The KONY 2012 campaign, launched by the non-profit Invisible Children to stop Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, became an international sensation last week with its viral video, which has since become the most viral video in history, according to one researcher. In response to criticism that has surfaced against Invisible Children in light of the campaign, Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey has released a video specifically addressing concerns that the organization is promoting "slacktivisim" and has corrupt financial practices.
"I think I understand, a lot people are wondering, 'Is this some kind of slick, fly by night, slacktivist thing?' when actually it's not at all. It's actually a really — it's connected to a really deep, very thoughtful, very intentional and strategic campaign," Keesey says.
In the video, Keesey clarifies that Invisible Children's threefold mission consists of 1) media; 2) advocacy and 3) development. He lays out how the organization allocates its expenses and justifies these expenses by defining how Invisible Children interprets them. Program expenses, for example, is "money that is spent that directly contributes to the mission." This includes investing this money "directly on the ground," mobilizing international communities and "mass awareness campaigns" like the Kony 2012 video.
Meanwhile, "travel and transportation expenses" encompasses the money the organization needs to bring the video face-to-face with students in high schools and colleges nationwide — to pay for things like roadies, vans, vehicle maintenance, gas and bringing survivors of Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to these campuses to tell their stories personally. "Production costs," another expense, is the "hard cost," Keesey says, that goes into the goods that people supporting Invisible Children can buy, such as t-shirts, DVDs and bracelets.
The video goes on to show Invisible Children's budgets for recent fiscal years, which are available online on its website. Keesey also directly addresses one of the organization's major criticisms: "Any claims that we don't have financial transparency, or that we're not audited every year by an independent firm, or that we don't have financial integrity, just aren't true."
With the goal of the Kony 2012 campaign being to stop Joseph Kony, Keesey offers no apologies for this budget. "It's intentional. It is our strategy. It's what we do, and we stand behind it," he says.
In accordance with Invisible Children's mission, the Kony 2012 video has certainly made Joseph Kony a household name. However, this response video — ironically titled "Thank you, Kony 2012 Supporters" even though its targeted more toward Invisible Children's critics — doesn't necessarily address some of the more controversial topics that have arisen out of the campaign. How purchasing items like T-shirts and bracelets will actually ignite supporters of the campaign to talk to their leaders and governments about stopping the LRA, for example, is not discussed. Moreover, the idea of the "white man's burden," and the notion that Westerners must go to Africa in order to save it from itself actually seems propagated by the fact that Keesey begins and ends the video with his personal story of being affected by the situation in Uganda.
While this response video does feature local Ugandans on the ground who are working in conjunction with Invisible Children, another prominent Ugandan, journalist Rosebell Kagumir, has released her own video calling out Invisible Children.
"How do you tell the stories of Africans is so much more important than what the story is, actually," Kagumir says in her video. "Because if you are showing me as voiceless, as hopeless, you have no space telling my story."
What do you think of Invisible Children's latest video? Does it adequately respond to its critics? Sound off in the comments.
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