South African filmmaker and YouTuber, Dan Mace, bagged two awards at the 8th annual Shorty Impact Awards held in Los Angeles recently.
The Shorty Impact Awards are dedicated to celebrating purpose-driven work from global brands, agencies and non-profits that make the world a better place.
Mace won the Global Impact of the Year award and Audience Honour award for YouTube for his film, “We Adopted an Orphanage”, which was created to showcase the work done by himself and his charity YouTube channel, “Beast Philanthropy”.
The first video in the series, which is on YouTube, is about Baphumelele orphanage.
Since January, the initiative helped raise R10-million to rebuild the children’s home in Khayelitsha, saving the children from asbestos poisoning and renovating all 13 houses at the orphanage.
This video received more than 17 million views and as they continually grow, so do the donations to the upkeep of the orphanage.
Seven months later, after changing the lives of the children at the orphanage and its founder, Mama Rosie, Mace released a second video titled, “We Adopted an Orphanage”, to continue raising awareness to ensure the children’s home remained successful and sustainable.
Their goal was to create collaborations with organisations from around the world to ensure the orphanage received consistent, essential support.
Over the years the “Beast Philanthropy” YouTube channel has amassed over 19 million worldwide subscribers on the platform.
Mace said the film captured the heart of South African culture and the ethos of “Beast Philanthropy”.
“I’d never be able to do this without my amazing team of South African creatives at JOE (Mace’s agency).
“I’ve worked all over the world, with many highly skilled filmmakers, but I can without a doubt say South Africa has talent like no other; there needs to be more light shone on the work.
“I feel like getting international recognition like this is slowly bringing awareness to the many unsung heroes in the creative space in South Africa,” he said.
These awards recognises how effortlessly the video captures “Beast Philanthropy’s” unwavering commitment to positive and sustainable change.
All the revenue earned through the channel is used to pursue the organisation’s mission.