What makes people care?
The social purpose sector works in often very difficult and complex spaces. But as humans, we understand stories over divisive language, and imagery over facts. How can we effectively use these principles in advocacy?
By Neil Pharaoh
I am an avid reader of a couple of journals, one of them being the Stanford Social Innovation Journal. They recently featured an article, The Science of What Makes People Care. This article really hit a chord, so I have taken their five principles and transitioned them to the Australian context.
I wish many involved in advocacy and campaigning in Australia would remember that to gain influence on an issue, you need to understand what compels people to invest their attention, emotion and action. In short, you need to use the science of what makes people care as a foundation for your strategy.
The five principles listed by SSIR were:
Join the community – identify a group whose change in behavior could make a difference or inspire others, and figure out how to bring that group value
Communicate in images – visual language helps people connect to your work
Invoke emotions with intention – think about what you are trying to get people to do, and how they would feel
Create meaningful calls to action – specific and connected to the cause
Tell better stories
Join the community
In the Australian landscape this means understanding the group you need to engage, recognising it may not be part of the eco chamber you are often caught talking to. I often mention in seminars my particular concern about a refugee sector leader who tweets with very vitriolic and preaching language. This language really fires up the base, and donations to this organisation from progressives and inner-city types go up whenever the commentary is read.
Yet, the soft middle of Australia hate the preachy tone and being told they are somehow morally inferior, and switch off from engaging in the discussion, or shifting their view. This highlights what “join the community” really means when advocating and campaigning - do not speak to your base, do not lecture those who disagree with you; but take the time to listen to concerns, and engage in the community. Find leaders who that community aspires to, and get them to showcase a different point a view.
Put simply, if I rock up to somebody and call them racist/homophobic/sexist (amongst other things), they are not going to turn around to me and say, “Thanks Neil, I never knew I was racist/sexist/homophobic before, and now thanks to you I am going to change my opinion.”
Communicate in images
The social purpose sector works in very difficult and complex spaces, yet as humans we understand things better when things are visual. SSIR highlights that figurative language creates rhetorical advantage – when you write a letter or campaign, does it create vivid imagery? Can you see the future or the vision or the dream from the language you are using? What is the drawing of the future, and what does it look like? What image is in your mind when you are articulating your communications campaign? When I am working with clients, we simplify this often by saying what is your “child-friendly version” or “one page infographic” – all of which create more engagement in your communications and narrative.
Invoke emotion with intention
People actively avoid things which make them feel sad, fearful or guilty when they can’t see a direct way to resolve or solve the issue. Likewise, people are attracted to things that are pleasant, and SSIR research shows that a feeling of awe actually increases openness to learning and willingness to engage. When you look at parts of your campaign, does anything inspire or awe you? Will it do so to others? A simple way of thinking about this is what we call working on the “solution” frame – what does it look like if you achieve what you want? How will it look in a story in the paper, a media release, or if told to a friend. Too often it is really easy to paint the problem, but if you can also include the solution, you are invoking emotion with intention.
Create meaningful calls to action
In short, your call to action should be specific, enable the community to see how they help solve the problem, and be something people know how to do. Too often we present a huge problem - poverty, climate change, injustices - and ask an individual for a donation of $10. While we say every dollar counts, to the individual who donates they feel they actually have no power to produce results, and calls to action which leave people feeling that they will not make a difference leave a negative taste, even after donation. The marketing study of this is called post-purchase dissonance – and is worth of an article in its own right around what our sector can learn from this.
Finally, tell better stories
We remember narratives, and stories enable us to be more empathetic to others; whereas it’s difficult to find empathy through facts. Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end - and while not all of them have a happy ending, almost everyone knows the key stories we read as kids (Snow White, Cinderella, and others). We remember fairy tales read to us decades ago, but cannot remember the key facts or outcomes of some campaign we were involved in only last week.
One of the most powerful things you can see in advocacy is when people actually change their mind, or evolve their views. If I were to add a sixth point to the SSIR article, it would be to ensure you back those who have changed or evolved to your view point, and congratulate and encourage them as equals. Dwelling on the past, or focusing on differences won’t encourage others to join.
This article first appeared at Pro Bono Australia as part of Tanck's fortnightly column, Happenings on the Hill.
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