The Inspiration to Activation Arc
Inspiration, large and small, is key to social behavior change communication. The ability to dare to dream…and a safe and supported path to get there.
There is was. After months of production and edits, an inspiring story years in the making sat in a lonely folder at the bottom of the “Our Mission” heading of the “About Us” tab. That was so often the norm fate of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) storytelling. Stories that could change the paradigm. Stories that could inspire new ways and means to a more equitable future.
As media technology progressed, something important was about to happen to alter the fate and impact these lost stories could have on the world. Quite literally, the eyes of millions were just a digital breath away. As the marketing industry built better “call to action” tools to sell us products, we used those same tools to inspire and activate access to better resources that could improve peoples’ lives. After all, Amazon started out by simply selling socks.
The Inspiration to Activation Arc is a process by which the power of story creates a spark that inspires the viewer into some action. As simple as that may sound there are entire academic centers that study this stuff. Called Social Behavioral Change Communication, it is the art and science of engaging stakeholders to promote positive changes and better outcomes. Their findings, by and large, are similar to what marketers already know - we tend to act while inspired, and that moment is brief so there had better be a fast path to action or sustained inspiration.
Let’s look at two examples:
THINK BIG: In 2018 we endeavored to build Hero Bridge, a fully sustainable Community Resource Technology that could connect under-resourced communities to relationship and resources. Did we start by getting to work on our tech deck? No. We bought the book-to-movie rights to Beverly Jenkin’s The Blessings series - the beautifully inspirational semi-fictional story of a woman who buys a town in the American mid-west where foster youth and their foster parents can live and be supported. We partnered with Al Roker Entertainment to produce it as a feature series and now its on its way to pilot on the Hallmark Channel. Why did we do this? Amplification.
Like the lonely video at the bottom of the company mission page, we observed that many Community Benefit Organizations had brilliant programs but spent very little to amplify their program to the population they seek to serve, as well as the donor base who could support and scale their services. The result in Los Angeles, and many other cities, are literally hundreds of amazing organizations, all running independent of one another with no way to enjoy the collective capacity they could share through amplification of the problem (awareness) and the resource solutions they offer.
The goal then of investing in The Blessings series as a media that would amplify the issue (in an interesting and entertaining way) was Social Impact Entertainment designed to drive mass awareness of the issues connected to a call to action to future volunteers and donors.
THINK SMALL: Example two is a similar inspiration-to-activation arc, except it is much more personalized and curated. The reason we built Hero Bridge as a native community app is the exclusivity of relationship it provides us to collectively inspire and activate. Here, small stories can go a long way. Hearing from someone very much like you has overcome and triumphed over adversity can be powerful and personal. This ability to find what speaks to you and converse about it is the fundamental of all social media.
For this reason, we built Hero Bridge around small powerful media stories from “trusted messengers” who can do something that can be very rare in the life of a transitioning youth - believe. That’s right, just believe that something better is possible. From that belief the courage to set a goal. Many youth don’t bother even trying to set a goal because the thought of being alone in failure “again” is overwhelming and paralyzes them. Just a small bit of media nested within a supportive and loving community of their peer co-mentors is the spark that lights the ember that builds a fire of change.
This “frictionless” path from inspiration to activation within the app is what we call the XChange. The “X” representing the inspiration-activation intersection that can lead to positive paths through the exchange of ideas and dreams. These data supported learning tracks will keep mentors and organizations in touch with progress, needs and each other. Layer on top of that CBO services at the touch of a button and voila - Hero Bridge.
However, like social media and multiplatform media channels, a lot of content is required. This made the start budget daunting. However, through nothing short of Divine inspiration the solution - Creative Commons was introduced into our tech stack as a bridge solution. Celebrating twenty years this year, Creative Commons is a global community that provides access to a large range of creative works for people to legally use and share. It provides a licensing system which allows creators to release their creative work online so others can use it without asking permission, as long as they adhere to the license conditions. Through Hero Bridge’s licenses with CC, our library was able to grow from a few hundred to thousands of hand picked (by Stepping Forward/Opportunity House interns and co-mentors) videos and media to load deep learning tracks to inspire and activate.
Our next big goal is to leverage the power of the Hero Coin to develop a fund that allows the Ignite Productions are of Hero Bridge to begin producing media for individual CBO’s that can live exclusively on the app and be the virtual billboards of supportive services for populations across all our app instances - Stepping Forward, ReCivvy and more.
