Dumbledore’s Army Comes to Life in Harry Potter-Inspired Nonprofit

As every Harry Potter fan knows, Dumbledore’s Army, a secret defense organization, is a force for good in the popular series. It turns out, it may be a force for good in the real world, too.

The Harry Potter Alliance mobilizes fans of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to advocate for change — organizing book drives, calling on corporations to employ fair-trade practices, and much more.

A key twist? The organization’s campaigns tie back to the series’ stories, characters, and themes.

For example, the campaign #NevilleFightsBack is inspired by Neville Longbottom, a character known for his shy and forgetful nature, who ultimately battles many of the series’ antagonists so justice can prevail. His namesake campaign encourages alliance members to take action on big issues of the day, such as attending a climate-change rally or calling senators to voice an opinion on health-care policy. The goal is to persuade those who feel too small to inspire change that they can make a difference.

“It’s the methodology” — letting the characters continue to inspire positive change in a world of Muggles — “that captures people’s attention,” says Matthew Maggiacomo, the group’s executive director.

As the first book of the series marks its 20th anniversary this week, it still has legions of devoted fans, and the alliance’s co-founders understood early on that they could use popular culture to mobilize people for social good.

In 2005, co-founder Andrew Slack came up with the idea of converting the passion for the series into charity after attending a concert by the rock band Harry and the Potters. Mr. Slack approached band members Paul and Joe DeGeorge about forming a nonprofit, and they agreed to be co-founders.

Harry Potter fans responded in full force. Today the group has 500,000 members on its rolls and a core of about 5,000 members who are particularly active.

“We’re giving fans a way to do meaningful work but within their own [means],” says Paul DeGeorge, who serves on the group’s Board of Directors.

Staff members at HPA headquarters create global campaigns tied to themes from the books to appeal to the largest number of fans.

For example, the first campaign inspired fans to raise money for Amnesty International and to increase awareness of the war raging in the Darfur region of Sudan, in which hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives.

The annual ‘Accio Books’ campaign collects books and donates them to people in need. ‘Accio’ is a spell wizards employ to summon objects. To date, the group has gathered more than 350,000 books. The first campaign collected enough books to stock a new library in Rwanda.

Last year, HPA collected more than 100,000 books, 10,000 of which were sent to supply a library at an elementary school built by a local HPA chapter in Masaka, Uganda.

In a separate campaign, HPA worked with the nonprofit Free2Work to wage the ‘Not in Harry’s Name’ campaign, designed to push Warner Brothers to employ fair-trade practices for its Harry Potter-branded chocolates. After an effort that lasted years, HPA presented a petition bearing 400,000 signatures to J.K. Rowling’s assistant and Warner Brothers. In December 2014, the production house began using Fair Trade Certified chocolate.

New Chapters

The fans are a driving force behind the organization: They select the majority of the causes to support and are passionate about the work.

Janae Phillips, who oversees the group’s chapters, explains that fans support a variety of causes including literacy and education, women’s rights and gender equality, mental health, and LGBTQ issues, among others.

Chapters began springing up a few years after the group was established. However, in the past four years, requests to start new chapters have surged, especially after the 2016 presidential election, says Ms. Phillips. She received 20 requests to create new chapters in the 48 hours following the election.

Today HPA has more than 200 chapters in 38 countries across six continents. Nearly 50 percent of members say they were not involved in any activism until they joined HPA. “We’re really proud of our global community,” says Ms. Phillips. “We’re engaging people who were not engaged before.”

Not a Fan Club

Although run entirely by volunteer fans, HPA is not a fan club.

“We get irritated when people assume that we’re just a fan club. There’s nothing wrong with being a fan,” says Mr. Maggiacomo. “The work we do goes well beyond a fandom.”

To recruit new members and inspire new chapters, volunteer members often attend events such as VidCon, a conference on online videography, and fan conventions. Paul DeGeorge says these events are a great way to introduce people to the nonprofit’s work because they can have “thoughtful conversations with people rather than email blasting them with ideas.”

At a convention, Heather Murphy, now head of a Florida chapter of HPA, learned more about the nonprofit’s work and transitioned a division of her fan club into an official chapter of the Alliance. “We loved how the campaigns used stories [from the series] to help start these conversations about important social issues,” says Ms. Murphy in an email to The Chronicle.

One of the alliance’s goals is to push other nonprofits to use popular culture as a springboard for inspiring social activism.

Through Fandom Forward , chapter directors and volunteers develop tool kits to help fans of other franchises who are interested in causes but do not know how to get involved. For example, the site offers resources to help fans of the popular TV and anime series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” create advocacy campaigns. Fans of Marvel comics will find customized guidance as well.

In recent years, the nonprofit has shifted its focus toward leadership development and established the Granger Leadership Academy, named after the beloved character Hermione Granger, to help members advance their activism by training young women and men to become leaders.

For nonprofits interested in inspiring activism through popular culture, Mr. DeGeorge advises groups to understand fictional franchises well, select volunteer collaborators with care, and build credibility among the fans.