After reading "Blogging for Good in the World - Successfully" by Cooper and Emily and thinking about of inspiring work that many have taken up for causes, including, Britt Bravo, 24 Hours for Darfur, Menu for Hope - Chez Pim, Katrin Verclas, Melanie Van Orden, Take a Stand, Nothing But Nets, Jenna Raby and Amy Jussel, I started to wonder what the secret ingredients are to success ... two came to mind and rhyme: Fashion and Passion
I recently read an article about fundraising on social networking sites. One particular quote jumped out at me, "The Facebook generation wears their causes like the way they wear their favorite fashion." While technically, I'm probably way over the legal age limit to be included in the Facebook Generation, nonetheless I'm once again wearing one of my one of my favorite causes as fashion on my blog this month.
Last month, I turned my blog pink in support of Breast Cancer and in September, I put on a red t-shirt to support the monks in Burma . This month's fashion statement is gray and green to match the colors of Creative Commons logo. But that's not all. I placed the photo of me wearing my newest Creative Commons T-Shirt on blog - and of course added it to my Facebook profile and on Twitter, you'll see the Creative Commons Logo with a donate message.
Why?
I have a strong interest in the future of my work and participatory culture. As an activist and evangelist for Creative Commons' values and tools, I want to do my part in helping to ensure that our culture remains as free and accessible as possible. That's why I also remixed the fundraising widget on my blog in support of Creative Commons Annual Campaign and gave some money too.
My colleague, Jason Zannon, of DIA, is trying to understand how organizations can identify and engage those passionate super activists?
And given that the network is increasingly going to be the point of contact between causes and people, both create an interesting strategic question for organizations that seems like a fruitful place for future investigation: how do you get those people involved?
Katya Andresen, Network for Good, offers some insights in the comments:
We, too, are working on understanding how to find more superactivists and how to make the long tail of less active evangelists more engaged. We've found the best approach is to recognize that motivation is not something you can create - it's something there based on personal experience. You just need to be in as many places as possible with your tools, so that when someone is in a place where they're feeling strongly about a cause, the easy way to act is right before them -- at which point they may become a more involved activist.
I agree with Katya that motivation is not something you can create - but you can inspire and ignite the super activist within. Maybe we need to make those super activists more visible and acknowledge them in a special meaningful way.
What have you learned about your organization's super activists? If your an organization, how will you inspire evangelists for your cause?
Maybe we all need to be role models. How do we inspire? Need some tips? Check out this resource!
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.