Leadership Series: Is Change an Uphill Battle?

Moreover, one does not need to have Bill Gates’ wealth, Bono’s global celebrity or Al Gore’s political gravitas to launch a charity or set a new direction for society. With the Internet, Web 2.0 and other online entities, it takes little effort.

For example, in 2003, three young men from California went to Sudan and later stumbled on a brutal civil war in northern Uganda where children were being kidnapped to serve as soldiers. Four years, two films and numerous appearances on college campuses later, these young men through their charity — Invisible Children — have helped ignite a movement among teens and young adults to raise awareness and money to help Ugandan children. Nearly 68,000 of their supporters in 15 U.S. cities held events on one day in late April to draw public and media attention to the plight of children half a world away. Their primary mode of communication? The Internet.