The biweekly ‘So What?’ guide highlights advice, events, and tips — mostly from the advocacy and evaluation worlds, selected by the Aspen Planning and Evaluation Program.
Making Social Media Habit-Forming: The Movie!
Washington, DC, had its first measurable snow of the season — unseasonably — this past Thursday. The snow fell heaviest at 8 am just as speaker and guests were arriving for our eagerly-awaited Aspen Evaluation Breakfast. Nevertheless, they persisted. We had 23 brave people in the room and scores more following our webcast. And now we can share the video and PowerPoint slides so you can see and follow along as Edith Asibey makes the case for how understanding data, behavior science, and habits can help advocates communicate more effectively via digital and social media.
Edith demonstrated how advocates and advocacy evaluators “can do better than likes and shares” in capturing effective social media advocacy. What does it take to “spark and sustain action?” Edith drew from examples of humanitarian and global development campaigns she led for UNICEF-Brazil and discussed “Tiny Habits,” a behavior model that could underpin a more effective approach. Participants asked questions that helped us all leave the breakfast equipped with ideas, tools, and tips to design more effective communication, advocacy and fundraising strategies, and ways to strengthen their advocacy evaluation plans.
Note: Open the description below the YouTube video for time cues that can help you find the parts of her presentation that interest you most. Or gather the family, pop some popcorn, and binge on the whole one-hour spectacular. Thanks again to all who made the trek across the frozen tundra to our offices, and of course major thanks to Edith for a provocative and promising presentation. Check it out!
Whom to thank and how to thank them
OK: there is lots of advice in the US media around this time of year about giving thanks. And yes, it’s because the US celebrates Thanksgiving, the least-commercial of our highly commercialized secular holidays. (Sadly, this is more than matched by the ultra-commercialized and sometimes misleading “Black Friday” sales the day after. But I digress.) Here is some wonderful advice about giving thanks to those in our nonprofit world who may not hear it often enough, and some practical advice about how to do so. Big H/T and, yes, big thanks to Vu Le at Nonprofit AF.
Sparing the turkey and spoiling my deputy director?
APEP deputy director and research methods maven Susanna Dilliplane is an animal rights advocate who puts her diet where her mouth is. I give thanks for her superb contributions to APEP’s work at every level. Many beasts of the field, air, and stream give thanks for her never-pushy commitment to living and thriving as a vegan. In her honor and theirs, here are some recipes for a vegan Thanksgiving (that I am unlikely ever to follow, to be clear).
