I met the Invisible Children group back in 2005 when they came to my High school and promoted one of their first videos. I was sincerely touched by this group who had gone to Uganda, and encountered atrocious crimes and was trying to bring them to light. I never heard much of Invisible Children since then until two days ago, when everything went crazy. Hence, I was writing my original post out of rage more than reason, so sorry about that.
I have read the articles you have posted, and did some more research.
Upon relooking at some things, and doing some comparisons between Invisible Children, who spends ~80% of their revenue in program expenses, in comparison to Red Cross which spends about 90%, it made sense to me. Invisible Children spends about 16% in Administrative expenses, when the Red Cross stays about at 4%. This sounds shocking, but when you think about it, the Red Cross CEO gets a million dollar salary, and the Invisible Children founders get about 89,000 (both which I would argue are reasonably paid salaries for these organizations). Given how much more the Red Cross gets in donations, it makes sense that IC has to spend a lot more of their budget in adminstrative expenses.
One of the main points that is argued is that IC promotes military intervention against Kony, and that this will end horribly. I'd like to say that I wish I had a better solution. That was the only thing that stopped Hitler, and although's Kony's crimes do not scale to this magnitude, they are equally as atrocious. Peace talks have been tried with Kony in the past (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4320858.stm) and they simply have not worked. The guy (Kony) is crazy.
I have come to the conclusion that a lot of the dilemmas that have been risen for/against/about Invisible Children is that people in masses are powerful, but also incredibly stupid.
Most of the arguments focus on Invisible Children's spending, because people will be inclined to donate to their cause, thinking the money is going to help Uganda, when most likely, it will go to raising awareness about the issue instead. In this sense, I don't think IC is purposely advocating or campaigning to get more money, but rather that they are being put to fault because some people blindly throw their money into whatever is trending, but I wouldn't blame it on IC falsely advertising, but rather people as always just being stupid.
The argument then becomes, what is better, awareness, or donations to building schools, etc. I would not like to go ahead and compare these, because they have different purposes which I think do not equate (they are simply different purposes).
Overall, I have come to the conclusion that the people who have argued about Invisible Children seek to tell those who don't know the difference and just throw their money where the tide is, that they should do some research and know where their money is going. Perhaps the name charity doesn't fit IC as much as activist group, but regardless, I stand behind them because they are the best solution that has been proposed.
I have read the articles you have posted, and did some more research.
Upon relooking at some things, and doing some comparisons between Invisible Children, who spends ~80% of their revenue in program expenses, in comparison to Red Cross which spends about 90%, it made sense to me. Invisible Children spends about 16% in Administrative expenses, when the Red Cross stays about at 4%. This sounds shocking, but when you think about it, the Red Cross CEO gets a million dollar salary, and the Invisible Children founders get about 89,000 (both which I would argue are reasonably paid salaries for these organizations). Given how much more the Red Cross gets in donations, it makes sense that IC has to spend a lot more of their budget in adminstrative expenses.
One of the main points that is argued is that IC promotes military intervention against Kony, and that this will end horribly. I'd like to say that I wish I had a better solution. That was the only thing that stopped Hitler, and although's Kony's crimes do not scale to this magnitude, they are equally as atrocious. Peace talks have been tried with Kony in the past (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4320858.stm) and they simply have not worked. The guy (Kony) is crazy.
I have come to the conclusion that a lot of the dilemmas that have been risen for/against/about Invisible Children is that people in masses are powerful, but also incredibly stupid.
Most of the arguments focus on Invisible Children's spending, because people will be inclined to donate to their cause, thinking the money is going to help Uganda, when most likely, it will go to raising awareness about the issue instead. In this sense, I don't think IC is purposely advocating or campaigning to get more money, but rather that they are being put to fault because some people blindly throw their money into whatever is trending, but I wouldn't blame it on IC falsely advertising, but rather people as always just being stupid.
The argument then becomes, what is better, awareness, or donations to building schools, etc. I would not like to go ahead and compare these, because they have different purposes which I think do not equate (they are simply different purposes).
Overall, I have come to the conclusion that the people who have argued about Invisible Children seek to tell those who don't know the difference and just throw their money where the tide is, that they should do some research and know where their money is going. Perhaps the name charity doesn't fit IC as much as activist group, but regardless, I stand behind them because they are the best solution that has been proposed.
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