Today is Blog Action Day — an annual occasion where bloggers around the world unite to raise awareness of issues that blight humanity. After a couple of years banging the drum about global warming, the organizers have shifted focus. This year’s topic is water!
Which is great, of course. But the announcement inviting bloggers to participate makes some by now familiar mistakes. First, they overload the reader with bad news about the situation with language like this:
Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it’s no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.
And then they underload the reader with encouraging language like this:
…there is hope for real solutions as more and more people around the world are waking up to the clean water crisis. Earlier this year, the UN declared access to clean water a human right and groups like charity: water and Water.org continue to work tirelessly to bring water access to the developing world.
And there is basically no language at all about how blogging about issues brings about solutions, or what a regular everyday citizen can do that would help all those thousands of people who die each week. Here’s a chart that shows a breakdown of Blog Action Day’s message:
Blog Action Day message breakdown
Faced with a grim message like that, is it any wonder that most people wring their hands, feel a little guilty — and then go on about their day without doing anything?
You know who doesn’t make this mistake? Charity: Water. Sure, they’re happy to tell you about people who don’t have access to clean water and how terrible that is, but they are also quick to reassure you that if you do your part, you can make a difference. When you browse their website, you’re never far from some encouraging words like this:
Just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years. An average water project costs $5,000 and can serve 250 people with clean, safe water.
You’d have to be pretty heartless to be immune to a pitch like that!
So for Blog Action Day 2010, do as they do but not as they say. Surf on over to Charity:Water and donate $20. Instead of feeling bummed out and discouraged all day, you’ll feel great!
And then, tell five friends. If we can hit the goal of $500, that’s a 20 years of clean safe water for a whole village! Wouldn’t you want to be part of that?
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Eric. Thanks so much for making another great point–how important it is to blog about SOLUTIONS rather than just problems!
Yes, it’s best to focus on taking practical steps that lead to high places, especially those such as water conservation that actually pay for themselves through lower water bills!
Both the doom and gloom message, and the message that things will get better, lead to inaction on the part of the reader.
I agree it’s best to focus on the positive and solutions, so I went to charity:water to see how they did it. It’s an amazing website, but I had trouble finding out much about the substantive work they do. The staff listed on the website and in their latest annual report was almost entirely development, design, and administrative staff. It was not clear who found, selected, and evaluated the partners they rely on to do the water projects. I also tried to get behind the graphics to learn about actual projects (i.e., “Proving It”) and could not get the map or links to work enough to find out about even one project in the 5 minutes I spent trying. I skipped the videos, so maybe the information was there. They clearly put a lot of resources into branding, marketing, and outreach–and maybe that’s the central message for those of us who would like to reach more people and effect more change. But I did not want to give them $20
Great point, Eric- I like the clarity of the videos they put together and hearing the guy speak live as well- both great. Talking about solutions is critical- as is including a call to action, which I see missing from a lot of the Blog Action Day posts. Yours to tell 5 friends is a good example of including one. Thanks for pointing this out!