What if MrBeast really is one of the futures of philanthropy-and what does that mean for communicating development?

“I feel good seeing myself dancing after receiving the money. It makes me appreciate the moment my life changed and reminds me of when I was able to send my son to school.” (Resident of Nakapiripirit, Uganda)



“It might seem strange to carp over a few good deeds filmed for YouTube clicks. After all, even if this Gen Z mode of philanthropy is brash and narcissistic, some lives are being changed for the better. Yet at the same time, Donaldson is exploiting less fortunate people’s problems to shape his image of decency, while reinforcing the aid illusion that has blown so much money and achieved so little over the past half century.” (Ian Birrell, UnHerd)

“As people have noted, if you watch the video in total isolation, it's maybe not that bad? Mr Beast is good at this. And he's not obviously mocking or manipulating these people. Then again, the TV commentators in the Hunger Games fawned over Katniss. That wasn't the issue.” (Justin Sandefur, Center for Global Development)

“The influence of MrBeast on mainstream philanthropy has to date been less noticeable. Despite his obvious success and the scale of his giving, there is little evidence that donors outside the world of content creation are seeking to emulate him, or that traditional philanthropic organisations are giving any thought to what his approach might tell us about potential future trends. This might be because philanthropy is often slow to adapt in the face of new societal or technological developments. Or, it might be because the model that MrBeast has developed is unique to his own skill set and mode of wealth creation, so cannot be replicated more widely.” (Rhodri Davies, University of Kent)

“We conduct a survey experiment to investigate the effectiveness of Goodwill Ambassadors and, contrary to expectations, find no average effect of celebrity endorsement on donations to, and interest in, IOs and only limited effects among certain sub-groups.” (Rabia Malik, University of Essex & Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir, University of Iceland)

“Now, a new trademark application from his company Beast Holdings, LLC, could suggest the focus of a new charity project. The trademark, #TeamWater, was filed on August 29. The filing states that the trademark's purpose is to promote public awareness of the importance of access to clean water. Possible goods and services for #TeamWater include "reusable carrying bags, school bags, and athletic bags," as well as empty water bottles and aluminum water bottles. The list also includes clothing items sold "solely in connection with the promotion of cleaning the world's water sources and access to clean water.” (Amanda Perelli, Business Insider) 

Based on these quotes-and the social media, journalistic and academic content behind it-you could probably structure an entire university course or seminar series around the topic of the philanthropic endeavors of Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson.

When I started to write this post I looked into the blog archive and my first humble response to the Kony 2012 campaign showed up as did another post from 2012 about a guy who wanted to send used shoes to Africa. And my unease about travel vlogger Nas Daily visiting Papua New Guinea in connection with ICRC work from 2018 still seems valid, but obviously the stakes have shifted. My 2019 book review of the autobiography of the founder of Charity:Water probably raised issues that will re-enter discussions if MrBeast’s #TeamWater really goes ahead.

In some ways, MrBeast, his collaboration with GiveDirectly, his independent philanthropic engagements or his potential future #TeamWater enterprise are a logical continuation of how “the Internet”, philanthropy and “aid” work in the 21st century-louder, bigger, video-driven-and with a white male American soon-to-be billionaire in charge. But once we start unpacking some of the issues and look beyond a few quotes, we quickly discover that things in the aid world tend to be complicated and some things can go right while others can go wrong at the same time-pretty much the story of modern “development”…

The unease that development researchers like Justin Sandefur or Ryan Briggs note in the original X-thread that triggered my post (yes, this ugly platform still has value for global development discussions-no matter how much I enjoy BlueSky) is one indication: Giving people cash is nowadays considered a good practice in development, GiveDirectly is an interesting organization that gets quite a few things about giving right and even if their safeguarding documentation seems a bit shallow, people were included, shown the video first and asked about their opinion.

This does neither address broader, long-standing inequalities nor does it make a slightly more old-school “aid does not work” critic like Ian Birrell happy, but doesn’t Matthew Reddin also have a point about the lack of government services in Uganda?
Having said all that, whatever his content is like (...) he has, by all accounts, changed people’s lives for the better. Where one might expect properly-funded government services to fill the void caused by cyclical poverty or extraneous circumstances, MrBeast is doing what they’re not by providing proper social services where said governments and charities fall short. Smells like socialism to me!
Many issues remain and Rhodri Davies addresses some of the larger points in his open access academic journal article, for example about the uniqueness of MrBeast’s brand and how likely the charity sector will catch up.

And finally, since my day job often has to do with how we communicate developement/aid/solidarity/charity, as quickly as we criticize MrBeast and his media brand, we also have to ask ourselves what better ways of communication we have in the third decade of the 21st century.
Rabia Malik and Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir’s open access academic journal article addresses the issue of impact of celebrity ambassadors on international organizations’ fundraising and they basically conclude that they have none.

All of this comes at a time where many traditional aid donors including UK, Sweden, Germany or the EU cut aid budgets, public discourses focus disproportionately on migration issues and large parts of the UN’s political and humanitarian system are paralyzed.

We need to engage audiences and stakeholders in the Global North in development discussions; perhaps GiveDirectly teaming up with MrBeast may not be “the answer”, but how can the relatively small development community leverage contemporary communication platforms and approaches? And we are back to an age-old question whether some engagement and optimism for change from “the inside” is better than no engagement at all?

Angelina Jolie, definitely a household name in development celebrity circles as well as on this blog, recently visited Chad on invitation of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Her short written piece for Time, only accompanied by one tasteful photo, gives off some elder statesperson vibes compared to MrBeast’s loud cash-in-hand videos, but who is the audience and how does it help NRC or the humanitarian cause in Sudan?
Going back to the original thread on X I sense a certain fatigue around philanthrocapitalistic aid endeavors, but also a small sense of learning and improvement: Aren’t MrBeast’s efforts “better” than what Invisible Children tried to pull off 12 years ago when they captured digital attention for a brief span of time? Or the Ice Bucket Challenge?

The morning #HurricaneHelene hit Asheville members of our co-op sat in the dark, listening to the howling wind and crack of trees falling. When we emerged to take stock a cardboard sign on our door read “Community meeting here, Saturday at 2. Let’s talk about how we can take care of each other.” 1/?

[image or embed]

— Firestorm Books (@firestorm.bsky.social) October 6, 2024 at 12:08 AM
In the end, the challenge remains of how “we” can connect younger, digital, globalized audiences to the front stage of charity YouTube videos and the tedious back stage of development policy-making and tackling inequalities (including very rich media moguls).
As traditional donors cut back funding, reduce engagement with traditional civil society and NGO partners and ignore academic research or nuanced journalism, e.g. in Sweden, how are we going to communicate our quest for a “better world”?
And since Uganda still doesn’t have a social safety net is the MrBeast-GiveDirectly collab one of the futures for philanthropy?

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