How do we build the power to win? The Lab is constantly working to uncover and share what works (and doesn’t) to help build grassroots power and win equitable solutions through evidence-based advocacy. A common request we receive is for rigorous best practices to grow people power. Last year, the Lab finalized our research vision and research agenda and solicited research project ideas from the Lab community, rooted in how to improve organizing and mobilizing, and grounded in a common conceptual framework.

Today we share results from these six collaborative research projects, and our guidance for your recruitment and mobilizing work, based on the evidence we gathered together. 

The Social Identity Model of Collective Action. Credit: Kate T. Luong

As a shared rubric to guide the research projects, we looked to the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA). SIMCA is derived from established social science theories and the analysis of 182 prior studies from a range of social movements. SIMCA suggests people are more likely to take action the more they believe three things:

• Shared Identity: They strongly connect with a social group relevant to the issue

• Injustice: They believe that their social group is experiencing inequitable treatment

• Collective Efficacy: They feel that acting together will have an impact

Basically, this is what good organizers have known for a long time! And additional research on climate activism in particular has found somewhat similar patterns (for example here, here, and here).

Yet an examination of materials from many environmental groups suggests they are not consistently employing these three SIMCA elements. And there is little clear evidence on whether specifically inducing these beliefs in the course of climate activism actually encourages greater action. So, we worked with six climate advocacy organizations in a range of contexts to test whether integrating SIMCA concepts into their work could prove effective in practice—not just in theory. 

EVIDENCE-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CLIMATE ADVOCACY

We’ve aggregated the results from these six projects to provide the strongest insights and suggestions if you are considering SIMCA-inspired changes to your programs.

• Yes, leverage identity, injustice and efficacy: SIMCA can be a good guide if looking to create or improve a climate activism program

  • While not a slam dunk across these projects, introducing SIMCA elements to activism programs performed well: half of the tests showed SIMCA outperforming other approaches (sometimes by quite a lot), and in the other half it performed equally well to other approaches.

  • SIMCA, built on prior theory and research from other social movements, appears to offer value for climate advocates across a range of issues and constituencies.

• But it's also ok to stick with awesomeness: You don’t need to switch to SIMCA if your existing approach is strongly based on existing evidence (from your experience, or from other research)

  • A possible interpretation for the pattern of results is that when SIMCA did not outperform other approaches, it was because these other approaches were already very strong. Either they drew on other well-researched theories and/or had been honed by the organizations through their experience.

  • In some of our tests, we compared a SIMCA-inspired message against the organization’s existing best practice approach that already shared some elements (such as identity and collective efficacy) with SIMCA, making the difference between these two less stark.

• You can try to use all three elements…: When in doubt, try to use all three SIMCA elements (shared identity, injustice, and collective efficacy)

  • Our projects didn’t directly test ‘layering’, or whether it was more effective to use just one element or several.

  • The original SIMCA research found that each of these three elements contributed on its own to the likelihood of action taking, suggesting that using two or all three is better than just one.

• …or pick the best one for you: If you need to choose which SIMCA element(s) to use, try testing, or make an educated guess based on your constituency, issue, or other specifics of your context

  • We found that the best-performing SIMCA element varied between tests in different contexts.

  • For instance, shared identity messages worked well when the relevant identity was distinct and easy to invoke (such as farmers).

  • And injustice worked well when there was a clear villain (around toxic pollution), but not among conservatives, for whom injustice may be a less familiar concept.

• Test, test, test: It really can be worth it to do your own testing, too

  • We found through our testing that SIMCA-inspired approaches could sometimes result in doubling or tripling of performance, potentially making the investment in testing worthwhile.

  • What turned out to be the best-performing approach or SIMCA element for a given project did not always match our expectations, so testing can help improve upon conjectures.

  • Of course, the relative returns to testing will depend in part on the size of your program, so focus testing on the most important and wide-scale areas of your work.

  • Check out our Tips for awesome research and testing* that emerged from these projects.

THE RESEARCH PROJECTS

See below for details on each project, and check out Part 1* and Part 2* of our webinars diving deeper into the results.

Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts
Engaging existing supporters with a text message focused on a shared identity, injustice, and collective efficacy performed as well as N2N's standard engagement approach focused more on kitchen table issues. (full results*)

Alaska Community Actions on Toxics 
For recruiting Alaskans in urban areas and Indigenous communities, Facebook ads focused on the injustice of toxic pollution performed over three times better than stock ads without an injustice element, and also better than ads focused on collective efficacy or a shared Alaskan identity. (full results*)

Alianza for Progress
Recruiting Latina mothers in Florida into climate activism on Facebook was most effective using ads focused on a shared Latina environmentalist identity, versus collective efficacy ads, or ads leveraging a family & legacy message linking well-being of children to the planet. (full results*)

GreenFaith
A mobilization strategy utilizing injustice, shared identity, and collective efficacy equaled two other evidence-based strategies they were considering as approaches to engage their inter-faith membership. (full results*)

Illinois Environmental Council Education Fund 
Emphasizing shared identity improved engagement with social media advertising among Illinois farmers, and may have doubled action taking, compared to standard messaging. (full results*)

republicEn 
While adding injustice messaging for their conservative supporters did not consistently improve performance over their existing messaging (which employs shared identity and efficacy elements), research revealed several promising techniques for how best to optimize injustice messaging going forward (such as by generating both anger and hope, and emphasizing unfairly distributed health impacts). (full results*)

FURTHER RESEARCH

Even with all the evidence we’ve collected, there’s still plenty to learn. Here are some questions we continue to ponder:

• Which SIMCA element is most effective? And for whom?

• Are there additive or interactive relationships among the SIMCA elements?

• Are there over-time effects with repeated exposure?

• Does SIMCA work better for initial recruitment than engaging existing supporters?

• Does SIMCA work for organizing/leadership development programs and/or persuasion (opinion change) communications as well?

Interested in trying out SIMCA in your work? See our practical guide for integrating SIMCA into climate engagement programs. If you put SIMCA into practice, we’d love to hear how it goes!


A big thank you to all those involved in these projects: Courtney Owen (Alaska Community Action on Toxics); Cristina Robinson, Marcos Vilar, Susan Glickman, Johanna Lopez, David McDougal, Nicole Sanabria, and Laura Rivera (Alianza for Progress); Rose Gwynn and Fletcher Harper (GreenFaith); Tucker Barry (Illinois Environmental Council Education Fund); Ernesto Cruz, Katie Talbot, and Ruthy Rickenbacker (Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts); Wen Lee and Angela Larck (republicEn); Darren Kwong, Elizabeth Zack, Leo Liu, and Chanita Intawan (The Movement Cooperative); Kate T. Luong and John Kotcher (George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication); Saul Cunow, Samantha Sekar, Madeleine Boutet, and Sam Gass (Analyst Institute); Andrea Aguilar (Digital Climate Coalition); Amar Puri (Spake Media); and Jon Ozaksut (Yale Program on Climate Change Communication).