TrollAid ensures online trolls promote fundraising for refugees
Howard Lake | 26 January 2016 | News
The Calais Action Group have come up with a way to make positive fundraising use of the abusive comments that the organisation receives on its Facebook page.
‘TrollAid‘ is “a way for trolls to directly raise money for refugees”.
Every time a “troll” or abusive person posts a negative post on their page the organisation posts a link to its fundraising page as a comment underneath. The group say:
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“These guys give their time to adding something to the refugee crisis, so we’d like to be able to give something back to them”.
Indeed, Calais Action Group invite supporters to leave a message for the trolls, and check to see how much a particular troll has raised.
The fundraising link takes you to the TrollAid page on crowdfunding site YouCaring. The fundraising target for TrollAid is £1,000 and they have already nearly raised the first £100.
Calais Action Group is a grassroots giving network supporting refugees in Calais and Europe.
Wunsiedel wonder
TrollAid is similar to an online swear jar, although of course the trolls are not donating anything, beyond promotion of a fundraising message.
The citizens of the German town of Wunsiedel won praise for a similar creative approach that turned a march by neo-Nazis into a sponsored fundraising walk to raise funds for EXIT-Germany, a charity that helps members of the far-right who want to leave the movement and start a new life.
Indeed, the campaign won an award for ZDK Society Democratic Culture at the International Fundraising Congress in October 2015.
Residents were encouraged to donate 10 euros to the charity for every metre walked by the extremists.
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.