Listen, don't change

I was at the Compass Change:How? conference today and was struck by a few things in a discussion we had about 'why it's so hard getting people to change'.  By this it meant getting members of the public to take action for a more progressive, sustainable (etc.) world.

The first thing that struck me was the way that many people seeking change on progressive issues seem to believe there are two sets of people - first, us - the people seeking a better world, who are ethical, intelligent, well-informed and see the world for how it really is, and them - the general public that we are trying to influence - who aren't so enlightened and don't care so much.  This assumption is deeply condescending to other people and completely untrue.  And is perhaps at the root of our problem of why we find it so hard to gain social change.

The second thing that interested me directly follows from this point - it was the assumption we have as 'change seekers' that other people need to be 'changed' in some way - in other words, the idea that we need to shift them from their current position to another one, because we don't approve of their current position.  When we articulate it like this, it's not hard to see why we're having problems gaining social change on key issues - because we're trying to herd people into opinions and actions that they're not currently prepared to take, and we're doing so in a way that pays little attention or respect to what they think.

These observations gained greater credibility in my mind as one member of the conference suggested that the best way he had found to gain change was to actually ask people what matters to them and then to listen to their views properly and respectfully - and then try to find a course of action that takes account of these.  It's really no surprise that this should be one of the most successful ways of gaining change as it doesn't try to change people - it tries to change issues by focussing on the things that people care about.

But this idea of 'listening to people' has its risks for the progressive change makers.  I hear many progressive voices saying that we must become more democratic and let people have a voice - but at the same time they want people to hold particular views and behave in particular ways.  These two aims are conflicting - it's one or the other.

As people seeking change, we've got to work out what we want from people.  If democracy matters to us and we want to let people have a voice we have to do this whilst understanding that people may choose some things we don't like as progressives. 

These are just thoughts I'm chewing over at the moment, and I've not formed a definitive opinion on them but they do provide food for thought....

No means no

We've been doing a bit of 'secret shopping' with some charities - making donations to them and seeing how they communicate with us as a result.  It's a real eye-opener and shows that lots of organisations have work to do on their communication plans - one charity has already sent us 3 identical emails since we donated just over a week ago!

Our secret shopping experience led us to a conversation in the office about emails from organisations (not just charities) and how counterproductive their efforts to gather names and email us can be.  Two main points came up in our conversation:

1. Some organisations still seem unable to take 'no' for an answer when sending their communications, and also fail to see the negative effects this is having on people's participation.   By saying 'no' I mean failing to take people off mailing or email lists when asked to do so.  Not only does this annoy people, it may well also make them (I speak from personal experience) less likely to use the media concerned,  deal with the organisation concerned or sign up for any similar transactions in the future.

2. Some organisations seem to be seeking quantity over quality of email addresses - and this can be counter-productive for them.  For example, we signed a petition on a campaigning site and gave our email address. When we left our email address there was no opportunity to unsubscribe from future communications - which is very annoying.  Once we'd completed the petition, we got the inevitable emails from the organisation, which annoyed us further.  This has put us off taking such action with this organisation in the future - and reduces our motivation to participate with others, as we see the likelihood of this happening again.

One of the key principles of online fundraising and campaigning is to make it as easy as possible for people to undertake the transaction.  By failing to include opt outs, or just not listening to our contacts, we actually place another obstacle in front of people to responding to our cause.  Let's make sure we remove it.