SEATTLE — YouTube is a vast and influential medium. According to BrandWatch.com, YouTube is launched in over 91 countries, has 1.9 billion logged in monthly users and about 400 hours of video are uploaded every minute. With this amount of traffic, the “big names” of YouTube are bound to have quite the digital impact. A large social media following can provide financial freedom and many opportunities to make a difference to those in need. The following three influencers are YouTubers who give back and use their clout for good.
3 YouTubers Who Give Back
- PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg)
PewDiePie reached the 10 million subscriber milestone back in 2013. To celebrate, he decided to give to a great cause: he set up a fundraising campaign with Charity: Water, a nonprofit that brings clean and safe drinking water to those in developing countries. He encouraged his followers to donate and his studio “Maker Studios” gave one dollar per 500 views on his campaign announcement video (up to $10,000). By the end of his fundraising campaign, PewDiePie raised almost $500,000 and helped provide clean water to approximately 10,000 Rwandans.Currently, PewDiePie has more than 80 million subscribers and he continues to use his influence and fame to help people in need. As T-Series’, an Indian music label, subscriber count got close to surpassing PewDiePie’s, Kjellberg started another fundraising campaign. To fight for his title of biggest channel on YouTube, PewDiePie started a GoFundMe in Dec. 2018 for Child Rights and You, a charity with the goal of helping underprivileged kids in India. He has helped raise over $200,000 for Child Rights and You thus far.
- Jérôme Jarre
In the summer of 2015, Jérôme Jarre, a French social media star, traveled to the Philippines with Liter of Light to install solar panels. Liter of Light is is a grassroots movement with the goal of providing sustainable solar light to those with limited or no electricity. In 2015, Jarre was able to help raise one million dollars for solar light installation in the Philippines.A year later, Jarre returned to the country with the goal of providing more light. In his YouTube video, “Let’s do this YouTube” he mentioned that there were still 20 million people in the Philippines without light and that with the “help of the internet” they could make the number dwindle. Through a series of YouTube videos and Instagram posts, Jarre spread the word about Liter of Light and his work in the developing country.
- Lilly Singh
Singh, a YouTuber with approximately 14 million subscribers, realized she needed to use her social media presence to help make a change when she traveled to Kenya back in 2016 with Me to We Trips. Me to We is a social enterprise that sells leadership training and travel experience in order to raise money for their partner organization WE Charity. Singh made and sold Rafiki bracelets to raise money for girls’ education around the world. Other than her grassroots work, Singh created #GirlLove, a movement encouraging others to compliment women using the hashtag. All of the revenue from the video announcing the movement was donated to the Malala Fund which supports girls’ education globally.
These three YouTubers who give back helped people in need around the world. There are an endless amount of ways to help and many different organizations to give to. With mediums like YouTube, it’s easier to spread the word and become educated on different causes, nonprofits and more.
– Malena Larsen
Photo: Pixabay