Social movements by nature need people. Social movements also need people who will take on roles in spreading the message and sharing the issue’s purpose so others can also participate. As people engage their own close ties, we must recognize that for a movement to truly build and gain the attention of the public, we have to help those go beyond the individuals closest to them. We need to provide the resources, information, and tools necessary to make the social movement something to believe in and act upon beyond a one-time action. This is the key to building long-term social movements for good: embed the concept and values of actions into the public’s actions each day.
Social movements need to incorporate ongoing acts of goodness to maintain the level of interest and internalized happiness one might obtain. It is the act of doing good continually that needs to be sustained because the benefits can affect both the movement and the person immensely. Social movement builders have an opportunity to spark engagement because of our empathy and altruism. The true test is whether a true movement is built out of these small and personalized actions for long-term change.
Agents of change, when successful, can have a major impact on the lives of [ordinary] citizens. They can significantly change public services at the front line as well as institutional arrangements at the governance level. While innovators undoubtedly have the best of intentions and sacrifice a lot on behalf of the public interest, much of what they do involves working under the radar, influencing the perceptions of stakeholders and the public, and taking risks with public money or state authority.
In a sense, the whole world is engaged in a period of experimentation that will fundamentally change the nature of human existence. This experimentation is not being guided by a social compact, nor by collective reflection. It is happening so quickly that the basic elements of a technologized world are being defined before there is a chance for stakeholders of this change to influence the direction and nature of these changes.
References
__Feldmann, D. (2016). Social Movements for Good: How Companies and Causes Create Viral Change. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
__Noumair, D., Shani, A. B. (2018). Research in Organizational Change and Development. Emerald Publishing Limited