We all have many facets of our lives. Another one of mine is personal responsibility to get involved in helping the disadvantaged. To that end I hold the conviction that we can all do more to leverage social media for social impact. My children and I fill our kitchen and living room with brown paper bags and make 100’s of lunches we give out to the homeless from the back of our car. But it is not enough. We can all use our social networks, our followers and groups to make a difference for those less fortune. I haven’t met anyone that exemplifies this better than Mark.
I met Mark Horvath a little over a year ago at a networking event for the Social Media Club of LA. He is funny, smart, approachable and helpful. Most people at the event seemed to know him. He talked very passionately about what a difference the organization made for him.
For 10 years beginning in 1995 Mark, a former Hollywood executive, had been homeless. By 2005 he regained his footing, had a job and bought a home. In 2008 he lost his job and his home, as a result of our economic downturn. Mark was only months from being homeless again when he started InvisiblePeople.TV – literally traveling the country documenting the stories of the homeless.
When we met at Social Media Club LA he talked about how he wandered into a SMCLA meeting to get something to eat. He was struck by the impact and accessibility of social media and immediately engaged in the organization. We talked about his experience of homeless. He went on the make his case that the homeless are largely invisible. Since 2008 he’s been working on ways to advocate for them, tell their stories and connect them more directly to service- providing agencies.
With donations via social media, support from Whrrl a location-based social check-in app, which has since been acquired by Groupon, and corporate sponsors Mark continues traveling around the country engaging advocates and capturing the stories of the homeless from California to Washington DC. His contagious passion and social media efforts have led to not only WeAreInvisible.com and InvisiblePeople.TV but Mark’s Invisible People documentary as well. He is currently a featured blogger with The Huffington Post where you can find a number of posts including one titled @home’s Latest Webisode: Youth Homelessness in Chicago.
To learn more about Mark check out an NPR feature telling his story, http://n.pr/19Kxt2D. You can donate to bring more of these special stories to light at http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/. The photo used here is from InvisiblePeople.TV where you will find the stories of Kevin, Denise, Lisa and Lexus and many others.
