slacktivism

The Art of Activating Slacktivism

Submitted by Kari Dunn Saratovsky on Tue, 03/23/2010 - 11:23
Be As You Are Slacker
Today's guest post comes to us from Dan Morrison, Founder and CEO of Citizen Effect who is driven by the idea that anyone can make a real and significant impact in the world. Citizen Effect provides everyday citizens the tools and networks they need to work directly with communities in need around the world.
 
I love the word “slacktivism.” It is a classic oxymoron. The word conjures up the image of a male college student (sorry guys) sitting on his couch playing Grand Theft Auto and texting “90999” to support Haiti Relief in the five seconds between games.
 
And that is a great thing. When I was in college, the college quad was the realm of the activist who wanted to save the world. The dorm room was the realm of the slacker who could care less. Technology has now allowed slackers with a conscience to get involved in the causes they believe in but are too lazy to get up off the couch and support.
 
Slacktivists are an entirely new market segment that we, as cause marketers, are all salivating over, because so many slacktivists are so willing to procrastinate by picking up their mobile phone or going online to give and spread the word about our cause. Slacktivists are the definition of the long tail and cause marketers are going to bed every night trying to dream up schemes about how to get 1 million slacktivists to text them $10. Unfortunately, for most, that is never going to happen.
 
But I don’t blame the slacktivists – they are who they are, and are giving in a way that is comfortable to them. I blame marketers, like myself, who scheme about how to
change slacktivists into the fundraising juggernaut of the 21st century, rather than focusing on giving them what they want – an easy, effortless way to give and get on with their lives.
 
Slacktivism emerged because social media tools gave slackers with a heart an opportunity to get involved on their own terms. It is a mistake to think that slacktivists are just lazy. Some are too busy or uncomfortable getting involved with a cause in a public manner. Texting, tweeting and social media gave them the ability to give during the limited time they had or provided the social cover they needed to get involved. So I think we should ask not what the slacktivist can do for us, but what we can do for the slacktivist.
 
For the slacktivists that is more slacker than activist, we have to give them more easy ways to give. Texting for Haiti was simple and you can expect organizations, big and small, to leverage text-to-give programs at the next fundraiser you attend (check out Causecast’s mobile text2give program). And suggestion to the Greenpeace volunteers lining the streets of DC – ditch the long schpeel and just ask people to text you $10 to save the planet. And next time there is a global catastrophe, let’s make it even easier - “Tweet 90999.” The more tools we can develop to integrate giving into our daily lives, the more slacktivists will give.
 
But I cannot resist the temptation that there are slacktivists that are activists just needing the right excuse to get involved. They may not be many, but are a tantalizing segment because converting one slacktivist that texted $10 to an activist that raises $5,000 is well worth the investment. But how do we move from mobile and online giving to offline doing?
 
At the threat of stating the obvious, give slacktivists the same social media tools you use to entice them to give. Nonprofits spend too much time trying to figure out how to use social media tools to entice new donors to give them $10, when they should be figuring out how to empower their existing donors to leverage social media tools to raise money for them. It is the classic “don’t ask a man to give $10; teach him to fundraise $100” scenario. Because asking ten people to raise $10 from ten people ($1,000) is much more efficient than ask 10 people to give you $10 ($100). You win even if only two people achieve their goal ($200).
 
We can also learn a lesson from why texting 90999 worked for Haiti – it was easy, new and fun. People hate raising money – it is as stressful as moving and getting divorced. But if you give someone the control to choose their own project and empower them to fundraise while doing something they love, you can unlock the activist within. At Citizen Effect we have had people of all ages that never raised money before raise thousands of dollars with chili-fests, yoga workshops, cross-country bike rides, swim-a-thons, and simple online campaigns. How? By providing them a platform to market, promote and fundraise for the cause of their choice. And most importantly, allowing them to leverage their true social network – their trusted group of friends, family, and co-workers.
 
So what do we do with the slacktivist? For most, we continue to cater to their need for fast, easy ways to give. And for those few with the activist living within, empower them with the tools they need to engage their trusted social networks doing what they love to do. A Grand Theft Auto tournament for Haiti is a great place to start.
in

Is Offline Action So 2000 And Late?

Submitted by Kristin Ivie on Tue, 11/03/2009 - 14:33
Hay bale 1

For better or for worse, globalization and innovations in technology continue to make the world smaller all the time. As we grow more connected, our issues and causes are less defined by our physical neighborhoods, cities and countries. Millennials are more globally aware and invested than were our parents' generation and we have already mobilized to fight genocide, malaria, human trafficking, climate change, water shortage and other global issues for people they have never met and may never meet.

We are reading the Economist along with the Washington Post, moving around every couple of years, and using social media which enables us to take part in global communities with people who care about the same causes we do – whether it’s Israeli-Palestinian peace, technology for good, empowering women in developing nations or supporting our alma maters.

As demonstrated by tools like peace.facebook.com, social media has the power to connect  people with very different backgrounds, religions and political beliefs to allow them to work toward solutions in global communities. Some of our community members we have met in person, some we have not, but we interact with them, collaborate with them and support them all the same. And as a result, Millennials increasingly see ourselves as citizens of the world, rather than just citizens of our local communities, and future generations are only going to move further in that direction.

With this changing definition of community and our concern for global issues, the definition of civic engagement and participation can also be more broadly defined. Most people say you have to move online activity to offline action to have real value and impact. I've said it myself. But are we moving toward a time when our goal, instead, will be to keep people online, but move them up the online scale of engagement? Civic participation basically includes efforts to work with a community to solve a problem – like volunteering, donating money, discussing community issues, staying informed and connecting with civic or religious groups. All of those things can happen online, and as the communities of Millennials and generations after us are decreasingly defined by location, much of our civic participation in those communities may have to be online.

What if these one-click actions like greening an avatar, adding a twibbon, voting or buying a virtual gift are embraced as low-level civic participation in global communities, rather than condemned as slacktivism? Does that change the way we think about their legitimacy as awareness techniques and moving these people up the scale of participation? I don’t hear people criticize efforts to raise awareness offline – like passing out flyers, putting campaign signs in yards, or wearing Livestrong bracelets – in the same way, but is it really different?

We now can volunteer online, donate money online, participate in online discussions and forums, ask questions in livestreamed events, shop online and therefore boycotts online, and soon we could be voting online. Obviously people still want offline interaction and opportunities, but it might not always be that way. Just as we are phasing out snail mail a few decades after email first became popular, many offline opportunities may be eventually phased out as well. Meaningful action is already taking place online, so instead of putting our effort toward converting online to offline, should we put our effort toward getting people comfortable with staying online and getting highly engaged in global communities there?

According to a recent study, the biggest barrier to increased support of causes online is a lack of trust – trust that their efforts would really help the cause. Embracing more online communities and forms of engagement does run the risk of increasing our feelings of isolation, detachment and distrust, as suggested by Robert Putnam, but further technology innovations may hold an answer. Jocelyn Harmon and Allison Fine wrote posts recently suggesting that social networks are beginning to rebuild our social capital and decrease isolation by increasing trust between the people we work with online. If rather than being critical of the current challenges of mobilizing people for a cause online, we should spend more time considering the solutions and opportunities. Not being able to gather in person is still seen as a challenge (among others), but if we continue to find more ways to increase real trust and reciprocity through social networks and other technology, we have the potential to form unstoppable global communities of action.

What do you think? Is this the beginning of more global communities and the beginning of the end for offline action in our global communities? What are some of the other challenges, opportunities and implications of thinking about online actions the same way we think about offline actions and not as simply a poor man’s civic action?

in
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