The “Bystander Effect” is Killing Your Response Rates.

In 1964, the New York times reported on the shocking murder of Catherine Genovese (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese), who was stabbed by an assailant on the street outside her apartment. The most troubling aspect was not the murder itself, but the later revelation that no fewer than 38 of her own neighbors witnessed the murder but did nothing to stop it. No one even placed a phone call to the police. It’s not that none of the witnesses cared. They simply all wrongly assumed that someone else had already called for help and didn’t think their call would “make a difference.”

What does this have to do with grassroots?

Chances are you belong to a few action alert email lists. Perhaps you want to ensure that the safety net of social services stays intact for the most vulnerable members of our community. Perhaps you think our government needs to take steps to slow global climate change. Take a moment to think about the number of emails you got this week asking you to “take urgent action” one or more of these issues? How many of these emails did you open? How many moved you to take action?

The 2009 E-Benchmarks study (http://e-benchmarksstudy NULL.com/) reports that in 2009 the typical email action alert had a 17% “Open rate” and only a 2.8% “click through” rate. Meaning that if you sent an email action alert to a network of 2000 advocates, you would be lucky to get 56 of them to respond. (Or in the case of a health related cause, 20.)

It isn’t that you or other activist-minded people don’t care. It’s because, not only is “URGENT ACTION NEEDED” too frequently to be compelling, but the nature of the “ask”, or request, is impersonal. Mass email can be an effective tool to communicate with a large network, but it is a mistake to rely upon it solely to generate action.

To understand the reason why impersonal requests don’t work we need only understand the power of social context. The reason why none of the witnesses of the Genovese murder called for help is the same reason most people don’t respond to action alerts. When people think that their individual action will not “make a difference” they typically don’t act. Psychologists have noted a social trend towards inaction which tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size when responsibility is not explicitly assigned. This same concept of “diffusion of responsibility (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility)” is also triggered by generic impersonal appeals for action in advocacy. Most recipients of mass email action alerts know that they are one of a thousand and there is a tendency to assume that enough other people have probably taken action that they can go about their daily activities and social justice work will continue to occur.

It doesn’t.

Luckily, there is a way to overcome this proclivity towards group inaction and move people to act. Next week we will tell you how to boost response rates by structuring your network into “mobilization hubs,” by leveraging the power of personal relationships.

Update: >>Read the followup post, “Battling the Bystander Effect” >>