Internet Strategy, Genocide Prevention

I just sat through an informal brownbag lunch discussion with the founder of the Genocide Intervention Network (GI-Net), social entrepreneur Mark Hanis. Says Mark, "GI-Net is creating a permanent and powerful anti-genocide constituency in the United States, and essential to this is the innovative use of technology."

In particular, he reflected on five strategic uses of the internet which, when combined intelligently, have influenced the actions of the entire US Congress. At Forum One, this kind of list illustrates the core concept of an internet strategy as distinct from a web site strategy -- not just how to design or build a smart web site, but how to use the entirety of the internet in a very powerful way to help achieve your mission.

Mark highlighted these five online actions as core to the Genocide Intervention Network's success:

1. Background research: Compare data from multiple online sources to identify, assess, and prioritize emerging genocide threats, and to learn the specific actions of individual policymakers in response, such as individual actions (or lack thereof) on the Darfur crisis.
2. Transparent scorecard reporting: After aggregating a "grade" for each policy maker, publish it on the Internet, with all relevant substantiating information. See the Darfur scores for example.
3. Identify strategic constituencies: Use geographical research tools such as Google Maps to find citizen groups who might be concerned with underperforming politicians, such as identifying ethnic or university groups within a particular congressional district. Also use political fundraising reporting tools to learn who donated to particular politicians.
4. Mobilize those constituencies: In combination with offline actions like meetings, phone calls and press outreach, use GI-Net dedicated resources on a range of social networking tools such as Facebook, twitter, YouTube, flickr, LiveJournal, Change.org, and others to reach out to those target constituencies, point them to the scorecards, and activate them to contact their specific politicians to demand action.
5. Standard background info and resources: And of course, all this in addition to the Genocide Intervention Network's traditional "about us" and information dissemination web site.

The response from the politicians themselves has reportedly been substantial.

And incidentally, add #6 for outreach to additional audiences, I had a great experience participating in the brownbag and asking questions from several hundred miles away, via streaming video connection.