BlogHer ’10 – Creating Tangible Social Change: How to Move People to Action

We’re here at the Creating Tangible Social Change panel in the Change Agents track at BlogHer ’10. Meilssa Silverstein is moderating, with Beth Terry, Gina McCauley, and Stephanie Himel-Nelson.

“When you started blogging, did you know that your blog could be something to bring change to culture?”

Beth said she saw a photo of a dead albatross chick that was full of plastic that had made its way into the ocean. She didn’t know what she could do about a lot of environmental problems, but plastic was something she could control in her life. She started keeping track of all of the plastic in her life on her blog.

Gina says she started her blog about being apathetic and feeling guilty. Her first was to make a list of all the things she wasn’t going to do. She thought it would last for about 30 days, but three motnhs later, her blog made the AP wire. Now she’s taking on large corporations and winning.

Stephanie’s blog started as a non-profit with other military families. She started the blog without any expectations, but now people come to her and say, “What can I do to help?” Just because something seems overwhelming, you can still do social change with very little money.

Melissa married her two passions, feminism and pop culture, to discuss how there were no movies she really wanted to see. How dollars count and women’s voices are not heard.

“How do you see your blog morphing into other activities?”

Gina says that blogging is good for open source activism. Blogging is most appropriate for micro-activism. Readers don’t have a lot of time, but you can create a repository for them. Her first “Action alert” was “Al Sharpton watch” after Don Imus made his racist comment and there was  all this outrage, but no one made a big deal about D.L. Hughley. She had a statement from Rev. Sharpton within a week.

New topic for Stephanie. Social media is so much a part of what she does with her non-profit, so blogging can’t really be divorced from that. She got a roundtable discussion with her Congressman about a grant program for “portable job” training for military spouses that was discontinued, and the Department of Defense ended up reinstating the program after enough people across the country took action about it.

Melissa is talking more about microactivism. Beth thinks that blogging is an amazing way people without a lot of money or connections to get things done. When she started her blog about plastics, she got a lot of advice from other people about alternative products to cut down on her plastic use. She put out a call to action about campaigning for Brita to recycle used water filters the way they do in Europe. She made connections with lots of different bloggers, and it really took off.

The power of passion is what fuels these things to the next level. These panelists are not the biggest bloggers in the world, Google Analytics do not tell everything – Gina says she can do a lot with just 10 people. “With  10 people, I can take down anybody… You are powerful if you have a blog.” People are going to notice, and they’re going to write about it. Don’t focus on being the largest and the flashiest; all it takes is being noticed about one reporter.

Don’t be afraid. Be fearless. Melissa wants to know why nobody is talking about certain issues. Why isn’t anyone talking about Mel Gibson and domestic violence? Why is Charlie Sheen the highest paid TV star?

Q&A time. “If you go on too long, it’s not going to well for you.” Laughter.

Karen from Fussy Eater wants to know how to choose which sort of things you want to push? How do you decide which issues to fight for?

Stephanie says that sometimes your readers will help you decide. Sometimes you can decide, adn sometimes the issue decides for you. Gina does not do constant vigilance; readers would get annoyed if every week was a new national emergency. She targets apaethic professional black women. When she speaks about something, people know it’s important to her. Not every wrong is actionable. Is it actionable, and is it suitable for blogging? Your best advocates are the stakeholders within the corporations sometimes.

If you’re not passionate about the issues you tackle, your blog is going to suck. You have to really be able to get behind something in order to make it work.

Beth wants to know why people keep emailing her to ask her to start a campaign about one issue or another. She responds to say, “That sounds like an important issue. Let me know when you get working on that.” Gina points out that you have to be able to vet well, too, because you never know people’s agendas.

Danine from My Brown Baby wants to know how to deal with naysayers who can get really ugly. She often gets more negative responses than positive ones. How do you deal with that criticism?

Gina says she grew a lot of scar tissue. It’s like being hit with a bomb, but you can take so many body blows, you cry a lot…there are death threats, stalkers, Anonymous… Gina decided that she is willing to die for her cause. Once you make a decision like that, it’s easy. The NAACP is going after her, but she’s one woman giving an entire organization fits.

Stephanie says the haters will come out about entitlement and don’t understand the reality. You can engage people who have a rational argument, but you can ignore the rest.

Melissa says, “If you don’t have any haters, you’re not doing it right.”

Another question: What do individual bloggers need to partner with non-profits that have similar goals?

