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Is the Bandwagon Effect Undermining Nonprofits?

Fundraising for breast cancer, the ALS ice bucket challenge, and now the campaign against "rape culture" on college campuses are nonprofit strategy ideas that strive to address important issues. That is not the issue. This issue is that time and money are being diverted from other issues that have a greater impact on people's lives.

What is the number one killer of people in the United States? Heart disease. The fight against heart disease was the biggest target of donations last year? Nope. That was breast cancer. More money was raised to fight breast cancer, the fifth most common cause of death in America. A graphic from iflscience.com illustrates the imbalance between funds raised and deaths caused.

Nonprofit Strategy: Different Animals, Same Problem:

Stopping breast cancer is a very different sort of cause than fighting sexual violence or campaigning against racism. One is mostly a technical challenge, of creating better cures and treatments. The other is a label that covers several issues that are cultural and psychological and that exist all over the country. A new education program at a college in Maine doesn't help students in California. A breast cancer treatment developed in California, can be used in Maine. But a university in California has to replicate the Maine education program or create something similar,

In the case of a scientific or technical challenge like eradicating a disease, the bandwagon effect tends to divert funding away from the most important diseases or conditions to whatever disease or condition has a high-profile spokesperson at the moment. To the extent that diseases can be prevented, or the impact reduced, by lifestyle changes, you will find less money and education time being devoted to those efforts.

Many cases of diabetes and heart disease could be prevented with lifestyle changes, whereas there is probably nothing to be done about breast cancer or prostate cancer.

Cool Versus Effective:

Any nonprofit strategy for social marketing or advocacy has to have some promise of being effective. That should be obvious, but dubious ideas do seem to take hold quite often. Is spending a huge amount of time and money on teaching people about consent undermining other efforts to reduce the risk of sexual violence get less attention. A hashtag campaign #nomeansno makes people feel good, but does nothing. At least tweeting an opinion and a hashtag takes no money and minimal effort.

What steps that are realistic to take might actual reduce the risk of sexual violence on campus? That should be the most important question. Activists should invest their time and money in doing those things. Feel-good social marketing campaigns like "No Means No" will do little. What about the school's process for handling sexual assault allegations? Is it effective and easy for victims to navigate? Probably not. There's something that will be effective, but not cool. There's no rush of excitement and no thrill of accomplishment in setting up a meeting with the college President or in trying to get an item on the agenda at the next Board of Regents meeting.

Get off the Bandwagon:

Better to not get on in the first place. Think about what you want to do (Keep people from getting diabetes, reducing sexual assault on campus) and how to do that. The best nonprofit strategy may involve copying someone else's idea, but this isn't always so.
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