Lokahi Outreach

This past week I was doing some research on The ONE Campaign, the campaign to stop AIDS and Extreme Poverty in the developing world (disclosure: I was researching The ONE Campain because I applied for a job there), when I came across a group of kindred spirits known as Lokahi Outreach. The first thing that caught my eye in regards to Lokahi was their mission statement, on the side of their blog, which sounded a hell of a lot like what we do:

I founded Lokahi to promote social justice & civic involvement. We do this by partnering with likeminded organizations, such as the ONE Campaign, Oxfam and Witness, & taking them on the road. We specialize in grassroots campaigning: outreach, campaign building, marketing, volunteer training & recruiting, etc. - all in unique settings that allow us to build support for the campaigns we are working on while also engaging and empowering people to become active, get involved and make a difference. We are ‘roadies with a cause’, specializing in concert outreach – going on the road & on tour with our partner organizations. We specialize in this because, well, we’re really good at it, & it’s a great way to talk to lots of people in a short period of time while rapidly building support for a campaign.

The second thing that got my attention, was their Flickr pictures, where I noticed that two of the people who worked at my first show with MFA (which you can read about in Keys to a Future Majority) now work with Lokahi (Carlos, who was Music For America’s Warp Tour person, and Kevin, who worked for Punk Voter) . If you want proof that what Lokahi Outreach is doing is effective, take a look at what happened to me after I worked that Warped Tour show back in 2004. The only thing that I believe Lokahi is missing is a dynamic web presence / online community site where volunteers can stay in contact with, and feel a more active participant in, the organization, which is the second reason that I ended up becoming so deeply involved in politics.

I’ve added both The ONE Campaign and Lokahi Outreach to our Cultural Capitalizer’s block, keep up the good work!