Beth says that non-profits need to make it easy for bloggers, to make information readily available for bloggers. Melissa wants organizations to do their homework and not waste bloggers’ time by sending pitches. Gina wants to start YourPublicistSucks.com for bad pitches. Stephanie says she’s always looking for bloggers to reach out to, and she looks for someone who is genuine and authentic on their blog, regardless of pageviews or Twitter followers. Non-profits and bloggers need mutual respect.

Jennifer Posener wants suggestions for how to use blogs as tools for movement building in offline networking. Her concern is net neutrality right now.

Stephanie looks for volunteers and “foot soldiers.” She gives people options, letting them take small steps. If you continue to engage people and make them want to come back, they will gradually become more involved. It can progress from readers leaving a comment on a blog to having them knock on doors for you. Melissa adds that people need to feel that their small steps are important, that they’re doing something. Beth says to find tangible ways to get people involved, like she had her readers collect their plastic waste for one week and post a picture of it.

Another question, although I missed part of it.

Beth often forgets that people she tweets with are part of a particular organization. Gina adds that there’s no problem with remaining small.

Question from Cyan Wu (sp?): She tried to get cleaning product manufacturers to disclose their ingredients on their labels, got media attention… but even though they made a difference, the grassroots activists did not feel that they hadn’t exacted change. How should bloggers relate successes to their audiences that are creating change?

Stephanie uses Facebook a lot for this purpose. You can reach a broad audience to let them know what is happening with a Facebook fan page or an email newsletter. Gina doesn’t engage her audience unless she thinks they can create change. Melissa points out that people opt-in in various ways. Some will only come to Facebook, or only Twitter, or only her blog. You can’t force people to come somewhere else, but you can bring the info to them where they are.

C.L. (Cielle?) wants concrete ways to get through the hate and heartbreak that come up.

Gina said that the only people who really understand what it’s like to be an activist blogger is another activist blogger. Parents and other friends do not understand about stalker trolls and such. Beth said that she gets far more positive feedback than negative, but she always tends to focus on the negative too much. Gina will not respond anywhere where she’s not in control of the platform. She won’t take an argument to another blog. Stephanie says it’s important to have a commenting policy and enforce it uniformly.

Molly from Reese’s Rainbow wants to know what to do when your cause involves mainly fundraising.

Stephanie says you have to be careful because you don’t want to turn people off. If you ask for money too often, people will pull away. You need to learn where the line is, and there’s a learning curve for feeling that out. Melissa points out that people online are used to getting stuff for free. Gina uses ChipIn widgets, where you can visually see the progress. Stephanie was able to raise a few thousand dollars by using Facebook Causes on her birthday. (Wow!)

Question: What have you learned about yourself through blogging?

Beth says she learned that she’s here for a reason. Not in the metaphysical sense. You never know what’s going to happen. But then something great happens. Life is up and down.

Gina says she’s still learning and still making mistakes. She can measure the difference between Gina at 22 and Gina at 32. She used to care a lot what other people thought; she doesn’t anymore. You care less as you get older and mature. Be a good steward of resources.

Stephanie thinks that blogging has led her to this. She is an introvert by nature, but now, she just doesn’t care as much. She has learned that she’s so much more than she had ever imagined.

Melissa says that she understands that her ideas matter in a way she never thought that they could before. There’s a book and an e-book in the works. She’s learned how to expand the voice of women in the entertainment business to another level, and it’s not about her.

Harriet Sugarman wants to know how to expand your community. (Is this a question about building your blog audience?)

Beth doesn’t try to recruit anyone who isn’t interested. Gina likes to preach to her own choir. Stephanie wants to make everyone in this audience part of her army. 🙂 The media can be your friends. Melissa gets requests for reprints all the time. She tries to get other blogs to post a paragraph and link back to the original post, but occasionally she’ll allow a reprint just to reach a wider audience.

Amy from Mothers Against Debt brings financial issues to the dinner table. Facebook works best for her. Not a question, but a comment. She got cut off.

Beth says that the Brita campaign worked out. You can take your used filters to participating Whole Foods or you can mail them to the address on the package.

Gina is writing a book. “You just have to write a book, and you have to get over it.” LOL. Blogs are not necessarily permanent, and you want to have a record of all the work you’ve done.

Stephanie is putting together a compilation of military family writers. BlueStarFam.org

Melissa’s Women and Hollywood is holding a film festival in NYC next February! Films must have a woman-centric story.

Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.