“I Will If You Will" (IWIYW) is an Earth Hour campaign to encourage positive action for the environment. The actions required are up to the individual or group. They could be big or small and it might be a simple lifestyle change or perhaps something that leads to political change. The campaign intends for people to become the inspiration to their friends, family, colleagues and communities by sharing what they’re willing to do to protect the planet.
What makes it special is that it empowers you - as an individual or as part of a community or organization - to share your commitment to the planet with friends, family, colleagues, fans or even a whole nation. The idea is simple. Someone makes a promise to do something if a certain number of people commit to take an ongoing action for the environment, beyond Earth Hour.
The action could be big or small; it might be a simple lifestyle change or maybe something that leads to political change. It might require 10 people to do something, or 10,000. The point is that I Will If You Will allows anybody – from a kid in a classroom to a President of a nation - to become the inspiration to their friends, family, colleagues and communities by sharing what they’re willing to do to protect the planet. Challenges can be created or accepted on Earth Hour's YouTube channel.
Why Are We Doing It?
Earth Hour has already shown what one simple idea can achieve, now it's about showing what someone's actions can inspire. In 2011, we launched the concept of "Beyond the Hour" as a way to help empower our community to do something more than just lights off. We knew that we had to create a campaign to take our movement further, and help mobilize our community to inspire actions big and small that would change the world we live in.
It wasn't until 2012 that we really nailed it - I Will If You Will was born last February, and immediately we knew we were onto something. Suddenly, our community - ranging from supermodels to sports stars, CEOs to kids in classrooms - were coming up with fun, creative, quirky, interesting and engaging challenges showing what they'd do if their peers did something for the environment.
In 2012, nearly 10,000 IWIYWs were posted on YouTube.com/EarthHour driving more than 4.6 million people to interact with the challenges and 200,000 to accept challenges on the platform alone. Thousands more expressed commitment through Earth Hour's Facebook and Twitter communities, as well as an extraordinary level of interactivity through class rooms, radio stations, large corporations, scout groups and even by cartoon characters.
It wasn't until we stood back and looked at some of the outcomes that came from the campaign that we realize. I Will If You Will was already generating real change. In its first year, I Will If You Will achieved some environmental outcomes greater than any of us could have imagined:
- It led to legislation in the Russian parliament to better protect the country's seas from oil pollution
- It initiated two huge reforestation projects in Africa
- It inspired more than 26 cities in Indonesia to use Twitter to mobilize action across the nation, cementing Earth Hour as the country's largest grassroots environmental movement.
This year, more than 50 Earth Hour country teams are adopting the campaign, so you can imagine how exciting 2013 is going to be for our movement.
How Can I Get Involved?
It’s simple! There are a few options of how you can help us take the passion of Earth Hour, beyond the hour. The best way to do so is to create your own challenge.
First, you’ll need to film your exciting I Will If You Will challenge video that will encourage people to accept! Just introduce yourself, say what you’re willing to do and what you want your friends, family, colleagues or social media followers to do for the planet. Now, there’s just one catch… there’s a predetermined list of You Will options to choose from if you want to get your video on our YouTube platform. See what they are.
Once your video is done, upload it to your existing YouTube account. Then simply click create challenge and follow the steps until you reach “Create Dare”. We have also come up with this short video about how to create a challenge to help you out with this.
If you want to create a challenge, but you do not have a YouTube account, you can always create a challenge on the platform by signing in with your Facebook or Twitter account. It’s exactly the same, just without the video component to your challenge.
If you decide you don’t want to create your own challenge this year, why not just accept one instead? Your action will help the environment and also it will help make the challenger complete their end of the dare! You can accept a challenge at here. :)
The I Will If You Will platform allows anybody with a Facebook, YouTube or Twitter account to accept challenges, and you can always spread the word by sharing the challenges and yours beyond the hour commitment with your own networks.
References :
Earth Hour. I Will If You Will. Retrieved from http://earthhour.org/iwill
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