How Many Supporters Do You Need to Create Movement?
With any nonprofit effort, such as a capital campaign, leaders look for a wave of enthusiasm throughout not only the organization but also the community to foster both financial and emotional support. But how much of the external community do you need to have an actual movement that might build toward financial fundraising success? An interesting question.
There are many ways of looking at this inquiry. One might be the level at which you publicly announce a campaign. Traditionally that number has been as low as 60% and as high as 80%. One might also view the totality in which the community gets behind a particular project or nonprofit. Does 20% or more of the population agree with the basic premise of what a nonprofit’s mission is or a particular campaign effort?
While a majority is always something we seek, mainly based because once you have more than half, you have the prevailing wind at your back. It turns out that it's not even that much that's needed in terms of a percentage to move the needle.
According to a recent book authored by Erica Chenoweth, the Stanton professor of the First Amendment at the John F Kennedy School for Government at Harvard University, to constitute a movement you only need 3.5% of your population to create change. In her most recent book, Full Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know, the author looks at different societal movements for the past 120 years. From that research, over time less and less a percentage of a population is needed to create a movement. While it might have been as much as 60% in the 1970s or 1980s, because of social media and outreach, that number is greatly lessened today---as little as 3.5% of your population is needed to get something started that can effect change.
When it comes to moving our nonprofits forward, with such a small number of people actually needed to move the needle towards success, the question becomes do you have the right 3.5%? If the right people, based on their credibility and their influence, are truly engaged success is more likely to happen. Thus, who you align with on your board, in the executive suite, and in the community is more important than ever. A smaller number of people are needed to complete that campaign, engage the community with something new that is aligned with your mission, or to achieve the financial success that a nonprofit might require to be vibrant in its outreach.
