Positively Inspired Change Campaigns
Social change agents often use guilt, fear, pity, or outrage to rally an audience around a cause. But does tapping into negative emotions with the hope of creating positive change make sense? Could focusing our common attention and intention on positive emotions more effectively transform our world? This panel will explore the experiences of recent positivity-based campaigns by Epic Change and HopeLab and other examples. Contribute to the discussion and learn how you can infuse these principles in your next campaign. Questions will include: How do positive (versus negative) emotions influence audiences? How can you build happiness, joy, inspiration and love into your next campaign? How do we inspire these best parts of ourselves in the pursuit of social change and meaningful engagement? Is positivity-based messaging more sustainable than its opposite? How do we balance some of the difficult realities of the world and the work we are doing with a positive message?
Presenters
Stacey Monk is the CEO & co-founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit that amplifies the voices and impact of grassroots changemakers. The organization began its work in Arusha, Tanzania, where Stacey met Mama Lucy Kamptoni, a former chicken farmer who used her income to build a school in her village. Epic Change has rallied thousands of people across the globe to invest nearly $300,000 in the school so far to build a locally-led primary and secondary school for nearly 600 children that is now completely self-sufficient and consistently ranks among the top 3 out of over 120 in its district. The school’s founder, Mama Lucy, has already repaid nearly $20,000 of that investment, and funds have been recycled to invest in Nepali changemaker Subhash Ghimire who has now used the funds to build a primary school in the village where he was born and raised.
Creators of TweetsGiving/Epic Thanks, one of the first efforts that harnessed the power of Twitter to do good, and the Mother’s Day social media event To Mama With Love, Epic Change has been widely recognized for their innovative use of social media in creating social change, appearing in Forbes.com, The Huffington Post,CNN.com, VentureBeat, Mashable, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Ode Magazine and Twitterville, a book profiling successful business uses of Twitter by Silicon Valley journalist Shel Israel. Epic Change is also behind a classroom of seventh graders known as the TwitterKids of Tanzania who tweet & write tumblr blogs from their school in Arusha. Prior to launching Epic Change, Stacey worked with Deloitte Consulting, Genentech, the Santa Clara Social Services Agency and her own successful change management firm, Funken Consulting. A graduate of the Heinz School of Public Policy & Management at Carnegie Mellon University, Stacey began her career in performing arts management.
For over 15 years Tom Dawkins has been exploring how technology and culture can be harnessed as tools to create a more democratic and participatory society.
In 2000, while studying at UNSW, Tom founded Vibewire Youth Media and in 2002 launched the houth culture website Vibewire.net. From there they expanded into film festivals, publications and sending youth reporters out on the campaign trail with the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader during the past three Federal Elections. In 2006 Tom opened sQuareOne, the first social innovation focused co-working space in Sydney and in 2008 he handed over Vibewire to younger leadership and went traveling before moving to the US.
From 2008-2010 Tom was the first Social Media Director at Ashoka, the world’s leading association of social entrepreneurs, with the mandate of using social technologies to help create an Everyone a Changemaker World. While there he grew Ashoka’s Twitter following to over 300,000 and launched one of the first Twitter chats. Tom has worked with numerous nonprofits, governments and arts organizations to better engage communities using technology and culture and been recognized with awards and Fellowships from the UN, International Youth Foundation and Future Summit.
In 2010 he co-founded social change crowdfunding platform StartSomeGood.com.
Tom is a passionate advocate for the power of technology and social media to build communities, inspire changemakers and empower all of us to change the world.
Monday, March 12
