Written by Danielle Lanyard | 30 April 2010

When Doing Good has Nothing to do with it

A recent debate has been sparked in the development community in response to the #1millionshirts campaign to donate 1 million t-shirts to Africa.  As a lifelong activist turned social entrepreneur in the tech space, the issue of making recipient recognition and participation the main issue, is paramount to my understanding of healthy, effective and sustainable development projects.  As someone who has been schooled by the very organizer of the chat, @katrinskaya, I was compelled to follow up with her by email regarding these concerns...and to open them up to the public for a grand 'ol hashing, uh, I mean healthy discourse.

My 'deep penetrating thoughts' after participating in the "first-ever global press conf/mea culpa / paradigm shifting dev convo from 5 continents originated on twitter":

1) Why is it not a relevant and huge issue to address that the project founder's intentions may not be noble. That they may not be good. He is a marketer, he insists. The 'problem' lays layers beneath him, in that the biggest corporations' bottom lines are now dependent on doing good and not looking like they are spilling metaphoric oil all over the world.  I see this as the real root of the issue - that it is all about $, the aid complex, even this founder's 'good intentions' (which quickly shifted during the convo into an 'I'm a marketer' mantra).

2) This conversation reminds me of when the light went off for me on this issue, planning the first Twestival in NYC. When the biggest companies were begging to sponsor the event, not 1 of the 10 planners (myself included) had any ethic or guideline for the process as it related to the charitable recipient. My voice was silenced, and I honestly didn't know how to raise it effectively because the power of the 'herd' of the social media nyc digerati was so strong, as was the raw and authentic excitement among these PR professionals and entrepreneurs to be a part of 'doing good'. Many from that core ten planners blogged that doing Twestival was the most powerful experience in their life, something somewhat unfathomable to anyone who has taken up a hardship development post, well, anywhere.

3) Ways forward post convo: My personal approach as co-founder of Travelcology, was to approach NGOs before even starting our business, and to build this concept on a transparency model and modus operandi that includes webinars like this from the onset of our launch. My question to this community is: why should any entrepreneur or 'do gooder' now receive communique from various world leaders, who will now serve on his board and work with him, when he didn't do the homework of finding out that these people exist prior to launching a project? Why, I ask, should the lot of us devote an hour of 'free consulting time' to his cause, when the reality is that this circumstance arose out of a business whose founder realized he could market his product better if he gave some away. Arguably not noble or purely intended, nor having much to do with Africa at all! (Sorry Africa, I love ya!) In hearing Jason specifically speak, it reminded me of when folks get called out on being racist, after which they claim their best friends are black and usually a person of color has to step in to teach the uneducated person the harmful impact of their ignorance.  My dream outcome of this conference call would not be that Jason get schooled (any single marketer or entrepreneur is inconsequential to the underlying issue). My hope would be that this community cocreates a go-to spot online for best practices in #ict4dev for these issues, as opposed to any social entrepreneur getting to make a buck out of our group thought, outrage, or otherwise.

4) It never occurred to Jason to contact local t-shirt dealers NOT because he is ignorant or doesn't think to partner with local organizations, but because this doesn't make him any money. A similar example would be the nyc organizer of Twestival, who took his new-found social media for social good fame and launched a cause related marketing campaign to crowdsource the inventing of a recyclable coffee cup (every digital strategist must have a cause-celebre). He scored sponsor contacts gained from Twestival and got Starbucks to give $20K to crowdsource the silver bullet cure all. What's interesting is the community response, as shown in this Fast Company article Link, where in the comments section, an entrepreneur asks why this venture didn't just partner up with the existing recycled coffee cup company that has 10 years of successful independent operational success under their belt. The answer given in the comments section is, well, because they are marketers.

I give thanks to every mentor I've ever had from childhood on who has taught me to question my privilege, know my history, and use both as a means for further education and the saving of one self before anything else. I hope this personal response, and the greater global chatter leads to us all getting better at what we do.

Though hard it is for me or anyone to swallow, we act out of ego. and when we get called out on it, it sucks. When we convince ourselves we are doing good, or saving others, it sucks even more.

~ danielle

Written by Danielle Lanyard | 06 September 2009

Growing up a stone's throw from New York City, my path to knowledge and understanding of greatness was very much shaped by what lay on the other side of our infamous bridges and tunnels. The rawness of the city was its own education and the taste of the most experienced and bestest and brightest of everything within a four mile strip was nothing short of its own living breathing university. At the ripe ol' age of 21, I was in university getting my doctorate at NYU in Community Psychology, a step on 'an assembly line towards life success' that had been ingrained in me from my Jewish Jersey suburban roots.  I had everything I had always been told I needed in order to be happy, on paper. The reality was quite different and I left this great city in the summer of 2001 with a feeling of emptiness as if I had given up on all of humanity, save perhaps my ego-centered self!

I left to travel the world, participating in an array of sustainable development, backpacking, humanitarian and just plain fun jaunts everywhere from Israel to India, from the westernmost tip of the Arabian sea in Bhuj to the top of the northernmost peaks of the Himalayan region of Ladakh. It was there that I trekked through unchartered regions of the Indo-Tibetan border with Fritjof Capra's Web of Life in tote, where I swam bare in the holy lake of Tsomoriri and it was in these mountains that we ran out of food and somehow made it work. And it was on the long and arduous two day bus ride through the mountains and back to 'civilization' that I was informed of the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center.

That night, all the bus's passengers camped out in tents at the river's edge, still an entire day away from phones, newspapers and any contact with my poor Jewish parents! Our group that night was indicative of what our world today has become: 1 Israeli couple fresh out of the army. 1 elderly Hindu couple, 1 German couple. 1 Dutch women. 1 Swiss guy, 1 gay American woman and me. Collectively, we had one short wave radio, a few blankets and the profound shock shared by all as we gripped to voices of every world leader and spokesperson offering their statement. One person rightfully stated that 'we were now at war, and that it would never end'. Though in hindsight, she was right, I had the exact opposite, raw response to the threat of war and how that night to remember would forever change our world.

We were and are all in this together.

If anyone told me that night that our global condition would have gotten to its current state, I wouldn't have believed them. Had I been foretold that the seed that was planted from that evening would grow into my current business venture, I would have splashed a drink in their face and schooled them on the evil ills of capitalism.  Yet today, the intricacies of how governments, people, mobile phones, granny smith apples, foreign policy, business practice and even diaper choice - all make a difference and all connect as part of the greater whole. Rethinking this inconvenient truth and how divided we have been leads me to want to choose to take part in the revitalization of both each other and my own backyards, as it is the heart of the vitality of us all. Moreover, this "us' can and will foster the very change I saw and felt that night when a dozen random strangers huddled in a yurt and collectively prayed for a better world.

And so it is perhaps both the greatest shock and no coincidence that this September 11th, 2009, I have some very special and fitting news. Open Venture Society's two signature events, Green Breakfast Club and Green Supper Club, are proud to announce that they have found venues to call home and will both be held in LEED certified buildings in the World Trade Center neighborhood. Our first Green Breakfast Club event will be held on November 2nd at Mercy Corps' Action Center to end world hunger, a LEED platinum certified building that was built right on the remains of ground zero. Everything that crumbles creates the bed of soil for everything that grows out of it. In 2001, I said Kaddish (mourners prayer) at a chabad in Rishikesh for all that perished on that night to remember. This morning I will never forget and so I say both Kaddish and L'chaim (to life), for now that we all share the common thread that we are all in this together, the healing can truly begin.

But still, like dust, I'll rise.  ~ Maya Angelou