In its recent article, “YouTube For Good Wants You To Watch World-Changing Films Alongside Cat Videos,” Fast Company discusses the philanthropic pet project of Hunter Walk, director of product management at YouTube and head of YouTube’s Social Good Initiative Team.  Launched in 2011, the “YouTube for Good” program leverages YouTube’s global platform and viewership to empower nonprofits, educators, and activists, and allow their stories greater visibility and impact. It’s about turning views into tangible action.

The author cites Caine’s Arcade and the Imagination Foundation’s Global Cardboard Challenge as evidence of the often powerful potential of movies and their ability to inspire and galvanize communities.

Fun fact:  Taking advantage of Google’s “20 percent time,” program (which allows employees to devote a day a week to a side project) Walk was able to enlist roughly 1/5 of Youtube’s employees as well as colleagues at Google to build online tools used by organizations such as the United Nations World Food Program and Charity: Water.

More resources:
Learn more about enrolling in YouTube’s Nonprofit Program.
Check out YouTube’s Playbook For Good, for a intro to YouTube activism.

December 20, 2012 at 12:53pm