Shayna reports: 3 themes from Web of Change

I was lucky to represent Englin Consulting as a proud Anchor Sponsor of a unique conference on a remote island off the coast of Vancouver, Web of Change.

What started more than a decade ago as a convening of techies working in the trenches of social change and in the brave new world of the internet has grown up. Version 2011 was a convening of leaders doing social change in non-profits, advocacy organizations, and consulting shops, on the cutting edge of figuring out how best to leverage the power of digital to change the world. No longer just for techies, Web of Change is now for the vanguard of organizers, communicators, writers, media outlet entrepreneurs, tool builders, and empire builders.

Over 72 hours with this heady mix of thinkers and doers, three key themes emerged:

1. Great stories are strategic tools for change.

Jonah Sachs challenged us to tell more compelling stories of our movements, campaigns, organizations, and visions for a better future. Jonah previewed his forthcoming book, Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future. He described for us the enduring power and necessary elements of story as a strategic tool. He reminded us, demonstrated for us, and got us all talking about the centrality of a great story to inspire, motivate, and make sense of action.

Buy the book for the complete wisdom (Englin Consulting will also have a few on hand we’d be happy to lend – we’ll remind you when it’s out). In the meantime, the basics: a good story has a moral or big lesson it consistently and coherently illustrates, it has a hero with an epic struggle, and a villain. And importantly, a great story is a way to help your people connect viscerally to your cause. It’s not about argument, it’s about demonstration, empathy, and emotional resonance.

Progressives are great at arguing the facts, but we often fail to tell the terrific stories that make the facts meaningful.

(See also this terrific article breaking down the “storytelling” buzzword, and why it’s important even though it is a popular buzzword of the moment: http://goo.gl/jDhi8)

2. Think more strategically about “the choir.”

Who we’re engaging, mobilizing, cultivating, and listening to as campaigners was a key theme that emerged at Web of Change this year.

Alia McKee and Mark Rovner urged us to take a closer look at how we’re treating our “passion communities” – those people who are most committed, most ready to step up, and least appropriate for inclusion in just the standard mass communications. Mark and Alia challenged us to think clearly about the relationships we’re building with our best people, and how we can do better. On the “if you’re talking to everyone, you’re not talking with anyone” scale, they led a discussion about how to narrow our audience as a smart strategic move.

On the flip side of that discussion, a key theme around inclusion, access, and building our audiences emerged. Monica Novoa, Mike Norman and others led several discussions about expanding our audiences to include communities usually left out of campaigning. Soibhan Canty brought sobering data to the discussion: nonprofits, causes, and campaigns never manage to engage more than about a quarter of the population. Total. Ever. As a group. Yikes.

The upshot? We need to do both. We need to take better care of our relationships with people at the very top of our engagement ladders, and we need to dramatically broaden the doorway in to the bottom of our engagement ladders.

3. Stepping on each other’s toes doesn’t get us as far as walking side-by-side.

Across issues, organization sizes, and roles, there was a universal concern about the number of competing rather than cooperating progressive organizations working on any issue at any one time. And there were stories aplenty of the damage. One participant told the tale of an effort to protect a small patch of wilderness. She described paralysis: six organizations with overlapping membership and funding sources working in parallel and not in tandem to fight for just slightly different policy solutions. The predictable result? Big resources expended and no policy solutions.

It’s a thorny problem. Probably one most efficiently dealt with by big funders, but one that should be top of mind for all campaigners. We lose the power of organized people when we’re organized in different directions.

This was my third year at Web of Change, and without a doubt the most productive. The social change’s digital sector is growing and growing up, with a keener eye toward strategy and beyond shiny tools. If you’re interested in Web of Change 2012, give me a shout. We’d love to have you.

(See my previous reporting back on the Web of Change here.)

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