but also greater risks. With his enviable access, Affleck is able to speak directly to U.S. lawmakers and his testimony has the opportunity to shape U.S. foreign policy toward the DRC. But, as an American presuming to speak on behalf of the Congolese people, Affleck runs the risk of misrepresenting their interests. Should Affleck's policy proposals ultimately prove ineffective or have negative consequences, ECI's existence would not be threatened since ECI's funders and supporters are in the United States. Nor will Affleck's status as a celebrity humanitarian likely be affected. more
9 Look to the Stars, n.d. Ben AffleckCharity Work, Events and Causes. Available from http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/ben-affleck [26 November 2012] [links]
Affleck can be considered a "celebrity humanitarian," a celebrity figure who has moved beyond his/her day job as an entertainer to delve into the areas of foreign aid, charity, and development. These activities can involve fundraising, hosting concerts and events, media appearances, and engaging in advocacy. Celebrities are distinguished by their unique ability to attract and engage diverse audiences ranging from their fan base and the media to political elites and philanthropists. Celebrity humanitarians often play an important bridging role, introducing Northern publics to issues in the developing world. They also use their star power to gain access to policy-making circles to effect social and political change. Since 1980, the U.S. Congress has seen the frequency of celebrity witnesses double to around 20 a year with most celebrity appearances taking place before committees addressing domestic issues. Interestingly, fewer than 5 percent of celebrity witnesses testify before committees dealing with foreign relations, where celebrity humanitarians push the United States to address global concerns. 8
5 Look to the Stars, n.d. "Charities with Celebrity Supporters." Available at http://www.looktothestars.org/charity [20 November 2014] [links]
To create his organization, Affleck turned to a strategic advisory firm based in Seattle, Washington, called Williamsworks. 14 The firm works for foundations, non-profit organizations, and corporations; it boasts impressive political connections and financial ties. Williamsworks also consults for other celebrity-led organizations like ONE, led by the musician Bono, and Water.org, co-founded by Affleck's childhood friend and actor Matt Damon. 15 The founder and CEO of Williamsworks Whitney Williams serves as co-founder of ECI alongside Affleck.
Kim Kardashian West is known for her fashion sense, so it’s not surprising that one of her favorite charities to support is Dress for Success. Dress for Success provides women with appropriate clothing for job interviews and gives them the skills they need to succeed in the professional world.
What hasn’t Angelina done? Her dedication to charity work has become her true passion. Angelina became the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the late ‘00s and has visited countless countries helping refugees find a safe space, as well as speaking to Congress on behalf of the UN. more
Dolly’s goddaughter Miley has a cause near and dear to her heart, too. Her Happy Hippie Foundation seeks to “fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth, and other vulnerable populations.” Miley has used her visibility and voice to raise awareness, most notably by bringing a homeless date to the 2014 VMAs and with her super-viral Backyard Sessions videos featuring musician friends like Ariana Grande. (Both Miley and Ariana have lent their famous faces to MAC’s Viva Glam campaign, too.) [links]
There's often more to your favorite celebrities than meets the eye — in addition to the glitz and glamour that comes with their day jobs, they often give back to the communities and causes that mean a lot to them. In honor of Women’s History Month, we wanted to spotlight some of the iconic women throughout history who have lent their voices and their fame to causes close to their hearts. While we know and love them for their musical talent or their star power on the screen, these women make the world a better place with compassion and care, too.
Dolly Parton grew up poor in the hills of Tennessee, and when she found fame she wanted to give back to her community. She founded the Imagination Library as a way to spark a love of reading in children; the Library sends children one book per month. Now, the Imagination Library is available all over the U.S. and even in the United Kingdom, sending out over 60 million books to little kids everywhere. [links]
When she was a child during WWII, Audrey Hepburn and her family depended on charities for food and medicine. After she retired from the movie business, Audrey became a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and it became her primary focus; she raised money, visited countless countries, and continued to work for the foundation while battling cancer.
100% Exposure with 0% Accountability [links]
Supporting celebrity activists contributes to the culture of failure and promotes what is called Slacktivism. This relatively new term, Slackstivism, describes people who consider themselves online activists but are actually more concerned with appearing to join the right cause but, in actuality, doing as little as possible to make a difference. When activism is a trend, misinformation runs rampant. The culture of failure puts so much pressure on succeeding that we forget how to sit back and educate ourselves, and to take the time to decide what we believe in and, more importantly, how to act on these beliefs. [links]
When a celebrity gives their endorsement to a product, they generate brand recognition and provide a sense of familiarity and trust, which equals sales. In fact, just one celebrity endorsement can boost sales of a product by 4% almost immediately, according to Marketwatch, as cited by Forbes. So, if celebrity endorsement can boost product sales, why not use the same model to boost social responsibility? The UN has been using Goodwill Ambassadors as representatives for decades. Becoming a UN Goodwill Ambassador means going through a vetting system that requires having a sizeable number of followers as well as producing the right kind of image. To represent a charity means living your life in accordance with their message, which some celebrities embrace and embody willingly. In these cases, celebrity activists can do a world of good.
