Building Public Will
Building public will means impacting where people rank an issue in their personal list of compelling social causes—it’s about a long-term or permanent attitudinal shift manifested in people acting on their own closely held values to take action that creates long-term change. We contrast this with public awareness or public opinion, which is easily influenced and results in short-term attititudinal shifts, but not shifts in personal conviction or sustainable adoption of new community norms. Shaping public will on any issue occurs in the following phases or stages.
- Framing and defining the issue or problem
- Building awareness about problems or needs
- Becoming knowledgeable/transmitting information about where and how the problem can be impacted or changed
- Creating a personal conviction that change needs to occur
- Evaluating while reinforcing
MG’s public will building model is utilized to create initiatives that engage the audience in formative research, and then marries high-profile media strategies with grassroots social movement techniques to create long-term social change.
Download an overview of our Public Will Building methodology.
