Harry Potter Alliance Rebrands To Fandom Forward

Fan-activist organization Harry Potter Alliance has announced its new name, Fandom Forward, reflecting their expanded multi-fandom focus.

After previously stating their intentions to rebrand, the Harry Potter Alliance has officially announced that their new name will be Fandom Forward. The name change also comes with a renewed commitment to incorporate all fandoms into the organization and bring even more people together as they fight for a better world. The name was decided after a survey sent out in March that received over a thousand responses in regard to the future of the organization.

The Harry Potter Alliance, founded in 2005, was a fan-created organization that combined the positive messages of the Harry Potter series with fan activism. Over the years, the Harry Potter Alliance and its individual chapters all over the world have run campaigns concerning LGBTQIA+ equality, voting rights, literacy and education, immigrant justice, climate change, media reform, and economic inequality. Through programs such as the “Granger Leadership Academy,” the organization has helped train activists in order to encourage them to help their own communities.

The name change was inspired partly by a desire to distance itself from Harry Potter author JK Rowling. In recent years, Rowling has created a lot of controversy regarding her transphobic tweets and numerous criticisms regarding the representation of minorities throughout the series and its expanded universe. Despite these controversies, the leaders of the organization state that the primary reason for the rebrand was to facilitate the inclusion of a wide array of fandoms in the organization’s campaigns.

Previously, the Harry Potter Alliance had already been including other fandoms into its campaigns with specialized toolkits. These toolkits, titled Fandom Forward, were geared to dozens of different fandoms, incorporated messages from those fandoms, and generated discussions about numerous real-world issues. The organizers of the Harry Potter Alliance believed that rebranding the organization would bring a broader group of people together to bond over fandoms and work to make the world a better place.

Fandom Forward promises to maintain the same core values as the Harry Potter Alliance despite its multi-fandom focus. The organizers have maintained that popular Harry Potter-themed campaigns such as “Granger Leadership Academy” and “Accio Books,” an annual book drive that has donated over 400,000 books to various organizations, will remain staples of the Fandom Forward community. In addition, the organizers have promised that future upcoming campaigns will continue to deal with the most pressing real-world issues of today.

On Fandom Forward’s newly redesigned website, the organizers have summarized their rebrand with this quote, “No singular story can hope to represent every time, every question, or every lived experience. This movement is for anyone who believes in the power of stories and the communities that love them to change the world. It’s for everyone, and our name should reflect that.”

The future for Fandom Forward and it’s expanding community of fan activists is bright and promising.

Author: Jessica Wolff

Jessica Wolff is a graduate of Drexel University with a BS in Film/Video. She has a passion for entertainment and representation in entertainment. She currently resides outside of Washington, DC.

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