What’s your opinion?

Let’s say that you run a non-profit organization that wants to build stronger relationships in the community. You want to reach out to existing clients and to people that you haven’t served before. You want to build long-term relationships and a strong base of support.

You’ll probably want to start by enriching and expanding your communication programs. You might invest more in community outreach and in public service announcements. You could launch a newsletter. Volunteering to speak at various events and civic clubs is also a good idea.

Many communication programs, however, are rather passive. People in the community can see what you’re doing but they’re not interacting with you. They’re observers rather than participants.

It’s good to be seen. To build a strong web of relationships, however, you need to do more. You need to entice people to interact with your message and your program. Interaction leads to involvement. Involvement leads to commitment. Commitment leads to lifelong passion and support.

Building passionate support takes time and persistence. You can stimulate temporary interest with a catchy campaign. But deep, rich, long-term support requires a different level of commitment. You should start long before you need the community to passionately support you.

Think of a community engagement campaign as a wedge. Too often, we aim at the wrong end of the wedge – the thick end. We want to “move the needle”, “shake things up”, and “put our organization on the map.” We hope that a moving message and a clever campaign will quickly create the support we need.

Too often, such campaigns fail because we forget about the difference between observers and participants. Even a brilliant campaign with a well-crafted message allows our clients and potential clients to remain observers. People may remember a catchy slogan, but they haven’t interacted in any meaningful way. Like a pop song, a catchy slogan is quickly replaced by a brighter, fresher campaign.

The trick to building commitment is to start at the thin end of the wedge. Start by asking for small commitments, not big ones. Create activities that entice people to interact, not merely observe. Build stepwise programs that start small and gradually grow larger. Take your time.

Here are two ways to start small. They’re not clever or slick. In fact, they’re rather mundane. But they both ask community members to interact with your program, not simply observe it.

1) Telephone survey – your organization probably impacts the community in several ways. You construct a phone survey that itemizes your impacts and asks for feedback. The survey is simplicity itself: “Our organization impacts the community in three ways: A, B, and C. Which one of these is most important to you and your family?” You’re not asking for money or time; you’re simply asking for an opinion. Respondents hear your message and give an opinion. They’re no longer observers. They’re now participants. They’ve taken the critical first step. They’re on the wedge.

2) 25 words or less – your next step might be to sponsor a write-in contest with an interesting prize. Ask community members to write an essay of 25 words or less (or maybe 50 or 100) with the topic, “Why NPO X is important to me”. The best essay wins the prize. You’ll get some great ideas. More importantly, you’ll entice hundreds of people to nudge themselves into deeper and broader support. They’re moving up the wedge.

(By the way, don’t make the prize for the essay contest too big. You want participants to think, “I’m writing this essay because it’s important to me” rather than, “I’m writing this essay because of the prize.”)

What next? I’ll have some thoughts on that in future articles. In the meantime, start getting your clients to participate rather than observe.