Title	DONATE THE HATE - THE INVOLUNTARY ONLINE DONATION
Brand	ZDK - GESELLSCHAFT DEMOKRATISCHE KULTUR GGMBH
Product/Service	EXIT GERMANY
Category	C03. Use of Social Platforms
Entrant	GRABARZ & PARTNER Hamburg, GERMANY
Idea Creation	GRABARZ & PARTNER Hamburg, GERMANY
Production	HARVEST DIGITAL AGRICULTURE Hamburg, GERMANY
Additional Company	ZDK - GESELLSCHAFT DEMOKRATISCHE KULTUR GGMBH Berlin, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Ralf Heuel	Grabarz & Partner	CCO and Partner
Jakob Eckstein	Grabarz & Partner	Creative Director
Matthias Preuss	Grabarz & Partner	Creative Director
Boris Horn	Grabarz & Partner	Programmer
Ulrich Erdmann	Grabarz & Partner	Digital Concept/Concept CD
Richard Pietsch	Grabarz & Partner	Digital Concept
Matthias Preuss	Grabarz & Partner	Creative Director
Tobias Lehment	Grabarz & Partner	Art Director
Florian Kronenberg	Grabarz & Partner	Art Director
Jakob Eckstein	Grabarz & Partner	Creative Director
Stefan Geschke	Grabarz & Partner	Creative Director
Lisa Weibezahl	Grabarz & Partner	Copywriter
Ina Bach	Grabarz & Partner	PR Manager
Joelle Timores	Grabarz & Partner	Account Supervisor
Axel Doepner	Grabarz & Partner	Agency Producer
Fabian Wichmann	ZDK- Gesellschaft Demokratische Kultur gGmbH	Head of Marketing
Jakob Eckstein	Grabarz & Partner	Creative Director
Matthias Preuss	Grabarz & Partner	Creative Director
Fabian Wichmann	ZDK- Gesellschaft Demokratische Kultur gGmbH	Head of Marketing

The Campaign

While politicians and the media kept discussing about the right approach, we came up with: the involuntary online donation initiative DONATE THE HATE. For every hate comment posted on Facebook, the campaign makes an “involuntary” €1 donation to refugees and EXIT.

Creative Execution

Our Facebook tool was given beforehand to (media) organisations affected by online hate comments. As our first supporters they sponsored the initial funding to put the campaign on air. The interface links the answered comments to the DONATE THE HATE microsite. Thus we are e.g. able to register the involuntary donations in a live-counter and list a top ten of the most generous donors, or rather hate commenters. With the campaign on air we are constantly winning more and more supporters – organizations and private individuals – for our cause.

Results

DONATE THE HATE has spread internationally via traditional media and social networks – without a single Euro of media spend. Our hashtag reached millions of people. Thus we are winning many more supporters – organizations and private individuals – for our cause. Two weeks after launching the campaign even Facebook got in touch, saying they wanted to support us. By now DONATE THE HATE is responding to more than 6,000 hate comments – interacting directly with the haters – and raising more than €14,000 for refugees and against neo-Nazis. The campaign is also currently being adapated in further countries.

This work is relevant for Direct because the one-to-one interaction with the authors of hate comments throughout our campaign tool is essential for the idea. DONATE THE HATE enables those affected by hatred to post an immediate, positive counter reaction – thus turning thousands of hate comments into involuntary donations for the good cause. The generated data was displayed on our website – e.g. in a donations live counter and a ranking of the involuntary donors – and also used by Facebook and public authorities to take action. Besides all that, we even got some of the haters thinking.

We have to repsond to the authors of hate comments promptly – in order to post an immediate, positive counter reaction to their hatred, and to turn each one of their comments into an involuntary donation for the good cause. Therefore we have programmed an innovative Faebook tool that enables us and our supporters to respond to hate comments in a direct and personalized way. A simple bot could not have done the job, since even though hate comments are utterly moronic, they must be recognized by human intelligence.