Advocating for the homeless from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Mark Horvath on invisiblepeople.tv & wearevisible.com

If you haven’t come face to face with the plight of the homeless, then you need to have Mark Horvath drape his arm around you and introduce you to invisiblepeople.tv and wearevisible.com.

Mark, who goes by the handle @hardlynormal on Twitter, is a former broadcast journalist who lost his home to foreclosure along with his production equipment. His site invisiblepeople.tv does a great job telling the stories of homeless people through classic man-on-the-street interviews, updated for the new era through his use of hand-held camcorders, such as the Flip cam.

“Authenticity has replaced production values” in importance, he says. He cautioned cause organizations not to create storytelling that’s so slick and polished that it becomes fabricated, leading people to become detached.

He says he “anti-branded” the site so it’s not about himself, but rather, “it’s about Jim and Sue and Popcorn and Grandpa and the story of the homeless people out there.” I’ve been so impressed with Mark’s work that I typically showcase it in our series of Socialbrite bootcamps on social media around the country. (The next camp: at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in New Orleans on June 5.)

A citizen activist, Mark has a big idea that the nonprofit community ought to heed. “I think we need to get rid of the term ‘donor’ and call everybody ‘friends,'” he says. “We really need to think of our supporters as friends because it’s a relationship.” Social media is what has turned nonprofit-donor relationships into a peer-to-peer relationship of equal partners.

Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo

Wearevisible: Helping homeless people empower themselves

“I never would have imagined a farmer would donate 40 acres of land to be used to subsidize food for low-income families in a public school system in Arkansas,” he says. Yet that’s one of the remarkable things that’s happened as more people are getting involved in the cause.

Last year Mark launched wearevisible.com, a site funded by a Pepsi Refresh Challenge grant to help homeless people learn how to use social media in down-to-earth ways.

Mark and I chatted during a brief break at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington, D.C. I’m sure I’ll see him soon, at an event or on a nearby street corner.

Check out the backstory of Mark’s efforts in this Invisible People Project Trailer on YouTube.

The post Empowering homeless people to tell their own stories appeared first on Socialbrite.

Ifirst met Mark Horvath on Twitter and later face-to-face last December during a trip down the California coast during the holidays. Mark is a free agent championing the cause of homelessness.

A free agent  is a person — many times a GenY, but not always — who is a passionate about a social cause but is working outside of a nonprofit organization to organize, mobilize, raise money and engage with others. Free agents are also fluent in social media and take advantage of the social media toolset to do everything organizations have always done, but outside of institutional walls. Sometimes they go on to form their own nonprofits like Amanda Rose and Manny Hernandez.

Last March at South by Southwest I helped Mark, along with colleague Geoff Livingston, compete for the top prize in the Pespi Refresh. He won the competition and the prize money was use to build the WeAreVisble site.  Mark founded InvisiblePeople.tv, a nationally recognized nonprofit that fights homelessness using the power of social media. His new project is a  social media literacy website to help homeless people learn how to use the Internet to tell their stories, build community and connect with support services.

The content is fantastic — particularly the tutorials. Help him spread the word to  homeless service agencies, libraries, and other social service agencies.    Nonprofits need to find and connect with free agents because they are powerful social change players. If you work with a homeless services agency, library or other social service agency that provides services to this group,  you need to connect to this work!

Check out the animation video above, nicely done.

This article originally appeared at bethkanter.org.

The post WeAreVisible: A new social media literacy site appeared first on Socialbrite.

Guest post by Kari Dunn Saratovsky
Case Foundation

Armed with just $45, a laptop, and a small handheld camera, Mark Horvath set out on a journey that will forever change the face of homelessness in America. I had the opportunity to catch up with Mark as he made his way back to California following a cross country-road trip that documented stories of the homeless through a series of powerful, raw, and unedited videos — all of which can be seen on his vlog, InvisiblePeople.tv.

So, how do you raise awareness about a cause you are so passionate about with no money and no consistent resources to lean on? You put faith in the kindness of others, you leave a lot to chance encounters, and you leverage social media in ways that you never thought possible.

People often ask me, “What exactly is a social citizen?” It’s Mark Horvath. Mark’s work and his use of social media is extremely innovative, but it’s more than that — he is the real deal. Perhaps there is no other individual that does a better job of explaining the plight of the homeless to the general public. About 15 years ago, Mark found himself on the streets of Hollywood, and the purpose of his vlog is simple: to make the invisible visible.

In the interview, Mark shares his thoughts about the power of social media to bring attention to homelessness. But, recognizing we all have our individual passions, Mark encourages everyone to remember: “People are listening, and you do have influence.” It’s what you choose to do with this influence that is truly powerful, and social media gives you the tools you need to take action and tell stories.

While Mark’s Road Trip U.S.A. may be coming to an end, he will continue to share stories on Invisiblepeople.tv. For more ways you can get involved in addressing homelessness in your community, here are 10 actions you can take from Change.org.

The post How social media can give a face to the homeless appeared first on Socialbrite.