How many Rungs do you have to climb? social change and the engagement ladder. #howmanyrungs

• George Weiner Dosomething.org @georgecaweiner.  Engaging with young people (3 rules are no money, no cars no adults!).  They measure ‘actions’ not slactivism ‘likes’.   Their model is a 15/17 to 25 year olds presidents / VPs, Following, Slackers.  Focus is the middle of bellcurve.  Engage with what is the next step.  We go where teens are and includes a lot of SMS to SMS advertising and advertising using ChaCha.  Celebrity tie-ins for the PR is important.Teens for Jeans for homeless shelters.  Tie in with Aeropostale stores collecting over 4 weeks.  The economic engine can do this again and again.  Youth action + celebrity = result (no car/money/adults).   Teens need frequency and freshness fortnightly.  Getting them to come back after age 25 is the next step.
• Laura Cochran, Gannett @wplauracochran.  Formed a cross-company team to improve our role in community leadership.  We feed the media, we do research outreach first – how we engage slide.  The Indianapolis Star newspaper did a campaign with an embedded reporters in schools who reported what schools needed (climb ropes, mittens, food, clothing, footballs etc).  From that she learnt is that hasty involvement in action may mean lack of defined vision and goals.
• Patty Huber, Groupon.com @Patty360  Groupon started out as ThePoint but it had problems – too little focus. It was a for profit and the 5% take on funds raised didn’t work.  We knew people used the Point for collective buying and so a spin off site Groupon was launched to take advantage of this and it became very successful.  Her plan is to launch GTeam to leverage the huge subscriber base of Groupon.  ”We have rescued the small business community”.  We email 30million people daily.  the platform for our causes provide credibility.  Our campaigns run for 3 days (not 24 hours like Groupon) but people act quickly.  Once you’ve subscribed we already have your credit card information and you only have to click ‘buy’.  We set up Japan campaign page yesterday and already have $13,000 raised.  Ideas we have are to work with social enterprises – not just charities.  The local campaigns are good for small amounts focussed.
• Tom Dawkins, Hopelab and StartsomeGood @tomjd [healthcare]  A ladder for online engagement makes no sense because many of the actions are taken offline.  if you’re not tweeting or using the hashtag you ‘don’t exist’ online.  But we know you’re in the room. No technology is a panacea – they just give us the opportunity to experiment with new ways of connecting. It’s hard work and the intention of people that makes these technologies work for good.  What is a ‘rung’ on a ladder?  Does it require intentionality, consistency, progression?  Do the participants have to know they are involved in social change to make it worthwhile?  What if it’s just fun or a game?   There is a sequence of actions for organisations to do – ti makes sense from the perspective of the non-profit not from the individual.  ReMission is a video game for kids with cancer to get them to take their drugs properly.  The game works by motivating (3rd person shooter moving through the body blasting cancers) the drugs are the weapon…. We thought it’d work through information but kids don’t want that. It has to be fun, cool and for everyone Zamzee a movement monitor for teens that gives rewards for movement.  Startsomegood new fundraising idea – remove barriers to 501c registration.  Micro donors don’t care about tax deductions.  Small donors make emotional connections not financial decisions.  The Health pyramid slide is a better model.  The ultimate endpoint is helping people to become changemakers.
• Robert J Rosenthal, VolunteerMatch.org @volmatch Moderator.

Three big questions:

1. when it comes to online engagement for offline social good, how much do traditional notions of the ladder of engagement still apply?
2. with so many options, what are the key things you should keep in mind if you’re planning to deploy an online campaign to engage audiences in social good
3. how do you balance business needs with your desire for social impact?

Volunteer match has a mission to make it easier for good people and good causes to connect.  Funded by companies and brands who are also  supporting good causes. Nowadays there are a lot of free agents working in this space.

The hard part for wanting to make a different in a scaleable way is the right mix of social tools, sharing and engagement.  The ladder of engagement starts with visitors, members, contributors, evangelist and leaders.

Beth Kanter has a similar one

Sitelogic ones focuses of online actions.

Does the ladder always make sense?

After a crisis many people make a donation and then never re-engage.

Christine Eggar from Social Actions – shell of radiating actions getting a wider engagement.

Q & A

Our audience are pre-social media (letter to your senator) and they are time poor.  What is the value of retention or should we just be happy with periodic engagements?  George Weiner responded – retain versus repeat.  You are still keeping people with you.  Think of it as a circular ladder – repeat.  Let people activate where they can.  Do something with actions that take 5 minutes or 5 years…. are you looking for something for the spring break or the whole summer.  Patty Huber – people can connect where they are and if they don’t come back the user chooses.  The charity can give them a list of the next set of actions they want presented to the donor group.

For corporate partners is there a ‘toolkit’ or does it just take a long time.  Robert Rosenthal replied saying that corporates take a long time and this is normal.  Laura Cochran – we use third partnerships rather than build from scratch.  I partner with folks that have the technologies.  Do you need branding or reporting technologies built in?  these slow you down a bit.  But just fund raising from friends can be done easily.  Don’t wait for it to be perfect before launching.

Is there a trend in the youth where they need motivation without the information/context?  Does lead to empty activities?  Tom Dawkins I feel like the media finds the least informed person there and ask them why they are there…”I just want a day off school!”  We do need people to be thoughtful about what they do.  What we can/can’t do to help in the Middle East for example.  Context and paying attention are important.

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I received this email on Monday.

 
Hiya! Can I pick your brain? A charity I am a trustee of has been advised by a [web design] company that (viz redeveloping the website) "social networking / web based community is a passing vogue" therefore relatively unimportant for new web capability. This for a very dispersed, defined community, where I see real potential for increased volunteer mobilization, with peer and expert support online.  What would u say?

What a great question! 

Whether you are an agency or a brand looking for an agency, selecting the right one to work with is difficult.  And it seems that the trustee and the charity may have some issues with what this digital web design agency is suggesting because it won't support their strategy of building up an online community with a view to mobilising volunteers and getting expert and peer advice available online.

I have long advocated using "golden questions" as a filtering device to shorten the list of candidates.  But it is also useful in this situation.  

Here is my reply.

A golden question I frequently use when selecting an agency to work with: Look at their website and speak to them. 

Ask them what tools, techniques and tricks are they using for their own sales and marketing. Check all these categories.

• marketing
• e-marketing
• digital marketing
• internal intranet
• website

Which are working and proving effective at the moment?

If they don't do it themselves, chances are they aren't as knowledgeable about it as they should.  And that may be why they aren't recommending it for you.

There are some exceptions to this e.g. mass email marketing is rarely appropriate for a B2B business (but I'd still expect the agency to do some email marketing for their own account). 

Analysis: There is a mis-match between the charity and agency at this time.  Either they force the agency to do what they ask (build a community site) or they find someone else to do it alongside the website build as an add-in or they fire the agency and find one that will do the whole piece.  Tough but most likely to get the outcome you want, if the latter.

Definition of a Golden Question and examples

Past post on Golden Questions here.

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