Cover of the 'Beyond the First Click' report, with the title and subtitle 'How today's volunteers build power for movements and NGOs', on a grey background. The logos for change.org, MobLab and Capulet are presented in a row along the bottom.

Beyond the first click: How today’s volunteers build power for movements and NGOs

By Darren Barefoot, Julie Szabo, Mobilisation Lab

Contents

Introduction

Beyond the First Click examines innovative volunteer engagement work by 35 organisations empowering people to scale change and win by learning and doing more.

If movements and organizations invest in and cultivate supporters who are doing substantial and meaningful work, then does their reach, impact and odds of success increase?

That’s the question we set out to explore.

We wanted to look under the hood of organisations that are doing a great job of engaging their top-tier supporters and volunteer leaders. That is, those supporters and volunteers who are empowered to make decisions and act on behalf of the organisation. We sought to uncover insights, patterns and best practices that we could share with our colleagues in the nonprofit sector. We interviewed 35 organizations and experts in eight countries.

The report is comprised of six chapters, each exploring an insight we uncovered in our research:

Level up volunteer leaders with one-on-one coaching.
Volunteers at their best: Personal achievement matters.
Blend mobilising and organising for scale.
Match big asks with remarkable experiences.
Technology investments can bias mobilising over organising.
Collective identity leads to collective action.

Authored by Capulet’s Julie Szabo and Darren Barefoot, this report is based on in-depth interviews with leading practitioners and a literature review. Beyond the First Click is a project of Capulet, Change.org and the Mobilisation Lab at Greenpeace.

Access the Report

Download Beyond the First Click [PDF]
View below as slides in Slideshare

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Interviews

We spoke with dozens of activists, organisers, volunteers and NGO leaders around the world. Several of these interviews are captured in Beyond the First Click. You may also listen to and view these interviews below.