In a country where there’s desperate poverty all around, it’s all too easy to slip into a state of “charity fatigue” when iPad activism based on social media outrage is as close as most people ever get to making a difference.
But that’s probably because they haven’t yet encountered the No Danger Diaries social entrepreneurs, who have made it their life’s work to do one thing: have fun while giving back. And the four 20-something men who run the unique non-profit enterprise – Daniel Becker, Grant Ross, Sebastian Davies and Travis Stedman – have no intention of leaving anyone behind.
Their premise is a very simple two-part process. The first part, says Becker, is their Living List of tasks, which is the backbone of what they do and evolved because they saw a need three years ago for a change in South Africa’s mindset.
“The change was to make people understand you don’t have to be extraordinary to make a difference, and you can have a huge amount of fun while you’re doing it. Giving back shouldn’t be hard work; it should be about having a really good time and changing the world one task at a time.”
Becker happily admits that the four friends came up with the idea of starting the Living List when they were roommates in Cape Town in 2012 largely because he was suffering from a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out).
Ross takes up the tale: “Daniel was injured and we were doing a lot of really cool stuff that he couldn’t, so we started writing down a list of things we’d do when he was better. When we started, we worked on the basis that out of every three tasks, two would be for fun and one would be for the greater good, but we soon realised that every task we undertook had a give-back factor.”
Looking at the Living List (called that because it has nothing to do with kicking the bucket) on the No Danger Diaries website quickly gives you an idea of how it works.
Task 13, for instance, was abseiling off a building dressed as superheroes. That’s just fun if it’s a bank, but it’s a different ball game if that building happens to be the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital filled to bursting with sick youngsters. Then it turns into a day of magic when pain is temporarily forgotten and a lifelong memory is made.
But although the four founders have run down a mountain naked, yodelled in front of 5 000 people and stripped at a hen party to raise funds for charities including rhino conservation and their more serious outreach work such as running soup kitchens, their aim is to get as many people as possible involved in their events and tasks.
One of their recent events was Dance for Madiba, which saw volunteers dancing for 67 hours to celebrate Mandela Day. The event was so successful that the team has subsequently received scores of videos from around the world of people dancing in honour of Nelson Mandela – including on the top of a mountain in Patagonia!
Another was hosting 300 people for a weekend at the Namaqualand Flower Festival. The big “give-back” was the establishment of two bee colonies funded by those attending “adopting a bee”. The bonus “give-back” was the inspiring experience for those who attended.
Ross explains: “We saw amazing flowers, but we also organised guided stargazing, a 10km and 20km run, and a beehive-building workshop, among other things, teaching people how to establish hives and keep their bees healthy.
“People leave events like this inspired and wanting to do something positive in their world. That’s critical to changing the way we think about our environment, our communities and ourselves. If we don’t create that first step of awareness and enthusiasm for doing good we’ll never change our society.”
While No Danger Diaries is headquartered in Cape Town’s CBD, it also operates in Johannesburg. The No Danger Dream Team currently works from its Cape Town office, though, and the Dream Team is the second half of the organisation that largely benefits financially from the tasks and events. Becker explains: “The No Danger Dream Team aims to connect on a community level and gets involved in projects like soup kitchens, skills workshops and gathering young energetic volunteers to inject life into existing projects.
“They work with several other NGOs and are now starting to liaise with organisations such as the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID), in particular their Social Development department and their own partner NGOs, to see where there may be areas in which we can work together. This type of collaboration is the more ‘hardcore’ side of our social enterprise; we needed a way to connect the dots and start implementing the change we want to see, and the Dream Team is the way we do it.”
This being No Danger Diaries, even the Dream Team gets to mix it up a bit though. On Women’s Day in August, for example, the entire crew plus numerous volunteers descended on a homeless shelter in the Cape Town CBD and gave all the women a makeover pamper day.
Pat Eddy, Social Development manager for the Cape Town CCID, has high praise for No Danger Diaries: “It’s inspirational to see a team approaching social responsibility with such enthusiasm and fresh ideas. They take what they do very seriously, but their innovation makes it fun and easy for people to engage. It’s a great approach to social investment.”
Three years into their adventure, No Danger Diaries is thinking big. They already have a chapter in Manchester, England, with others planned for mainland Europe and Zimbabwe within the next two years.
And while they take their brand of fun social enterprise to the world, they also plan to introduce the world to it in South Africa through their “Voluntourism” programme.
“Millions of international tourists visit South Africa every year, a large percentage of them young travellers who want local experiences,” explains Ross. “We’re going to offer them a range of No Danger Volunteer Experiences that’ll be a lot of fun, but do good at the same time. The programme will also raise funds for our outreach work and allow us to help a lot more people through the Dream Team.”
Many of those experiences will mirror the tasks and events No Danger Diaries already offers to corporates.
Becker has the last word: “We need to get people away from ‘clicktivism’ and into action and the only way to do that is to make changing the world a happy experience. Nobody’s going to do anything if they’re having a miserable time. It’s all about sharing the joy.”
For more information, visit www.nodangerdiaries.com.