http://www.onenw.org daily 1 2008-06-11T21:29:02Z http://www.onenw.org/blogs/enspark/old-goods-about-engagement-ladders.. <p>This is the second of a three part series looking at online engagement as an integrated approach combining fund raising, advocacy, volunteer mobilization and activism to strengthen and grow an organization's active supporter base. Part Two: The Ladder of EngagementA couple of years ago, I attended a workshop on online activism where Stephen Legault of Actionworks.ca introduced the "Ladder of Engagement" -- a model for visualizing how organizations can build a base of more committed supporters for activism, campaigning, advocacy and fund raising.</p> <div class="postContent postbody"> <div> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>The Ladder of Engagement sets out a simple scale for ranking different activities that online supporters may enage in. Low on the ladder are quick and easy items such as signing an online petition or forwarding an email to a friend. At the top of the ladder are the most involving forms of activism, including meeting with elected officials, organizing local actions, and making donations.</p> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td>High Engagement</td> <td>Recruit friends/family</td> </tr> <tr> <td><br /></td> <td>Upgrade monthly donation<br /> Signup for monthly giving<br /> Renew single donation<br /> Make single donation<br /> Write a letter<br /> Attend a ‘real world’ event<br /> Sign petition<br /> Viral / Tell a friend<br /> Send an epostcard<br /> Subscribe to e-Alerts / Issue Alerts<br /> Subscribe to eNewsletter<br /> Enter a contest</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Low Engagement</td> <td>Visit website</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Over time, an individual supporter would be expected to engage in a variety activities, both high and low on the ladder. The goal of an online engagement strategy is not just get increased numbers of people involved, but also to encourage them to climb the ladder of engagement.</p> <p>Climbing the ladder</p> <p>Some of an organization's supporters will climb the ladder of engagement as a natural evolution of their relationship with that organization. Others can be assisted by specific messaging that encourages them to deepen their commitment and invite them to do more. This must be done careful so that the past activities they have take part in are not de-valued, but that they are also shown some of the higher steps on the ladder.</p> <p>A Thank you/Acknowledgment message that an organization may send to everyone who participated in an action or activity can be one of the key tools for encouraging supporters to climb the ladder -- for instance, encouraging someone who has just signed an online petition to subscribe an eAlert list on this issue, or asking a new online donor to forward a current campaign message to a number of their friends or colleagues.</p> <p>The ladder of engagement is also sometimes presented as a pyramid - illustrating that relatively few of an organization's supporters will climb to the highest steps on the ladder, and most will remain in the lower-engagement levels. One of the ways to expand the upper levels of the pyramid is to broaden participation at the lower levels - the "base" - so a strategy to expand numbers of supporters engaged at a lower levels is a means to achieving greater participation through to the upper levels.</p> </div> </div> No publisher drewb 2008-06-12T16:43:11Z Blog Entry http://www.onenw.org/blogs/enspark/can-technology-solving-the-collective-iq-problem <p>I just read an <a href="http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2007/03/breaking_the_co.html">interesting article about web 3.0</a>. There are a number of really interesting points that it uncovers and points out. Reading this article made me realize how valuable meta data is when you look at the value of information across a broad group of people.</p> <p>Reading the article also made me wonder what it will be like when the pace of information growth slows from the pace of growth we are so use to today.</p> <p>It's worth a read.</p> <p>"Even today with the current generation of Web-based tools available to us, we are still not able to effectively tap much more of the potential Collective IQ of our groups, teams and communities. How do we get from where we are today (the whole is dumber than the sum of its parts) to where we want to be<br /> in the future (the whole is smarter than the sum of its parts)?"</p> <p>In the last 20 years the amount of information that knowledge workers (and even consumers) have to deal with on a daily basis has mushroomed by a factor of almost 10 orders of magnitude and it will continue like this for several more decades. But our information tools -- and particular our tools for communication, collaboration, community, commerce and knowledge management -- have not advanced nearly as quickly. As a result the tools that we are using today to manage our information and interactions are grossly inadequate for the task at hand: They were simply not designed to<br /> handle the tremendous volumes of distributed information, and the rate of&nbsp; change of information, that we are witnessing today.</p> <p>Side note is this little company to watch... <a href="http://www.radarnetworks.com/">http://www.radarnetworks.com/</a></p> No publisher drewb Strategy 2008-06-17T21:06:11Z Blog Entry