Compensate The Cost of Change

Compensate The Cost of Change

Change doesn’t come easy and there are many “costs” to change, that are more or less conscious to people, but which YOU need to be conscious of. Here are some examples of these costs, but there are more:

Anxiety: people who change their position on a subject might be anxious as to what effect this will have emotional distress: people who change their position on a subject might be anxious as to what effect this will have

Money: for example changing attitudes might cost customers, who will go elsewhere
lifestyle/habit changes: people might have to. go to different venues, cafes, churches, etc.)

Social status: people might look down on you for not following the majority position

Professional connections: colleagues might feel uncomfortable with the person’s new attitude and decide to distance themselves

Honor risk of ridicule: people who change might be associated with the stigmatised group (e.g. a man defending women’s rights will be considered to lack masculinity)

Campaigns hardly ever seem to envisage to compensate for this. But every campaign is a transaction in nature and no one gives up their position without something in return.
Assuming that taking up a “better” approach will be rewarding enough only works if this reward is provided by strong social approval, when people will “look better” with their peers.

But more often than not, changing position on sogi issues brings exactly the opposite, and might involve (unless the newly “converted” stay in the “closet”, as it can happen) a lot of arguing with the person’s social circles and might even mean falling out with these circles.

When there is a cost, it seems logical that there should be a “compensation” for people who change their attitudes.

Thanking people seems to be a minimum. No fundraising campaign would imagine not doing it. Yet other campaigns seem to totally be oblivious of this.
Some of the possible “compensations” include:

Respect (letting people know they are now respectable, worthy, honorable, etc.)
Gratitude (letting people know how much their change matters)
Pride (making people feel proud of their achievement)
Becoming part of a community (making people feel they belong to your group now)
Solidarity – Reciprocity (suggesting that they now have a community that they can count on).

Watch this clever campaign from Bulgaria and see how it uses “rewarding”

Interaction!

Do you agree with the idea that every campaign should "reward" for the change it asks? If not, why not?