Climb The Engagement Ladder

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Nonprofits are always seeking more—or better—engagement. But they don’t always take the time to define what it means for them.

Engagement means different things for schools, museums, animal shelters, hospital foundations, and other nonprofit organizations. And, engaging with new supporters, donors, volunteers, and board members involves different approaches for each audience.

You need to define engagement before you can begin to quantify it. This is where engagement ladders can be helpful.

What are engagement ladders? Engagement ladders help you define and plan engagement for your audiences. With an engagement ladder, your organization designs specific activities and actions you will take, and how constituents can respond.

Here’s how an engagement ladder works:

Offer Easy Tasks First. The idea of engagement ladders is to get your audience involved by moving them along a planned path and asking them to take actions that are increasingly difficult. Each action a constituent takes confirms and deepens their relationship with your organization and cause. The next time you ask constituents to take an action, make it a little more personal and involved. An easy, introductory task (or Ask) should fall at the bottom of your engagement ladder. As your campaign moves up the ladder, the upper level will involve the constituents that take action to spread your message to their networks—these constituents are your ambassadors.
Create Effective Calls to Action. Once you have planned “what’s next?” for each audience, you can focus on what it takes to move constituents from level to level. With your activities and calls to action, you can motivate and inspire constituents to be more involved. Good measurement (see #3) will help you determine which calls to action are most effective.
Measure Your Progress. Engagement ladders provide a framework for measuring the progress of your engagement efforts. As you plan the levels and activities, you will plan corresponding measures and outcomes. How many constituents are at each level? What moves them to the next level? Where do they fall off? Answer these questions and you can refine and adjust your efforts based on what you learn.

In our new virtual instructor-led course, Best Practices: Building Engagement, we’ll step through the process of building an effective engagement ladder. We’ll also provide strategies for turning highly engaged individuals into ambassadors, and we’ll help you create an ambassador toolkit.

Join me for the premiere session of this class on Wednesday, May 25, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. I hope to see you there!

Susan Ross
Instructional Designer

News ARCHIVED | Blackbaud eTapestry® Tips and Tricks 05/18/2016 10:38am EDT

Added by Silvia Neal

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