Ms. Black’s Twitter account @MallatIsmael #MAMAbeautiful makes a point of not using the hashtag the Afghan Taliban has used to mock female scholars and creators of its own, including #Mofa (Arabic for mother). Ms. Black has always watched her decisions carefully; last April, she directed an impressive video documenting the direct experience of living in Kabul, Afghanistan, and her maternal instinct to help the most vulnerable.
So how do you get a social media influencer to donate two weeks of her time to your cause? Bala Quevedo, founder of the donation-related nonprofit Social Enterprises to Support Human Rights (SAYHURI) leveraged Ms. Black’s high visibility as a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Ms. Quevedo wanted to create a way for women who were connected through collaboration with the poet and Columbia University professor Zhala Noury to help fund new programs in their home country. So Mr. Quevedo reached out to Ms. Black with a very simple request: Send me your Twitter username and follow me. For roughly two weeks, Twitter users followed Ms. Black’s account and, when the donation deadline arrived, she happily sent over an $18,000 donation.
Read the full story and watch the video at The Village Voice.