Getting our volunteers, campaign targets and communities to take meaningful action can be difficult. Check out these tips from the social sciences that may make the difference between action and apathy, along with examples for how these insights can get integrated into your plans or messaging. Here's one example – open up the tip sheet to see more!

Tip #1: Efficacy is essential.

The Climate Advocacy Lab has become the center of gravity for data, research, and sharing what works (and doesn't) in climate and clean energy advocacy and campaigning in the US.

A quarter of young U.S. climate activists reported that their first experience protesting was as part of one of the large marches protesting the Trump administration and its policies, according to surveys collected from participants in the global "Fridays for the Future" strikes around the world -- including 220 students living in the U.S. 44% say they participated in the "March for Our Lives" protest against gun violence and more than 40% reported attending one (or both) of the Women's Marches. 

A new poll finds that 1 in 5 Americans has protested in the streets or participated in a political rally since the beginning of 2016, and environment and energy issues were cited among the top two most frequently protested issues.

People turning out to recent marches in Washington, DC on climate and other issues are 1) overwhelmingly people who voted for Hillary Clinton, 2) well-educated, 3) 25-30% first-time protesters, 4) broadly motivated in response to the Trump administration, but 5) increasingly diverse in their specific reasons for marching (racial justice, the environment, women's rights, etc.), and 6) continuing to show up to multiple marches. Those are the initial conclusions from sociologist Dana Fisher, who has been surveying march attendees at DC marches since the November election.

Emphasize shared identity, injustice, and empowerment to motivate supporters to action. This paper analyzed data from 182 prior studies on a range of social movements around the world and integrated past theories of social movement participation into a unified framework, the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA). People were more likely to be interested in and take action on a cause as a result of three elements: their social group was experiencing injustice towards it, they more strongly identified with that group, and/or they felt that acting together could have an impact (that is, a sense of collective efficacy). The influence of injustice was stronger when it was emotionally felt, not merely intellectually understood; and identity was more potent when it was politicized—that is, linked to an organization, movement, or broader social analysis. Of the three elements, identity was the most reliable and appeared to also influence the other two, so may be the most important for organizers to focus on.

Gillion’s research examines whether a protest can make a real change – and the short answer is that it does. Looking at the effect of civil rights protests from the 1960’s–1990’s on Congress, he found that protest had a small but detectable effect on legislators. And he identified factors that increased the salience of a protest to politicians.