Sustainable St Albans - How to get more people taking action
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This very short document appears to be about inspiring action and is authored by Karl Wilding from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, but provides no other contextual information in just a title and author attribution.
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Sustainable St Albans - How to get more people taking action
- 1. Inspiring Action Karl Wilding National Council for Voluntary Organisations
- 16. 16
Editor's Notes
- Thank you – very humbling to be here. Trustee locally, day job responsible for influencing and campaigning work, also volunteering. So we do a lot of thinking about why people get involved. We’ve had a great afternoon and you’ve already I reckon been inspired. So I want to stick with the theme and hopefully leave you feeling inspired and with a sense that you can make a bigger difference.
- Slide 2 (Heartwood Forest) My proposition today My message is clear. People want to get involved. They care about the people, communities and world around them. Some admittedly more than others. But people want to do things for the causes that they care about. Our challenge is to raise awareness of those who don’t know about the cause we in this room care about. To inspire and ignite those who aren’t sure how to do something. To connect those who are doing something so that they can make a bigger difference. And to show the world that yes, things can change.
- Slide 3: the civil rights movement, equal marriage movement We live in strange times. People everywhere are revolting against the established order. There is a pervading sense of powerlessness. It can be hard to forget that things can change. Equal marriage A ban on plastic carrier bags – with straws and earbuds next We should be militant optimists! We can change the world. And as Margaret Mead wrote, never doubt a small group of committed people can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever did. So, if things can and do change, how do we combine militant optimism with a better sense of how to make change happen?
- Slides 4 & 5: Social change doesn’t happen by accident The civil rights movement – example of social change One of the emblems of that movement was Rosa Parks – who refused to sit at the back of the bus But Rosa wasn’t someone acting on her own - heroic though she was, she was I think about the fifth person who was selected by the organisers. We have to be wary of building stories that change happens just because of heroic individuals, making a stand on their own. Change often requires organising behind the scenes, and there are well established models such as community organising.
- One of the emblems of that movement was Rosa Parks – who refused to sit at the back of the bus But Rosa wasn’t someone acting on her own - heroic though she was, she was I think about the fifth person who was selected by the organisers. https://www.piconetwork.org/tools-resources/0045 We have to be wary of building stories that change happens just because of heroic individuals, making a stand on their own. Change often requires organising behind the scenes, and there are well established models such as community organising.
- we need to be clear about how we think our actions make a difference A theory of change helps – if we’re going to change the world, we need to know how we will intervene and where people already are on their journey Awareness – interest – desire to do something – action
- global warming – so we can raise awareness
- so heres an example of raising interest in doing something, but there’s no call to action
- for me is moving along and getting people to take action – and the point here is making is easy and clear Make action as frictionless as possible – eg alternatives to plastic bottles by setting up a network of shops that let you refill your bottle Ideally make it low commitment too
- And then ideally make it fun – too much social action is too serious. Example is basketball and hopscotch. Serious leisure is an important reason why people get involved – its not all about saving the planet, even if we want them to gamification are ways of getting people to do things you might also see something called the piano stairs. Nudge people, in other words.
- Apple’s new robot, Daisy We’ve had presentations from businesses today – and we know that they want to demonstrate green credentials more than ever, because it makes business sense – particularly in relating to recruiting staff, who want meaning from work (Look at Facebook now – engineers are now wondering whether its such a cool company) So, find friends in unusual places
- Martha Payne’s school lunch: the 9 yr old was banned from blogging by the local council Her website has had 10m hits http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211691/Martha-Payne-banned-blogging-disgusting-dinners-gives-thumbs-breakfast-visits-African-children.html We often say to charities that good ideas or new issues come from the grassroots – I guess the reverse of that is make your ideas discoverable and shareable – and these days that is all about images and short videos (with subtitles!)
- We also need to think about how we build upon people’s strengths, not just try and fix their weaknesses. Be glass half full – assume people want to do some good, probably are trying (and they are – look at the growth of ethical goods and services, which has quadruled compared to charitable giving) – rather than telling people that they are failing
- And if people want to change the world, lets help them and importantly show them that their actions have made a difference And then say thank you – we don’t do that nearly enough
- Wolfhagen in Germany – has switched over to an energy cooperative We make a bigger difference collectively. We know that individually we can achieve much as volunteers, but that collectively we often achieve more. We are living in a digitally-enabled world where social movements are gaining recognition, and rightly so. Small actions multiplied by large scale movements can achieve real change.
- And finally, be clear that we’ll change the world through lots of small things. We are changing from volunteering to social action. Less committed, more flexible, but still dedicated to the cause. There are lots of people doing something some of the time. Today should inspire us to get people to do more things, more of the time.