The Charity Place

Mohammed is free!

Earlier in the month, I logged into Facebook - as I seldom seem to do these days - and was delighted to see this message:

If you read my post back in May, or saw the story elsewhere, you'll know that Mohammed had been missing since the 13th of April, after he was arrested by the Egyptian authorities during a public protest.

It's wonderful news that Mohammed's whereabouts is now known - although it has been reported that he was subject to beatings and electric shocks whilst in detention, so I hope that he is safe from any further repercussions.

I can't help wondering whether James Buck's efforts to publicise Mohammed's plight helped to secure his release?

There is no doubt that, through his clever use of social media, he managed to mobilise a huge amount of support and - most effective of all in this case - make some considerable noise about the issue.

And now, apparently, Twitter has been in discussions with James about developing an emergency network, linked to their service, that could be used by activists and in crisis situations.

When you consider how quickly news about the earthquake in China spread via Twitter earlier in the year, it makes absolute sense to promote the ability it has to spread messages, globally, in 'real time'. Although, as users know only too well, Twitter will have to become a lot more stable to cope with the increased traffic for this to be the really powerful tool it has the potential to be - otherwise, another of the up and coming social media channels will simply pick it up and run with it.

Connecting your supporters directly with your work has never been easier

Yesterday, I posted about how charities need to make the most direct connections possible between their supporters and the work they do.

There just really isn’t any good excuse not to be doing this anymore because there are so many accessible, inexpensive tools at our disposal now.

For a lesson in using social media to do connect people and causes, you couldn’t get a much better example than Mara Triangle, who have integrated content on Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo, and are microblogging updates reguarly using Twitter.

It’s just about as close as you can get to the Masai Mara, looking at the wildlife yourself, without actually being there in person (although, when you watch some of the video, you sometimes almost forget you’re still just sitting in front of your PC).

Male Lions Fighting from Joseph Kimojino on Vimeo.

News, photos and footage appear in real time, and the team there engage one-to-one on a daily basis with donors and potential donors all over the world in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

I’m totally hooked.

If you’ve spent five or ten minutes looking at what they do, and the amazing wildlife they’re so bravely protecting – against all the odds – I reckon there’s a good chance you’ll have already signed up to a regular gift.  If you haven’t, take a look at their urgent appeal here and consider giving something.

And, before you go, just think – if Mara Triangle can do this with the scant resources they have, what excuse is there really for your organisation not to be doing something similar?