Archive for January, 2009

So this chart is a bit hard to read, but it’s worth puzzling over until you get it. It’s from the recent study “Global Warming’s Six Americas,” which probes the distribution of various attitudes and behaviors across the population.

Source: Global Warming’s Six Americas, 2008

The key finding is that people who are relatively negative about getting involved in fighting global warming ALSO tend to believe that their individual efforts won’t make a difference. The people who are willing to get involved ALSO tend to believe that their individual efforts will make a difference. And this isn’t just the case with global warming — it’s true for any environmental issue. In fact, it’s pretty much true for any good cause: People who believe their efforts matter are much more likely to make the effort than people who doubt their efforts matter.

Bottom line here: If you want people to get involved, you have to encourage them, not just inform them. And some of the words that work which do that are “make a difference,” “what you can do,” “working together,” and “doing your part.”

Source: Sensual Shadows Photography, via Flickr

“Recreational saltwater anglers pumped more than $31 billion into the U.S. economy in 2006, with Florida, Texas, California, Louisiana and North Carolina receiving the largest share,” that’s according to a new study issued by NOAA’s Fisheries Service, one of god-knows-how-many “outdoor recreation is important for the economy” studies that some government agency or nonprofit will put out this year to try to get the public to take nature protection seriously.

Is it true? Sure, I think so — but everyday citizens pretty much don’t. At least that’s what the polling firm Responsive Management found when they asked them in a nationwide series of focus groups:

The idea that either fishing or boating, except for commercial fishing and/or boating, was a major economic issue, was not seen as believable.

Source: Anglers and Boaters Attitudes Towards Various Messages That Communicate the Benefits of Fishing and Boating: Results of a Series of Nationwide Focus Groups, Responsive Management, 2001

And here’s the thing about those everyday citizens — they don’t read dry government reports, so they will go right on doubting despite all the hard work that went into this one.

But while everyday citizens are very skeptical about claims that that outdoor recreation is a big part the economy as a whole, they still think it’s important — because it’s healthy for their bodies, and even more importantly, for their families. Stress relief and family togetherness consistently top the list for why most people make time to enjoy nature and the outdoors.

So NOAA, if you want regular folk to take fishing seriously, how about putting out a report documenting how many families will go saltwater fishing together next year?

How about estimating how many more hours of parent-child bonding there will be and how many less hours of TV watching there will be, thanks to saltwater fishing?

How about quoting some family counselors, ministers, or anybody else who can speak with authority to the benefits of the relaxation and togetherness that comes from spending time in the great outdoors, instead of bureaucrats and academics tossing around billions and millions and calculations and extrapolations?

Here’s the thing: everyday citizens will believe that. And they think it’s mighty important, too.

Pew Research Center reports that more Americans now rely on the Internet for news than the newspaper. Looking at the chart below, it will be a couple more years before Internet surpasses TV, but that’s the direction we’re moving.

Source: Pew Research Center

I still think there’s a place for newspapers in your communications plans, mostly because the people who read them (disproportionately older, highly educated, opinion leader types) are valuable people to have on your side. But my experience with government agencies and green groups is that you are still unhealthily dependent on PR techniques and procedures that are tailored to fit newspapers.

We have to recognize what steadily vanishing readers and advertisers mean for this industry: pending doom. Still need proof? Take a look at the ad revenues for the New York Times family of publications. Revenue is down 20% in the last quarter of 2008, with both print and online ad revenues dropping. And that’s a relatively healthy member of the newspaper family.

I’ll miss the daily paper, but there’s good news in this for you: Journalists were always loathe to take sides, tout solutions, and encourage their audience. As they leave the scene, you have an opportunity to step in, fill the information vacuum yourself, and inject those vital and missing ingredients into the community debate

The good folks at CDR Fundraising, a consulting firm that helps nonprofits raise money, has posted an interesting PowerPoint show. It’s full of interesting facts about the history of fundraising during economic downturns. It’s mixed news for riverkeepers, land trusts, and other local nature protection and pollution control organizations.

The bad news is that national charities with high name recognition weather these storms better than local ones. The good news is that individuals who gave to your organization before the recession hit are likely to keep giving, although perhaps at reduced levels. And the trend away from paper checks and towards online credit card transactions will continue.

…2/3rds of online donors plan to increase giving online, vs. 1/3 who plan to give the same amount or less.

The author of this PowerPoint skips past an important point. It’s so obvious to him that he didn’t bother to include it: It matters how you ask. Fundraising letters, emails, and web pages that make a clear and compelling case for the work of the organization are more successful than those which are loaded with shoptalk, confusing, and hard to follow. The most successful fundraisers relentlessly test their materials to determine which variations on words and pictures most effectively evoke the charitable instinct.

Click here for “Fundraising in Difficult Times.”