A week ago one of the single largest charity fundraising efforts took place in Jo’burg. It also caused the slaktivsts to get really angry… and thats about it.
The CEO Sleepout is an international concept that has raised over USD30million (thats over R400 million) over the last 10 years.
This was the second time in as many years South African CEO’s took time, effort, corporate willingness, and most importantly funds, yes cash … and rallied around the wooden fire’s of cold Jhb streets as one to discuss common areas of concern that affect the complex corporate citizenry of a country as troubled as South Africa.
Let’s be clear.
It wasn’t designed to be a Bear Grylls styled immersion into Hillbrow’s underbelly, nor were these senior executives expected to fend for themselves on the street eating cockroaches and drinking piss.
As with any mass participation event the parameters were clearly defined for both comfort, appeal and safety.
The end-game was always designed to be conversation, comprehension. compassion and a healthy dollop of good old fashioned fund-raising. Oh, and lets not forget the tangible and direct benefit to the Jozi homeless of all goods, equipment and most of the clothing taken onto the Nelson Mandela bridge, over and above the money raised.
Anyone working in sponsorship like me will vouch for just how impressive a task this actually is.
Times are tough, corporate spending is being carefully monitored, and donor fatigue is real.
To successfully deliver a R35 million fund raising activity that is both independently audited and governed is no mean feat and needs every ounce of recognition for its herculean efforts.
South Africa should have got behind it like the other countries around the globe using the exact same model of engagement and assessment of the overall success of this unique initiative.
But the reality of apathetic, opinionated and uninformed social media kicked off and the South African slacktivists pulled in.
Social media accounts fired up, and people with very little context, background or real understanding of much of the cause or its’s background structure weighed in heavily with opinions, arguments, anger and attitude by the bucket load. Opinions were formed from the last 3 tweets on timelines, and the armchair activists got stuck in for all the wrong reasons.
The arguments flew thick and fast from many directions but the themes were remarkably similar and included:
1) The CEO’s are humiliating the homeless, and should subject themselves to the real anguish of a real street facing the associate dangers. This amounts to Poverty Porn.
A Great argument if you knew nothing about the structure of the actual foundation, or event. As already stated firstly the SleepOut is a metaphorical extension to create a sense of camaraderie and purpose, not an immersive experience.
If this statement were to be considered seriously we should all immediately stop shaving our heads for the CANSA Shave-A-Thon cause as this is clearly insulting to Cancer survivors everywhere, and rather subject ourselves to ChemoTherapy and Radiation treatment until our hair falls out in solidarity?
2) The homeless are not benefitting, this is humiliating for them and we are different to other countries.
The assumption that being homeless in country A is better / worse than country B is as arrogant as it is insulting.
Lost in this impulsive 140 character war (because it involved a knowledge of the actual initiative) was the long term charitable support, significant Salvation Army integration, additional sideline fundraising initiatives, heightened awareness of the homeless plight, direct benefit of donations of all bridge infrastructure and clothing, soup kitchens etc.
The list that most couldn’t be bothered to research is both long, real and sustained over a lengthy period.
3) Real charity does not need PR.
Yes! And No! Get real!
The corporate world has every right to expect exposure for donating funds over and above their existing CSI strategic initiatives… Newsflash, thats how the world works, maybe not in armchair suburbia but then again the twitter trolls were not actually contributing any funds, or good to the cause.
Having said that ever single CEO I heard, spoke to or interacted with was 100% there primarily for the cause and content, not for the marketing and PR.
The desire and need to make a difference on a long term sustainable basis was the common theme around the fires, but sadly none of that was snap chatted, or posted on twitter. I guess it didn’t make for good angry arguments.
And then, as quickly as the insults were flying, the conversation moved on.
As angry as everyone was.
As vocal as the arguments were.
As much as the hashtag was being flung left, right and centre by every thought leader, opinionated follower, troll or otherwise… the social media community found it’s next plaything.
So to be clear amongst all the negativity and nay-saying , the single constant is that R35 million was still raised!
Yes, R35 million has been secured and will be distributed, and effectively change thousands, maybe tens of thousands of lives as a result.
Then I checked the timelines of the angry slakctivists.
The people who were baying for the blood of the CEO’s and anyone involved. The ones that jumped to conclusions faster than that could pummel their keyboards.
And guess what.
While every slacktivist was shouting from the rafters, pummelling their anguished chests in disbelief at the insensitivity of it all, and taking to the tweets to angrily… blogging… two, maybe three times a day, nothing else has actually been physically effected, implemented, discussed or even debated.
I checked again as maybe i missed it.
Nope! No-one! Not one! Nothing!
Not one of the angry mob created a movement – hell no one has even started a hashtag!
No one pro-actively commenced a real (non-antagonistic) conversation with a corporate CEO.
Zero Rand’s have been raised in the last week from the armchairs of suburbia and Twitterville.
And then, as quickly as it started, the slacktivist conversations moved on to the next big thing.
The next fight. The next reason to exist. And be important. It’s that obvious and sad. Like bored ADD kids, they found the next shiny toy and all pounced on that.
And thats exactly the irony of the era of the armchair activist.
We live in a country where the biggest danger is doing nothing, where our problems are real, poverty is a way of life and unemployment is the highest in the world.
There is absolutely no good that could come from the CEO Sleepout NOT happening, and every single fund raising activity that offers hope to the disenfranchised should be embraced not embargoed.
God knows R35 million and a whole bunch of corporate goodwill will go a lot further to helping start to mend the social fabric of a country like ours than some angry tweets and a few blogs.
by 
I sent a comment re voluntary programmes Kos en Fynbos as well as Kos en Kosmos which appears to have got.lost…maybe it can be retrieved???