Most people working on social change startups and projects make a terrible mistake. They simply “hope” their project will influence people enough to change the world.

When it comes to environmental issues, getting people to do the behaviors we need to save the planet is in a crisis. Studies show that upwards of 90 percent of people say they care about the planet — and more importantly, claim to do pro-environmental actions. But when people’s behaviors are measured, often no more than three percent of a population adopt pro-environmental behaviors such as installing solar, buying recycled paper, donating to a cause, or using less plastic.

Basically, the world is fucked up for this one reason — it’s easy to get people to care. It’s hard to get people to act.

Well, not that hard — if you know how to do it. There’s this one strikingly powerful behavior change tool anyone can use — and if you’re trying to change the world, you should be using it.

It’s this — instead of hoping your project will get people to do something, you can cut to the chase and explicitly ask them to commit to a change.

It’s called a “pledge” or a “commitment.” All you need to do is ask people to write down a promise to do the behavior — or buy the product — or vote — or whatever. You might ask someone to make a pledge such as “I pledge to ride my bike to work once a week” or “I pledge to stop buying plastic-bottled drinks.”

Get people in your movement to write down a promise to take action.

All you need is a pen and a piece of paper. It’s that simple.

It works because our instinctual devotion to keep a promise is strong, and you can use this psychological weight to get people to make a promise to the cause you are working on.

Pledges are low-hanging-fruit you can weave into your campaign. They are proven to deliver results and are easier than making elaborate educational brochures, videos, festivals, apps, art projects or all the other crazy shit people dream up to try and change the world.

(Btw don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter for more social change design tips and grab a copy of my book.)

How to add pledges to your project

Pledges can be expressed in many forms. You can ask people to write down a pledge when they pass your market or expo stall. You can prompt online users to fill out a pledge on your website. You hold an online campaign where you invite people to take a photo of themselves holding a piece of paper with their pledge handwritten on it, and then share these photos on your social media.

You could get your city’s mayor to sign a pledge on a formal certificate while being photographed by the local press. You could hold a pledge party where your guests make pledge posters and take selfies with their pledge and post them on Instagram. You can use a pledge to commence a 30-day plastic-free or plant-based challenge to help people stick to their commitment.

Pledges can be big or small. Pledges can be used by mayors and politicians to make ambitions pledges for whole countries. Or pledges can be used by one person writing a promise to eat a single plant-based meal every week.

Let’s have a look at the evidence of the power of making a promise.

Pledges work to get parents to turn their cars off

A popular case study about parents leaving their cars running while waiting to pick up their kids in school zones reveals the impressive power of pledges. When parents drive to pick up their children from school, most of them don’t turn the car off. All these cars create pockets of smog next to the school.

One particular school tried to stop the parent’s habit of leaving the engine idling by putting up signs that said “Please turn off your engine.” The signs didn’t work. Parents still left their engines on.

The school needed to come up with a better idea. They recruited volunteers to ask each driver as they pulled in to the school if they would make a verbal commitment (a pledge) to turning their engine off while they were waiting. To enhance the parent’s commitment to the pledge, volunteers asked parents if they would also place a small sticker that identified them a pro-clean air vehicle on their dashboard window.

Most of the parents agreed to the pledge and to display the small sticker. The pledge worked, and the duration cars idled at the school pick-up zone decreased by 73 percent.(2)

Pledges get people to recycle more

Another study tested the effect of pledges on recycling behavior. It showed that participants who made a commitment to recycle more increased the number of bottles and cans in their recycling bin by 23 percent.(3)

Pledges get people to ride the bus

The effect of pledges was tested for riding the bus. The researchers invited a group of participants to make a commitment (a pledge) to ride the bus. The researchers then gave free bus passes to a different group of people. While giving out free bus passes did cause an increase in bus riding, the group who made the pledge caught the bus 26 percent more than those receiving the free bus tickets.(4)

You can imagine when sustainability managers are designing campaigns to influence whole cities of people, that an improvement like this can be a big deal, with the potential to either gain or lose millions of dollars.

Combining pledges and “Foot in the Door” technique

Pledges combine well with Foot in the Door Technique from the previous section. If you can get your most stubborn audiences to agree to make the tiniest pledge, you can start to move the boulder on even the most entrenched behaviors.

Make your pledge public

There are a few things you can do to make the pledge’s effect even stronger. If a person makes a pledge in private that no other person ever sees, it still works. But the more public the pledge is, the stronger its effect. Pledges that are publicly photographed or published in the newspaper have a stronger pull and get higher rates of follow-through.(5)

Get creative with your pledge

You can get creative with pledges. See the picture of my little daughter and I in the cardboard cut out of the two bees? We got this photo at an indie craft fair from a stall that sold some bee-themed product. A lady who worked at the stall would photograph anyone who put their face in the sign using that person’s own phone. Those of us who were photographed were then invited to post our bee picture to Instagram and tag the company so that we could win a prize. It was a fantastic social media marketing idea.

At your next event, if this kind of thing suits your audience, you could try making a cut-out of a fun character or animal, like Nemo the clownfish holding a sign that says “I pledge to quit using plastic bags”. You could have the creature holding a chalkboard so people could each write their own unique pledge on it. I hope to do something like this one day with a big cut-out of a planet called Sun-Nand-Earth (computer joke).

You never know how much a chunk of behavioral science with a dash of creativity can really can change the world.

References

2. Mckenzie-Mohr (2001). Turn it off: reducing vehicle engine idling final report, Natural Resources Canada.
3. Dupré (2014). The comparative effectiveness of persuasion, commitment and leader block strategies in motivating sorting, Waste Management.
4. Bachman & Katzev (1982). The effects of non-contingent free bus tickets and personal commitment on urban bus ridership. Transportation Research
5. Lokhorst, Werner, Staats, Dijk & Gale (2013). Commitment and Behavior Change: A Meta-Analysis and Critical Review of Commitment-Making Strategies in Environmental Research, Environment and Behavior

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