Donating or volunteering? Make sure your contribution creates true impact

Go ahead and google “raising awareness.”

You’ll find results on the need to raise awareness on human trafficking, recycling, bullying, dementia, breast cancer, food waste, e-waste, extinction threats faced by marine turtles, the “top ten ideas for raising awareness,” “Social media activism involves raising awareness and visibility for certain issues by using various tools sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr offer, such as posting, liking, sharing info, news and photos, reblogging, commenting and sparking discussions and debates”

Really? is there anyone in the developed world that is not aware of recycling? Recycling entered the mainstream public consciousness decades ago.

And breast cancer? Same question.

Recycling does not need more awareness. It needs actions and structural change. It needs hands putting waste into bins but even more, it needs effective markets for products made from recycled materials. Breast cancer does not need more awareness. It needs better access to mammograms and more widely available and affordable treatments.

In all the “posting, liking, sharing info … sparking discussions…’ the conspicuously absent verbs are about taking action that creates change. Liking, sharing info, etc., are “Slacktivism” - feel-good measures in support of an issue or cause that boost the self-esteem of participants but have little effect.

Sure, raising awareness is often well-intentioned. And it continues because of something called the information deficit model - the belief that people persist in behaviors because they don’t know any better. Be extension, better information will cause behavioral change. If you raise awareness about bullying, bullies will stop bullying and bystanders will stand up for targets. If you raise awareness that exercise is good for your health, everyone will exercise.

But that has not worked. Not for exercise, not for bullies. Well-intentioned is not enough.

In 2017 Ann Christiano & Annie Neimand wrote for a piece for the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled “Stop Raising Awareness Already” (https://ssir.org/articles/entry/stop_raising_awareness_already#). They state: “Because abundant research shows that people who are simply given more information are unlikely to change their beliefs or behavior, it’s time for activists and organizations seeking to drive change in the public interest to move beyond just raising awareness.”

But what is harmed by raising awareness? Quite a lot actually, because scarce and precious resources are go to feel-good awareness that could support real-good action. Christiano and Neimand note that raising awareness “wastes a lot of time and money for important causes that can’t afford to sacrifice either.”

That’s a staggering indictment of raising awareness in one short sentence. Millions of words have been written with the goal of making philanthropy, organizations, methods and people more cost-effective at every cause under the sun, and yet, raising awareness continues unchallenged to “waste a lot of time and money for important causes that can’t afford to sacrifice either.”

If society - any society - had unlimited resources, we could have unlimited awareness raising efforts, with time and money and energy left over for creating actual change. But every society operates with limited resources, so choices must be made about where those resources can get the most bang for the buck, the hour, or the energy of caring people.

The bucks, the hours and the human caring must go to true impact.

Christiano and Neimand offer the story of Denver Water’s water conservation campaign as an effective alternative. They write:

“… an effective call to action is not just a restatement of an overarching goal. Denver Water’s “Use Only What You Need” campaign did this brilliantly. The purpose of that campaign was to get residents to reduce their water use.

Dozens of groups have tried and failed to get people to conserve water. But Denver Water’s call to action to “use only what you need” doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. It’s a positive way to urge people to avoid waste. And they backed their campaign up with precise calls to action, such as “Water two minutes less.” In addition, the city of Denver created a context for success by replacing 10,000 public school toilets with more water-efficient ones and moving to tiered pricing to reward lower water use. After nine years, Denver residents’ water use dropped to a 40-year low, equaling what people were using in 1973 when the city had 350,000 fewer residents.”

Congratulations to Denver Water and the architects of this campaign.

We need more campaigns like this in conservation. We need campaigns that emphasize the positive outcomes, the actionable, utilize best practices in social messaging, business and scientific tools, and yes, get results.

The avalanche of defensive email will soon be arriving from all the awareness-raisers out there. But if their awareness-raising is not tied to action and alternatives, there is no justification.

So for all of you who want to contribute to a better world, pick your cause, pick your organization, and when you contribute, ask yourself: Is this feel good, or real good? There are so many truly impact-full things you can do. Your time, your caring, your dollars are important. Choose wisely.