Hey gang, this is important: After careful reflection, I have added a word to the “water words that work” list. It is: “Doing your/their/my part.”

Rather than conveying scientific information, this phrase sends important social cues. It is an attempt to incorporate the advice of Dr. Robert Cialdini, who writes:

…armed with the knowledge that, as a citizenry, we do care about our environment, we should focus on marginalizing the few who don’t care.

By this, Cialdini means that whatever we want everyday citizens to do — change their habits, speak up, donate, whatever — we should focus portraying that behavior as both socially acceptable and, in fact, expected. Here’s an example of how this new phrase can help get you there:

Concerned about the safety of their drinking water and the health of the local creek, there is a growing trend for local residents to install rainbarrels on their homes to reduce the amount of polluted runoff in their communities. Homeowners enjoy painting and decorating the barrels in various ways and comparing their their barrels to their neighbors’. These citizens are doing their part to keep the water clean enough for wildlife to survive today and future generations to enjoy tomorrow. Won’t you do your part? Call (xxx) xxx-xxxx to speak to our clean water program manager, who can help you get a rainbarrel of your own.

Enjoy playing with this new phrase!

Photo Credit: Amnemona via Flickr

MORE social research documenting how important it is for you to plaster pictures of faces — particularly eyes — all over your brochures, websites, posters, mailers, etc… Not sure how I missed this the first time around, but last year the Washington Post reported on a Harvard University study that compared people’s charitable behavior when they looked at different images on their computer screens.

The result: Participants gave 30% more when there was a picture of a robot face on the screen.

A robot?!?!?!?

30%?!?!?!?!?

Imagine the difference if it was a picture like the one above.

OK you nonprofit people out there, true confessions time — how many of you have faces on your fundraising materials? Seems like an easy way to give yourself a big raise.

Hat tip to Anita at the Jed Foundation for posting this tidbit to the Progressive Exchange.

“Why are we more likely to discuss a gossipy rumor at a party than a policy error that can actually make a material difference to our own lives?” That’s a question Washington Post reporter Shankar Vedantam takes up in his story “Why Fluff-Over-Substance Makes Perfect Evolutionary Sense.” It’s worth a read if you’ve ever found it frustrating to connect with everyday citizens about important issues like the the science and policy of nature protection and pollution control.

Vedantam quotes several “evolutionary psychologists” who explain modern human conduct by examining behavior that would have increased an individual’s odds of survival back in stone age. Professor Hank Davis at the University of Guelph in Ontario believes that because humans evolved in small hunter-gatherer clans, our brains are fine tuned to questions of:

…who needs a favor, who is in a position to offer one, who is trustworthy, who is a liar, who is available sexually, who is under the protection of a jealous partner, who is likely to abandon family, who poses a threat to us.

Professor Frank T. McAndrew at Knox College in Illinois believes that for this reason:

…people will tend to choose leaders they can relate to personally — and reject the leaders with whom they cannot see having a personal relationship.

You can probably guess why I thought this article was blog-worthy: I believe that nature protection and pollution control experts need to work harder to become leaders that everyday citizens can relate to. An that means keeping shop talk in the shop and using the water words that work in your outward-bound communications.

I’m no scientist, so I’ll put the question to those of you out there who are: Does this theory hold water?

Read the Washington Post story: Why Fluff-Over-Substance Makes Perfect Evolutionary Sense

Over at the Donor Power blog, Jeff is citing a very interesting survey on how donors — including yours, almost certainly — are using the web before they decide on where and how much to give.

In fact, they report that they are almost twice as likely to do this now than they were just three years ago.

You’ll have to click on over to his site to get all his insight on what that means, but here’s one of his recommendations for your website:

Make sure you’re answering the questions donors have — not the ones you wish they’d have.

That’s a bit of advice that is entirely consistent with the Water Words method.