On the topic of popularization, I think the ratio of idealistic people interested in alleviating global poverty to people who are aware of the concept of meta-charities that determine the optimal way to do so is shockingly low.

That seems like one of those "low hanging fruits" - dropping it into casual conversations, mentioning it in high visibility comment threads, and on. There's really no excuse for Kony to be more well known than Givewell.