BU Today feature: BU Alum Turns to Social Media to Raise Funds in Support of #BlackLivesMatter
This article was originally published in Bostonia on July 8, 2020. By Jason Kimball.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer in Minnneapolis, Natalie Guerrero wanted to take action. So the writer, activist, and filmmaker turned to social media, launching a Venmo campaign to raise money for the National Bail Fund and the George Floyd Memorial Fund. She reached out to her friends and 800 plus followers on Instagram, asking each of them to send just $1. Her initial goal was to raise $500.
Three weeks later, her campaign has raised over $67,000, and has grown to support GoFundMe campaigns for the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, killed by a white father and son, and the family of Breonna Taylor, killed by white police officers in her home. Both, like Floyd, were Black and unarmed.
Guerrero (COM’16, /CFA’16), who works in film development for Macro, a media company that produces content that tells the stories of people of color, had never mounted a social media campaign like this before. “I didn’t really have a strategy in place, other than posting to my Instagram story throughout the day. It was all really grassroots,” she says. As the project progressed, she began sharing more of her personal writing, encouraging and engaging in conversation with followers, even interviewing Breonna Taylor’s sister, Juniyah Palmer.