Celebrities Are People Too
Where Have All the Experts Gone? more
In terms of mental illness, abuse and poverty, no one is immune, not even celebrities. But unlike the 1 in 10 Americans suffering from depression, celebrities have a platform to shed light. Members of the British Royal Family have openly discussed depression and therapy, peeling back the stigma surrounding mental health and celebrity, showing the world that everyone is susceptible. Jim Carrey speaks frankly about being homeless as a young teen. He is explicitly a part of the conversation surrounding the charities to which he contributes fighting at risk youth and homelessness. And he is only one example of celebrities inspired by their pasts. Everyone has a story, yet some of us are given a larger stage than others on which to express it. Celebrity activists should be commended for embracing such a stage. more
Two pieces of research by UK academics argue that “the ability of celebrity and advocacy to reach people is limited” and that celebrities are “generally ineffective” at encouraging people to care about foreign causes.
Angelina Jolie here
A spokeswoman for Comic Relief said: “The idea that launched Comic Relief was that comedians could use their celebrity to draw public attention to crucial issues to help create a fairer world. Famous faces have played a huge part in the £900m we’ve raised since then.” more
The mapping project is being represented at a debate about whether there's a future for small international development charities this week in London. Small charities may have limited financial resources to work with compared to larger organisations, but what do you view as their strength?
There are two things, the first is that, while they have three orders of magnitude less money than the larger organisations, they don't have three orders of magnitude fewer partners. Their strength is that they are part of quite a rich network. And many of the largest organisations actually depend upon the smaller ones to do a lot of their delivery, and a lot of activities. The second is that you don't have to be big to be effective, and many organisations don't actually seek to grow continually - because they are big enough to achieve what they need to do. Sometimes small is beautiful, and that's particularly true in development.
Are you going to continue to look at the topic?
I'm done now. That was really interesting, and it was satisfying to come up with a reasonably coherent story from it. I think there's a lot of really interesting work to be done on celebrity advocacy and social media. There's lots of really interesting work to be done on which sorts of viral campaigns work. You can now trace links that you could only guess at, or gesture at before. We're now in the scenario where the belief in celebrity advocacy can actually, or the belief in the power of celebrity advocacy, can create that power. And you can count it on Twitter, retweets and so on. So there's interesting work to be done there - and I'm delighted there's lots of really good people doing that work. I'm working on long term poverty measures and livelihood change in East Africa.
How would you hope that your work informs media interaction, public interaction with the celebrity world?
I kind of hope that this really boring question we have: do celebrities really care? That it goes away. Because it's not very interesting for me. And it sets up the possibility that celebrities are somehow different from other people. We all know that anyone who volunteers, or works for a cause, has got a mixture of altruistic motives and selfish motives. It's the same with celebrities. I'm not quite sure what difference it makes what the fundamental motive is. Even if that fundamental motive is knowable. I'm much more interested in whether it does what it says on the tin. Does it produce the access required? Does it produce the change desired? Does it produce the funds that people said that it was going to raise? I'm much more interested in what sorts of development understandings it communicates. What sort of world it reshapes. I'm much more interested in, what are the politics of engagement?
There's this article by Marks and Fisher, and their critique is that celebrity does animate publics, but it animates it on the politicians' own agenda. The celebrity is wheeled in to support their causes. It's not grassroots, it's a top-down imposition. That may be true in some parts of the States, but in British cases what seems to be the case is that the public isn't invigorated, but other elites are. And they think the public's invigorated. It's a smoke and mirrors effect. This semblance, this aura, of popularity. This is explicitly used by development NGOs. They have deliberately used this ability of celebrity to invoke the public in their campaigning. This conclusion is absolutely clear in black and white in Brendan Cox's report. He says that the celebrity invokes a public, and we can use the presence of a celebrity to make a campaign look as if the public are engaged, even if they're not engaged in the first place.
So that's where the activity was having the biggest impact? As far as donors go - getting a response from elites to donate finance? How did you measure the reaction and impact?
I'm saying that because of the way my interviewees talked about it. It's incredibly hard to say that, because we had a celebrity who is this famous on this occasion, as opposed to one who is that famous on that occasion, that we got X more money. I don't think anyone has been foolish enough to put it in those stark terms. It's an incredibly imprecise science, if it's a science at all. It's about building associations between brands, and building long term relationships. Such that the brand of the celebrity and the brand of the cause match well together. If that happens, then it's relatively cheap for everyone involved. Doesn't cost that much to the celebrity. Doesn't require that much time and effort from the charity. It means then that any return you get is based on costs which have been put in a long time ago. more
What do you think sparked it? The fact the proliferation of those sorts of relationships was happening anyway?
I think the proliferation, yes. I think it became fashionable. You can certainly trace the growth in articles about celebrity and charity, right through the 1990s. That precedes the professionalisation. That suggests the fact that all this was going on required it to have a better organisation. A lot of the people I was talking to were the first, or sometimes the second post-holders of the celebrity liaison officer position. Before that relationships had been quite loosely managed, but they began to realise, actually, if we put resource into this we can get a much better return from it. The other surprise was the muted public response to celebrity - it's not as popular a thing in Britain as one would expect - and also the fact that it just works so well with political elites and corporate elites. more