Rule 2: Remind People Why They Should Act, Not That They Haven't Yet

Not all messaging is created equal. It is highly contextual, dependent on audience, environment, medium, and messenger. For those trying to change the world – advocating for a cause greater than themselves and mobilizing others to move big ideas – these mission-driven organizers must follow a different set of rules. Each week, we will unveil our Nine Rules for Movement Messaging. We welcome you to share this with your colleagues and friends. By delivering one rule per week, it is our hope that as advocates and communicators, you can apply them to your own work one by one.

You have drawn the picture of utopia. These are your organizational goals. To get there, certain people need to change in certain ways. This is the focus of your movement. To build the movement, you also need to get people to act in ways they may not be naturally inclined to act; donate money, show up at an event, retweet. As advocates, our instincts tend to lead us to try to convince people why their inclinations (and disinclinations) are wrong. But wait! They are naturally inclined to act in the ways you want them to. They just don’t know it yet.

Humans have natural motivations and natural barriers to virtually every act we make, and that includes support for causes we care about. Whatever the desired action, ask yourself: Why would that person do this? In other words, what do they need to know, trust, or believe to make it more likely they act in the desired ways? Call this their motivations. Then ask yourself: Why aren’t they acting in these ways now? It could be a lack of information or awareness, or it could be a belief that runs contrary to the action. Call this their barriers.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing your messaging on convincing people that their barriers are wrong or misguided, but research shows that when negative attributes are associated with an action, people are less likely to act. Our job as communicators is not to convince people that their barriers are wrong. Our job is to help people forget their barriers exist. We do that by amplifying their motivations to act, crowding out any reasons to defer action.

Movement Messaging reminds audiences why they should act by reintroducing the reasons to care about the cause and get involved, rather than reprimanding people by reminding them why they have not acted.

Check out how the Partnership for the Future of Learning reminds their audience why they should care.