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Upwards and Onwards to 2010: WITNESS' New Strategic Vision
By: Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, Posted: Dec 9 09
WITNESS has had its most successful year ever, thanks to your support and partnership. This is the moment to say: "thank you."
I’m excited to share with you what inspires me and where WITNESS is going in this moment in the world today; a moment of amazing opportunity to achieve its mission.
Peter Gabriel, WITNESS co-founder and current chair of its Board, had a dream – what if every human rights defender had a camera in their hands? What would they film and what could they change? Guided by that dream, we have accomplished so much over the past 17 years. And today something even more extraordinary is happening. Today millions of people have cameras in their hands and the desire to be a part of a community that uses video to change lives. So now we ask ourselves – what if all those people could have the skills and knowledge to use video effectively to end human rights violations? How many more lives could be changed?
We dream of the day when the use of video for change is so common that WITNESS is a household word. Think about Memory, a courageous Zimbabwean woman. She bravely told her story in Hear Us and we heard it. Now it is being used to end politically-motivated violence against women. But there are so many Memorys around the world whose stories remain buried. What if we could all partner together to get those stories heard and could make sure they made a difference? Without your support, Memory's story could not have become a tool for justice. Just think about how much further we could go.
Simply put, images move people to action. They turn local concerns into global issues. And they can pressure those in power to act. Video is ever present, but it's not always used safely, securely or effectively. For example, in Iran, the government sought out images of activists uploaded to the web and posted them on their version of a "most wanted" website. How do we make sure that this new generation of human rights defenders has the tools and the knowledge to use video safely and effectively? This is something we have worked on since our inception. We have that knowledge and the world needs access to it.
I am inspired by the immense opportunity WITNESS has today to change even more lives. In the past year, we asked technology, media and human rights experts how WITNESS' unique skills can best be used. We learned that WITNESS is considered to be a world leader in the use of video to end human rights abuses and that our expertise is needed now more than ever.
Right now and right here WITNESS, with your help, can exponentially expand its impact. But the demand for our services is far greater than our capacity. WITNESS' New Strategic Vision is designed to scale our impact. So beginning in 2010, in addition to continuing to train and support individual grassroots organizations, WITNESS will forge relationships among organizations and networks, creating a broader, more interconnected global human rights community. By doing this, we'll play a seminal role in forging coalitions that seek shared goals, with video emerging as the common language across all types of borders. In addition, we will scale our work by creating video toolkits and other web tools that facilitate knowledge sharing. We have the expertise and we have the plan, but we need you to help make that plan a reality. One way we hope to do this is with the creation of our new WITNESS Changemaker Network. When you become a Changemaker, you pledge your financial and moral support in the coming year to partner with us to end human rights abuse.
We honor the Changemaker in all of us. From the courageous women on the frontlines in Zimbabwe to our partners in Chechnya, to all of us who get involved in our own ways, we are all connected through our steadfast commitment to fostering real and lasting change.
Let me share with you my final daily inspiration. Everything WITNESS has accomplished this year has been because of the work of 29 selfless, passionate, smart, dedicated, resourceful people: the WITNESS team. It is only because of their superb thinking that WITNESS was named a "thought leader" in Video for Change. And it is their amazing dedication to the people on the ground that earned WITNESS a "great partner" credit.
Wishing you much inspiration in the coming year and from me to all of you: a very happy holiday season and an inspired 2010.
Comments
Director of "Philanthropy"
By 1charm1 on Feb 3 10
I saw the following listing on idealist, and it reminded me of the concerns I raised in my above post. Also, how come the job isn't listed on the WITNESS home page? Are you not concerned that there seems to be a trend amongst non-profits to mutate from service providing organizations to revenue stream exploitation machines? How much money do you feel that you need to accomplish your goals? What are these goals? Again, I do not begrudge anyone the right to go out and try to raise money to do their work (I do the exact same thing) but I get this feeling that WITNESS is slipping out of the grasp of the grassroots, under-represented communities it is trying to serve.
Director of Philanthropy
Salary: Commensurage with experience
Education: Bachelor (BA, BS, etc.)
Location: Brooklyn, New York, 11217, United States
Posted by: Caesar Consulting Group
Posted on behalf of: Witness
Job Category: Fundraising & Development
Sector: Nonprofit
Last day to apply: April 3, 2010
Last updated: February 2, 2010
Type: Full time
Language(s): English
Job posted on: February 2, 2010
Area of Focus: Foundations, Fundraising, and Philanthropy, Human Rights and Civil Liberties
"most successful year ever"?
By 1charm1 on Jan 8 10
First, I am a huge WITNESS fan. I think the project is great, the underlying ideas are right on, and I think a lot has been achieved. However, as an outsider looking in, WITNESS does not seem to be riding a crest of achievement, but rather in a crisis. The website points out that WITNESS employs 29 people out their Brooklyn office and spends $5 million a year. Productivity, on the other hand, seems to be stagnating. Further, the politics seem to be crumbling. The videos produced baffle the viewer, don't elucidate issues, and more importantly, don't articulate a plan for change. And your idea now is to do less intensive, more hands off training? That seems dangerous when the relationships you are cultivating with your partner organizations already seem tenuous (with the exception of RAU). Exactly what is a "thought leader"? Who do you want to lead? What is your expertise? Are you saying that you feel that you are doing a good job training media advocates? When the INCITE collective came out with their book a few years ago with their critique of non-profits, it felt like an exciting moment because it seemed that groups, like WITNESS, were serious about the issues raised, such as the tendency for non-profits to self-segregate and remove themselves from the communities they serve and represent. I think part of the problem might be that your fundraising efforts and the activism that you do have merged and seem to be one single thing now.
1charm1 - thanks for your
By Yvette Alberdingk Thijm on Jan 14 10
1charm1 - thanks for your comments, and for caring about WITNESS enough to speak plainly to us - we're always willing to have open, transparent and constructive dialogue about our work as an organization.
Our Deputy Director, Jenni Wolfson, posted just a couple of days ago looking back to some of 2009's successes - I'd encourage you to take a look at that post (http://hub.witness.org/en/node/17504) to get a sense of the scale and scope of what we and our partners achieved together last year. It doesn't feel stagnant or unproductive to me or to the WITNESS staff, or to our partners - but it doesn't mean we're not keen to increase or improve our impact, and that what the new strategic direction is designed to address. The landscape around us is changing, as more groups begin to use video and new technologies around the world, and that means the role and strategic objectives of groups like WITNESS that are based in the global north changes. We conducted deep research and consultation with our global partners and many other stakeholders as part of the strategy process - their feedback was that they considered WITNESS a thought-leader in the arena of the use of video in human rights work. We believe that the strategy we've outlined - to network our campaigns, to collaborate on and scale up our training programs, and to advocate for policy change that affects the human rights sector as a whole - is rooted in this research, and in our 18 years' experience as an organization, and we feel it is the right way to support and strengthen the video for change movement as it is today, and as it needs to grow in the future.
A quick clarification about WITNESS partner videos, which, because they're not standalone documentaries, are sometimes a little difficult for a general audience to understand - but that is what makes them successful advocacy videos. Although we always share them online with as much context as possible so that other stakeholders can make use of them, the main purpose of the videos is as part of a larger advocacy campaign, for specific audiences, to achieve specific human rights ends, and as such, they're designed in the way that they are. That said, we have started experimenting with a few Hub-specific pieces that are a bit more broadly aimed - like the ones on environmental rights.