In an interesting and wide ranging post, Chris Arnold, talks about the emergence of grassroots campaigning groups as a threat to traditional charitable institutions. He suggests that “there is some evidence that issue websites are gaining more followers than traditional charity sites in the States.”
We shouldn’t be surprised by this trend. Charities, like every other institution, are having to come to terms with the challenges posed by consumer empowerment. It has never been easier for passionate and creative individuals to start grassroots campaigns, focused on single issues, that are capable of securing mass support, generating donations and forcing corporates to respond. And the immediacy and novelty of these campaigns makes them feel far more exciting than many of the ongoing fundraising initiatives implemented by traditional charities.
We are now in the era of the ‘pop-up charity” in which the dominance of the institutional charities is challenged by short-term, highly focused campaigning groups, that recruit followers to their cause through social media, grab the headlines and then disappear, to be replaced by other groups, with equally short-term goals.