Getting your friends to take action

When to use this resource: 

• There’s an issue you care about, and you want to get more people involved
• You have friends that care about the same thing as you, but aren’t sure where to start 

Outline of resource: 

• Simple first-time actions
• Make the ask 
• Make taking action easy

Key points: 

• Getting others involved can magnify your impact
• Keep it simple and make taking action easy
• Make a compelling ask

One dedicated person can make a big difference, but by getting others involved, even at the most basic level, you can vastly expand your impact. One of the easiest ways to start is by asking your friends to take action with you. The people in your social circles may already care about similar things as you, and being their friend makes you a great messenger for the cause, as they’ll be more invested in learning if someone they know is passionate in sharing with them. And if you’re ultimately looking to get a broader community of people involved in what you’re working towards, testing out the approach on your friends can be an easy introduction and help you improve your approach before reaching out to a broader group. 

Simple First-Time Actions 

To get someone involved in an issue that’s important to you, you first need to figure out what “get involved” looks like. Two central factors to consider when choosing what action you’ll ask friends to take are: is it simple, and is it helpful? You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to put their values into action and engage on an issue, so the most successful first-time actions are ones that require limited time or expertise. But not every type of action makes sense for every issue – think about the bigger picture of what you’re trying to accomplish and what type of action would be most impactful. Knowing how to connect a specific action back to the bigger picture will also make it much easier for you to explain things in a compelling way when asking friends to get involved. 

Here are some ideas for relatively easy first-time actions: 

• Sign a petition 
• Send an email to a public official (or whoever the “decider” is on the issue you care about)
• Make a phone call to a public official
• Show up to an event 
• Attend a city council meeting (or other similar public meeting) and speak during the public comment period 
• Write a letter to the editor of their local paper 

Make the Ask

Next, ask your friends to take action. Some people might do it just as a favor if you ask them nicely. But if you make a clear and compelling cause for the problem you’re working on, how to solve it, and why it will matter if they take action, you’ll get a lot more people saying yes and more of them will be invested in the issue and willing to take larger actions in the future. 

When asking your friends to take action, consider this structure for making the most compelling case: 

1. Problem

• What is the issue you’re asking them to get involved with? Explain the problem that needs addressing in one short sentence.
• Why is it a problem? Share one clear fact or statistic that emphasizes the scale or severity of the issue 
• Why should they care? There are many ways to look at any given issue, and how someone sees your issue may be impacted by their life experiences, political views, or other factors. Think through the possible ways someone may view the issue you’re talking about, and the most compelling reason for why they’d support your view on it 
• Why do you care? Understanding why this issue is so important to you will help them better visualize the consequences of the problem, and connect with you emotionally. Especially for your friends, this personal connection makes your argument much more compelling. If you have a personal connection to the issue, this is a good place to share it.

2. Solution 

• What is the big picture way to end the problem? Explain the overall solution/vision for the future in one short sentence.
• How do you know your solution works? Share one clear fact on how the solution works, or one brief example of a case study where the solution has worked elsewhere. 
• What is your immediate goal? Who do you need to do what and by when. 

3. Urgency

• Why is it important we act on this problem? Reiterate the impact of the problem and why it matters for your audience. 
• What happens if we don’t? Briefly state the negative consequences of inaction. Will a bad thing happen? Will the current problem reach a tipping point/get worse? Will we miss a major opportunity for progress?

4. Call to action 

• What specific action do you want them to take? Be specific and concrete so it’s clear what they are saying ‘yes’ to. 
• How will their action help solve the big problem/reach the goal? Draw a logical connection between their action and the broader goal. (How will them doing X convince the decision-maker to do Y?)

Make Taking Action Easy

Once they say yes to taking action, you need to give them an easy way to plug in. If you’re asking them to call their legislator, have a script ready that they can read aloud. If you’re asking them to speak up at a town council meeting, help prepare talking points that they can work off of. If you’re asking them to write an LTE, show them one you’ve already written to use as an example. 

Luckily, once you’ve gone through the exercise of preparing a clear and compelling ‘ask’ for your friend to take action, you have 90% of what you need to set up a template, script, or other framework for your friend to take the action. You can use the problem, solution, goal, and urgency pieces of your ‘ask’ in most other settings (creating language for a petition, a script to call their legislator, etc) with relatively minor tweaks to adapt it to each new audience or format. 

For each of the first-time action ideas we listed out earlier, here are the materials you’d want to prepare so your friends can easily take action, and a sample or template for each.  

• Sign a petition 
  • Share the link to a petition you just signed 
  • Create a new petition – here’s a guide on how to start a petition
• Send an email to a public official (or whoever the “decider” is in the work you care about)
  • Language for the email – here’s a template
  • Sample email, either set up through an online ‘email action’ platform or formatted into a document that they can copy/paste from. 
• Make a phone call to a public official
  • Call script – here’s a template
  • Contact information for the public official or instructions on how to find it – here’s a resource on how to contact your public officials
• Show up to an event 
  • An event that you (or an organization that you support) are planning 
  • An RSVP link to confirm their attendance – here’s a template RSVP form 
• Attend a city council meeting (or other similar public meeting) and speak during the public comment period 
  • Talking points for their public comment 
    • Here’s a resource to help develop a pitch that others can use as talking points
  • Information on rules or details of the meeting 
    • Here’s a resource with more detail on using the comment period at public meetings
• Write a letter to the editor of their local paper 
  • Instructions on how to write a letter to the editor 
    • Here’s a resource on how to write a letter to the editor
  • Sample letter on your issue 
    • Once you’ve written one yourself, you can use that as a sample for your friends!