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5 times tweets changed our world

140 characters doesn’t seem like a lot of space to make a statement. It sounds even smaller when nearly 6,000 tweets are sent on Twitter per second. But then there’s this fact: over 300 million active users exist on Twitter. That means every tweet has the potential to reach hundreds, thousands, even millions of people! And when you think of it this way, 140 characters really matter.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be using Twitter to ask world leaders to step up and #DoWhatsRight – to commit 50% of our international aid to the world’s poorest countries. It might seem crazy, but we know that if thousands of people send tweets, our message will be heard.

To show you just how big of an impact your tweet can have, we pulled together a list of tweets that have changed the world:

#BeTheGeneration

The Global Fund ran this campaign to make sure world leaders understood just how close we are to defeating AIDS, malaria and TB. This Twitter campaign put the issue on the radar of leaders during their discussions at the United Nations in the fall of 2013. The massive reach of this campaign contributed to the full replenishment of The Global Fund that year.

Bring 100K people clean water

Every year, charity:water does a campaign to raise money to bring clean and safe drinking water to more people around the world. This particular year, they set a goal of $4 million, which would bring 100,000 people in the Sahel desert region access to safe water. With a huge goal and to show how much of an impact clean water can have on people’s lives, they used Thunderclap to share a video and encourage people to get involved. The video reached nearly 28 million people and ultimately helped bring clean water to thousands of people.

#SFBatKid

Resident of Gotham city for a day #sfbatkid

A photo posted by @vydesign on Nov 15, 2013 at 3:13pm PST

Make-a-Wish Foundation believes that fulfilling a wish or dream for a child can be a game-changer in their life. So when a little boy named Miles told them he loved Batman, they pulled out all of the stops – making not only a little boy’s dream come true, but also filling a city’s spirit and internet’s news feeds with a whole lot of good. Miles got to spend the day as Batman, saving a damsel in distress and defeating a nasty Penguin. Over 15,000 people filled the streets to cheer him on, but the story reached far and wide on social media – #SFBatkid was mentioned in more than 200,000 tweets, coming from 117 countries. Miles as Batman, not the tweets, may have saved Gotham that day, but the story and message certainly saved our hearts.

Don’t Let Them Disappear

Don’t Let Them Disappear from Juniper Park on Vimeo.

When 58 activists were killed and no one was held responsible, Juniper Park responded in a very unique way – they created a platform that could be projected and showed photos of the 58 activists and over time, one-by-one, the photos disappeared. The only way the photos could stay up was if people walking past sent a tweet, calling on their country’s leader to speak up. The response was incredible. People tweeted from over 100 countries, reaching over 6 million people. World leaders couldn’t refuse these messages. They stepped up and ultimately, justice was committed to.

#TheWorldNeedsMore

rsz_theworldneedsmore_cvr_1

In 2013, the United Nations decided to take people’s words of support during a humanitarian crisis and turn them into real action. Brands and individuals could sponsor a word that finished the phrase #TheWorldNeedsMore and each time that word was used, a certain percentage of the sponsored amount was unlocked. To date, over 2.5 million words have been shared. These words raised $700,000 in the first 3 months of the platform’s existence – all of which went directly to United Nations humanitarian aid efforts. The campaign has reached over 1.3 billion people on social media and one of the largest ever Twitter walls was used to display these tweets at UN Headquarters.

You can send a tweet right now that will make a difference! Send a tweet to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to #DoWhatsRight and make sure 50% of our international aid goes to those who need it most.