*Hey y’all. We are switching our Your Stories and Personal Post days in light of the response from yesterday’s KONY video post.

Dannielle Says:

OH OKAY ALRIGHT OKAY YEA OKAY.

Y’all piss me off sometimes. Riddle me this:

If you have the opportunity to use your voice as a way to change someone’s world for the better, why wouldn’t you?

I do think you should know all the facts before you put your money/efforts toward something, including peace in East Africa. I don’t think you should just step forward with blind faith in hopes that Jason Russell, whom you may know nothing about, will change the world. HOWEVER, I think reading one article that says something scathing about an organization that has put almost three million dollars into a cause that desperately needs the attention and support of people exactly like us, is not worth much.

Do your research. If after reading over the financial records, researching the ever-evolving list of initiatives that have come into fruition/ CONTINUE TO HELP THESE PEOPLE, and doing an extensive search for another non-profit that is doing half as much as Invisible Children, you decide your heart and soul should go elsewhere, so be it. Fight for this alternate organization, spread the word, raise awareness, I commend you in your efforts.

But I will say this:
Bad-mouthing an organization, discrediting the work that has been done in the past 10 years, and telling people you think their efforts are misplaced, is not helping. In fact, it is doing the exact opposite of helping. If you want to help somewhere else, help somewhere else. We should not be bringing one another down, we should be working together. Use your voice as a tool for good, for the betterment of society, for the well-being of those around you. Negativity will never make anything better.

Kristin Says:

My very biggest hope is that the number of you out there crying “foul play!” on those of us supporting Invisible Children and their current push for peace and justice in East Africa is equivalent to the number of you who are taking action to help in the ways that you see fit. If you are reading this post and you are angry with us for supporting IC, and you snap a remark our way and shut your computer… guess what? You ain’t helping shit.

That said, let’s all talk for a hot second about what it means to fight for equality. I know many of you would much prefer if this organization (and all organizations) gave 100% of their proceeds toward the cause that they underwrite… but I beg of you to think about the places that the money IS going, and how THOSE THINGS may also be creating something larger than any of us have yet imagined.

The biggest thing that moved me about the KONY2012 video we posted on Wednesday was how it highlighted the power that youth currently have to make change. Political power, organizational power and the power to take action. You’re angry with the founder of this company for using “only” 3 million of his organization’s almost 9 million dollars directly for East African youth? What about the money that went into the production of the videos that are opening the eyes of people worldwide who would have never, ever seen nor thought about this situation?

You’re angry with the organization for paying their employees salaries of less than $90,000 per year? What would you say if Dannielle and I were taking a salary at that level? What if we had the funds from our work to pay ourselves enough support our lives, our families, and our own futures? Would that make us a cause not worth supporting? The fact that we spend countless hours fighting for what we believe in, the fact that we speak to thousands of youth each year… those things become worthless if we don’t give all of the proceeds from our efforts DIRECTLY and without any creative license, to that cause?

“Invisible Children is a youth for youth movement that uses film, creativity and social action to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Kony’s rebel war and restore LRA-affected communities to peace and prosperity.”

That’s the mission they have put out there, and from what I can see that is exactly how they have been using their funding.

Further, if your issue is one with supporting military initiatives in these areas, then please go and put your dollars to someone who is doing the specific things you believe in. I am choosing to listen to this group of individuals who have visited East Africa and spoken to those on the ground numerous times in the past decade, because I have not been there myself and I believe that the intentions here are the right ones. I believe that this fight is not one of guns against guns here, but rather one that requires the technology and equipment to find a human being who has hurt and killed thousands.

You don’t have to do what we believe in, but we would very much appreciate the space to fight our own personal fight, and would also appreciate being given the credit, in the future, for having done the research on the causes that we fight for, before posting them for thousands to see.

Lastly, please do read Invisible Children’s response to the many critiques leveled against them yesterday.