The Communications Ladder

One of the biggest challenges facing non-profit groups is remembering that not everyone knows as much about your issue or cause as you do.

We tend to want to make people drink from a fire hose—give them all the information we think they should have in one big gulp.

Almost nobody can process information that way. We have to start small, and let people take it in small, incremental bite-size pieces.

This process is called the Communications Ladder. The ladder looks like this:

• Committed

• Active

• Interested

• Aware

• Unaware

The rule of the ladder is simple: People can be moved up one rung at a time.

For example, if they have never heard of your group before, they move from unaware to aware.

If they decide to visit your website, or attend an event you are holding, they move to interested.

If they decide to make a donation or sign a petition, they move to active.

If they become a monthly donor or sign up as a volunteer, they are committed.

(In the business world, this ladder is called the five-stage adoption process.)

For those of you familiar with the New Testament, the Apostle Paul screwed this up completely by going from aware to committed in one step on the road to Damascus—but he had a vision of Jesus to help him do that. 

Few of us are so lucky.