A Brief Study on avaaz.org (SWOT AND PEST Analysis )

By --- Ashis Kumar Paul

About AVAAZ

“Organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.”- is the slogan of Avaaz, an online based campaigning organization with a motto of putting “The world in Action” has become one of the the biggest and the largest non-government organization over the past 6 years having over 30 million members in 200 different countries world wide.Ricken Patel, a young entrepreneur , passionate about the wel-fare of the humanity across the globe ,is the Founder President and the Executive Director of Avaaz group.Avaaz started its journey in 2007 and all its activities are monitored and directed from its NewYork head office.
Avaaz is exclusively different from other charitable organizations; human rights watch organizations or non-government organizations in terms of its approach towards the range and number of global or local issues. Unlike other aid organizations, Avaaz campaigns for issues ranging from Egyptian families demanding justice to Crimea crisis and also defending Masai land rights in Tanzania to save European Bees from pesticides.
The Rocket growth of Avaaz in the last six years has established itself as a formidable source of power which has the potential of creating mass awareness among the general people and therefore can have significant impact on the social as well as political issues. The main difference between Avvaz and all other similar organizations is that, they are ‘issue-led’ while Avaaz is an ‘issues-led’ organization.Avaaz registers its members from every walk of life and collaborate their contributions and work as an organizer. Members can raise their hands on any issues and express their concerns about it .after a number of test drives, set of issues get selected for the campaigning.
SWOT ANALYSIS:
Strengths:
Such a huge number of people sharing the ethical and moral issues on the socio-economic context as well as global and international crisis is the biggest strength for a charity organization like Avaaz.Invloving this enormous number of people for a great cause is a huge challenge and avaaz has succeeded in terms of accomplishing goal with an idea which requires minimum contribution with little or even no effort for example, signing on a petition or liking or sharing face book posts requires only access to the internet. Being an online based community empowers Avaaz to globally connect with everyone at almost everywhere. Any concerned issue could become viral in an electrifying speed at no time and thus can play a vital role in raising social awareness.
Weakness:
‘Slcktivism’ or ‘Clictivism’ are the terms used most to describe these sorts of online based human rights or other social fare activities. The possible lack of knowledge and absence of practical involvement in the concerned issues, raise the question of morality or the true dedication towards the social welfare.
As the raised funds are being used to launch a number of campaigns, the accountability of the fund is a big question as donors or the members have no or little idea about their credit contributions.
The judgement of the mass perception on any social issue cannot be properly measured by this blindly signed petition by people from different regions of the globe having little or no idea about the concerned issue.
Opportunity:
As the technology is getting closer to the general people, the quickest and the easiest way to connect raise awareness with the moral and ethical explanation and force the state or authority to perform rationally is the use of social networking sites and other networking tools. Changes in the social life style can also be a blessing for the massive involvement in any specific issue as most of us like to get updated about our social surroundings.
Threats:
The external threats that Avaaz can face are the