Think twice before donating towards Kony 2012 By KAITLIN LOUNSBERRY/VOICE CORRESPONDENT GateHouse News Service Posted Mar 12, 2012 @ 11:00 PM If you’ve attended school once in the last week, you should be very familiar with Joseph Kony. A video from nonprofit Invisible Children released March 5 reached more than 30 million views by March 8. By Sunday, it had reached 72 million. “KONY 2012” is a campaign designed by the group to create fame for Kony, a militia leader in Uganda. Kony is accused of “abducting children to be soldiers in his army or ‘wives’ for his officers,” according to Invisible Children’s website. It says his militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army, is “encouraged to rape, mutilate, and kill civilians — often with blunt weapons.” In the LRA’s 26-year history, it has abducted more than 30,000 children and displaced at least 2.1 million people, the website states. Invisible Children, which works to raise awareness about the tactics and funds programs and assistance for Uganda, wants to shed light on Kony’s brutal tactics. When you hear that, Invisible Children’s cause seems like a good one, right? Making a war criminal pay for his crimes, seems legit, right? Most people think so. The Oprah Winfrey Foundation even donated $2 million to the group. It sounds like a great cause until you hear Invisible Children has come under fire for some issues about many of those involved in this campaign and concern over the facts of the campaign. For one, the facts of the cause are interesting. The height of the Uganda conflict with Kony took place in 2003, and since being named the most wanted war criminal by the International Criminal Court in 2005, Kony has been living outside of Uganda. His militia is not operating in Uganda, either. Believe me when I say Joseph Kony deserves his punishment for terrorizing the innocent people of Uganda for as long as he did. But Invisible Children isn’t the charity many believe it to be. According to its 2011 tax returns, Invisible Children’s purpose is defined officially as: “Invisible Children uses film, creativity and social action to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Kony’s rebel war and to restore LRA-affected
communities in central Africa to peace and prosperity.” The group declared about $7 million in expenses for its “stateside,” programs which focus on “advocacy and spreading the message to ‘Do more than just watch.’” It says $3.8 million was spent on the group’s initiatives, including a biannual film tour, cross-platform media campaigns and grassroots awareness events. And $3.3 million was dedicated to the organization’s programs in central Africa that focus on education, protection, rehabilitation and livelihood “benefiting over 11,000 people.” Its gross annual revenue was $13.7 million last year. Jason Russel, Laren Poole and Ben Keesey each make between $84,000 and $89,000 per year to run Invisible Children. Many people are skeptical of the organization, though. With $8 million in expenses and $13 million in revenue, some believe more money is being spent on making videos than actually helping the children in Uganda. Visible Children, an anti-Invisible Children blog, said “the company only spent 33 percent of its $8 million-plus in spending on ‘direct services,’ according to a March 8 article in The Atlantic. Meaning, the revenue the group is receiving from the millions of people buying into its campaign goes more toward developing additional campaign material than helping the people of Uganda. Invisible Children is convincing. It has to be to run a multimillion-dollar charity foundation. And if you look at its 2011 Annual Report, it is providing services to Uganda. But could it be doing more with all this money? The group convinced me. I was begging my parents to hand over $30 to help raise awareness about this horrible war criminal. I’m glad I didn’t spend my money on a kit that would only help the foundation spend additional money to make another viral film. If there’s a chance that the money I’m spending that is supposed to go to assisting the Ugandan people is likely not doing so, I’m a lot less likely to trust the intentions of the foundation. I’m not saying groups like Invisible Children aren’t allowed to spend donors’ money on campaign material and other promotional expenses.
After all, how else will anyone know about the issue? But spending less than half of that money on the purposes they claim to be using the money for makes me question the ethical and moral objective of Invisible Children and the KONY 2012 campaign. I’m all one for “being the change you want to see in the world” and going out and informing people of all the injustice and morally corrupt individuals in the world. But with so much that’s unclear about this incredibly popular awareness campaign, I’d try to find other ways to make a change. Perhaps instead of spending your money on Invisible Children and relying on them to do something, do it yourself. Go out and make your own posters, buttons, shirts, stickers, etc., and bring the word to your community. Our generation has the potential to make a difference in the world, and hiding behind a foundation like Invisible Children won’t give us the experience we need to make a change anyway. I’m not saying you have to follow my advice and stop donating to Invisible Children. I’m also not saying that Kony shouldn’t be responsible for his actions. He is every bit as guilty as Invisible Children has informed us. I agree that making Kony “famous” will help bring his arrest from a dream to a reality. But we should not blindly follow what’s popular and what a fancy video tells us to do without checking all the facts. Find out all you can before you donate your hard-earned money. And if you decide not to, it’s OK. You’re still a good person. And there are plenty of things you can do to raise awareness and help. Sometimes it’s the smallest voices that end up making a difference. Voice editor Molly Beck contributed to this report. Kaitlin Lounsberry is a senior at Williamsville High School.