Don't you just hate it when someone comes along, announcing to the world that they are making tremendous impact and putting themselves up on the pedestal? But because of your experience, you could easily see through the fluff and puff, for the BS that they really are?
Yeah, over the years of running community events with KICKSTART.MY, Project Renaissance, Fuckupnights KL and now Steemit Malaysia, I see these so-called community builders come and go. Quite easy to spot, because they are usually loud.
Frankly, when we started with KICKSTART.MY, we didn't even know it was community building. We just wanted to have a meet up where people can meet and learn from each other. Sure, along the way the events grew bigger, and before I knew it, we were given the label "community builders".
It's a glamorous title, really, with only a few who knows how to leverage from it and make a fortune. Sadly, I wasn't the few. I sucked at partnerships, sponsorships and ticket sales in general, so we just decided to do it for free, and earn our living from other sources.
When we got traction, trust me, vultures do come around. You can see them hovering above, eyeing for the right opportunity to strike. Some wanted to duplicate our work, which is fine, but that's before they sold the idea to some corporations or government bodies, making good money and lining their pockets at the same time. Bitter, but happy knowing that at least the concept of the community events were validated, I took it as a lesson that I just wasn't good enough in the sales department. Yeap, despite having proven results, I just couldn't sell the idea as well as they did. I didn't hustle smart.
But the bitter taste ultimately sank in when I found out that after taking the clients' money, they couldn't deliver the results promised. Nor do they try. Corporates sponsors lost their money, but we can say it's ok because they can just write it off. But when some of those projects were taken from government agencies, now I have an issue, mainly because it's the people's money, and it's the people they are disappointing.
So these vultures, in the name of community builders, are more like community rapers. They would organise over-the-top events, charge the community for attending it, and in the process milk the cows from both sides of the field. They use the altruistic vision of fluff and BS to make people feel good about parting with their hard earn money, in the name of community building.
That sickens me. Really.
Call me naive, but when a community event is organised to support a cause, then the organisers shouldn't exploit it as a profit making attempt. A few examples I can think of, because it comes in different covers and shades you see, are:
- Single mother empowerment drives, but charges the single moms to learn how to empower themselves.
- Social enterprises who preaches philanthropy, but fails to "donate" the promised percentage of profits because there were no profits recorded. Interestingly, if you scrutinise the P&L, you'll realise there are some overpaid directors, heavy expense accounts and a company sports car.
- Education for the underprivileged, but requires the underprivileged to purchase learning materials from their companies. Somehow the money from the sponsors just couldn't cover the additional learning materials.
- Or simple charging poor communities for knowledge that's is available free elsewhere, just because the people were not aware of it.
And the vultures, I see them hovering over us now, because of the Steemit events and bootcamps we are organising. As far as 
If someone do come around claiming to run Steemit programs/workshops and charging a bomb for it, beware. They may be using our program contents, which is fine because it's open-sourced anyway, but be suspicious of their intentions.
Over the years, I hardly chance upon anything that's as good as the Steemit platform and community. It has a strong win-win-win element, and it rewards those who participated on it. Sadly, whenever there is money, vultures would pick up the scent.
So hold your wallet, perk up your senses, and listen to your gut. Together, we can identify and mark these community rapers.
Wait, why's Mav posting on Steemit nowadays?
Well, unlike other blogging and social media platform, Steemit is the only platform that allows me to earn cryptocurrency when I engage with it. Yup, one Steem is about USD7, and you, too, can earn Steem Dollars every time you:
- Create content (articles, blog posts, podcasts, videos, photos)
- Upvote (like) other people contents
- Comment on other people's posts
- Have discussions, share opinions etc!
Yup, basically it's the very same thing you're doing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc all along!
The only difference? For once you can earn a nice income on the side!
Sign up for a free Steemit account, and you can thank me by coming back and upvoting this article. And guess what, you will earn Steem too for doing that! #awesome
