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Bono’s Advocacy Group

  In today’s Sunday The New York Times, the U2 singer Bono writes an opinion piece on Rebranding America. For those still scratching their heads about President Obama’s recent honor as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, this article provides insight into America’s renewed reputation in the world and President’s Obama’s role in that shift. As a non-American, Bono explains:

“But I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president’s words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines.

In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.”

What was revealing to me was how Bono is described in the footer where the author’s bio and background are set forth in what seems like less than 140 characters. It says: “Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.” This being a blog all about advocacy, Bono’s ONE organization is breezily identified as an advocacy group. Today it seems fairly common to describe groups organized around causes or issues as advocacy groups whereas years ago they might have been described as non-profits or NGOs…non-governmental groups. Worth noting how times have changed along with our descriptors.