No matter what type of call to action you have,
you should probably emphasize efficacy.
What do I mean by that?
I mean show how individual actions will be effective for the cure.
Now the further the gap between the cure and the individual,
then you probably need to really emphasize efficacy even that much more.
And we kind of know this.
So Deborah Small is a psychologist and
marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
And one of her oft-cited studies dealt with this idea.
So she and her colleagues ran this study.
Now in the study, people came in and they took a survey, and
they were paid five individual dollar bills.
The survey itself was irrelevant, it was just to get people there.
But they wanted the study subjects to have money in their hands.
So then, when the subjects left, they received a charitable donation request.
Some of them received this request,
food shortages in Malawi are affecting more than three million children.
In Zambia,
severe rain deficits have resulted in a 42% drop in maize production from 2000.
As a result, an estimated three million Zambians face hunger.
Four million Angolans, one third of the population,
have been forced to flee their homes.
More than 11 million in Ethiopia need immediate food assistance.
So that's what some of them got.
Now others instead received this message, any money that you donate will
go to Rokia, a 7-year-old girl from Mali, Africa.
Rokia is desperately poor and
faces a threat of severe hunger or even starvation.
Her life will be changed for the better as a result of your financial gift.
With your support, and the support of other caring sponsors, Save the Children
will work with Rokia's family and other members of the community to help feed her,
provide her with basic education, as well as basic medical care and
hygiene education.
So you can probably guess which one was more effective, right?
The Rokia story earned twice as much money in donations.
Why?
Well, Small and her colleagues note that in
that story there's an identifiable victim instead of simply a statistical one.
So I would also add that if you give money, right?
If you get that request and
you give money, you're going to help that one person.
You're making a difference in their life.
Your action is effective.
Non-profits have known this for years.
There was a fairly recent review of mechanisms that drive charitable giving.
Non-profits and charitable giving, that's an area of scholarship.
And there was a meta-review, and when you look at it it talks about these factors.
Efficacy is right there, it is key.
I would also point out that in that study the other mechanisms
are a lot of the other things that we are doing.
So one of the other mechanisms was demonstrating need,
that's what we do when we talk about ill.
Another was showing cost and benefits.
Hey, hey, hey, that's our consequences.
It's also an argumentative tactic that we use.
Reputation was one.
What, we do that when we think about Ethos.
So there's a pretty close alignment here between, sort of the research on
charitable giving, and this notion and this approach to stock issues.
But ultimately it makes sense, because if I'm asking someone to do something,
I want to show them that it's going to matter.
I want the highlight the efficacy of that audience's action.
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