Switch off from Twitter and Facebook for a day in aid of autism charities
Howard Lake | 2 November 2010 | Blogs
Sometimes doing less of something or nothing at all can be a good approach. An international coalition of autism charities did that yesterday, or rather they encouraged their supporters to do that. It was the perfect opportunity to switch off from Facebook and Twitter for one day, all in a good cause.
There was an appropriate message of course.
Communication Shutdown organisers said: “Our aim is to simply encourage a greater understanding from people outside the autism community. Social network users have become reliant and even addicted to platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And if they shutdown for 1 day, they will feel a sense of disconnection and a sense of frustration. By creating a little empathy, we hope to encourage a wider understanding and acceptance of people with autism – an understanding we recognise those in the autism community already have”.
By signing up to the campaign you are encouraged to donate $5 or more and in return you get a widget and an app which let your friends know that you’re supporting the campaign.
The non-event is a well-established fundraising activity: donors pay money not to turn up to an event, for example. So this isn’t new, but it is a good take on social media. We’ve had blogathons and twitathons of course, but this campaign turned that approach around: less can often be more.
https://communicationshutdown.org
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.