Social Change and the Technology Adoption Lifecycle

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore is a classic marketing book focused on the challenges that technology companies face as they move along the technology adoption life cycle and reach buyers—from the early adopters to ultimately achieving widespread adoption. The five types of Buyers used in the book—innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards—all have specific needs, goals, and traits that influence their buying decisions. But, this framework isn’t exclusive to technology companies. There are numerous parallels within the nonprofit sector. To better understand how to apply Moore’s insights to social impact work, we’ll look at the characteristics of these Buyers and explore brand and communication strategies that nonprofits can use to communicate with a wide range of supporters, funders, and partners so their ideas and missions continue to grow.

The strategies and communication frames that nonprofits use to get buy-in will differ greatly across the different types of Buyers. Early adopters and innovators are willing to take risks and appreciate the potential of new products and approaches. A large majority of supporters, however, are more risk-averse and want proven solutions. In the social sector, there’s a similar spectrum of funders and supporters. Some are willing to take a risk, and others prefer to fund proven solutions. These Buyer archetypes show us what they value and how comfortable they are with risk. For organizations, they highlight the need to create clear narratives that include measurable outcomes and impacts along with emerging ideas and the unique value and differentiators within their programs.

Ultimately, nonprofits are selling a vision for the future and a way to get there. They need to cross the chasm that exists between the early adopters and the early majority to gain widespread support. However, nonprofits have a difficult time crafting their communications for general audiences. Many of the organizations I’ve worked with say that the general public is a key audience, but they’re not sure how to engage them. While the general public will have its own range of Buyers—from innovators to laggards—nonprofits can gain their trust and support using similar strategies that technology companies use to address the needs of their different types of buyers.

“Innovators pursue new technology products aggressively. They sometimes seek them out even before a formal marketing program has been launched. This is because technology is a central interest in their life, regardless of what function it is performing.”

Similarly, for nonprofits, Innovators will seek you out. So you need to be easy to find. These are often foundations and major donors specifically looking to fund novel approaches to solving systemic challenges. Though there will always be fewer Innovators, their endorsement can provide important reassurance for other funders that want to see how your unique approach effectively solves these challenges. In many cases, they’ll gladly provide more than just monetary support.

To engage the Innovator:

• Highlight the uniqueness of your organization’s approach in your messaging and communications. Make it clear why the approach is effective and different from other solutions.
• As a strategy, the brand should be willing to take risks and maintain complete transparency with these types of funders and supporters. Talk about what you’ve learned and how the process has sparked new and emerging ideas.
• Make space in your brand’s audience profiles for the Innovators if they don’t already exist. Remember that there’s always an exchange of value between an organization and its audiences. Figure out how they can help you grow and what you have to offer them.

“Early adopters, like innovators, buy into new product concepts very early in their life cycle, but unlike innovators, they are not technologists. Rather they are people who find it easy to imagine, understand, and appreciate the benefits of a new technology, and to relate these potential benefits to their other concerns. Whenever they find a strong match, early adopters are willing to base their buying decisions upon it.”

For nonprofits, Early Adopters frequently look like institutional supporters who recognize the potential in your approach to advance their own missions and lead in their issue areas. They’re less interested in innovation for innovation’s sake and more focused on seeing the potential tied to their own vision. While they want to see proof of effectiveness, they’re willing to take calculated risks on promising approaches.

To engage the Early Adopter:

• Highlight the larger movement(s) your organization is part of and make issue areas clear. Funders have their own focus and purpose.
• Show the potential benefits through a clear vision for the future.
• Collaborate with Early Adopters to co-author case studies or white papers as a way of highlighting their investment in emerging solutions.

“The early majority share some of the early adopter’s ability to relate to technology, but ultimately they are driven by a strong sense of practicality. They know that many of these newfangled inventions end up as passing fads, so they are content to wait and see how other people are making out before they buy in themselves. They want to see well-established references before investing substantially.”

Moving from Early Adopters to capturing the Early Majority represents the gap that businesses (and nonprofits) must cross on the way to widespread adoption. This group might include mid-sized foundations, corporate partners, and individual donors who want evidence of impact before committing. They need to understand your approach thoroughly and see that others have already validated and endorsed.

To engage the Early Majority:

• Use case studies and impact stories to highlight your solution’s effectiveness. Use ethical storytelling principles and lived experience to help people see real impacts.
• From a brand perspective, focus on helping people understand your mission, vision, and purpose, and make it explicitly clear what you do without using any jargon.
• Leverage the power of social proof—and aspirational value—in building support for your organization.

“The late majority shares all the concerns of the early majority, plus one major additional one: Whereas people in the early majority are comfortable with their ability to handle a technology product, should they finally decide to purchase it, members of the late majority are not. As a result, they wait until something has become an established standard, and even then they want to see lots of support and tend to buy, therefore, from large, well-established companies.”

The Late Majority comprises most individual donors and smaller institutional supporters. They prefer to support established organizations and sustain proven approaches. This group needs clear, simple messaging about your impact and strong evidence that your approach works. It’s important to balance a message of safety for this audience without discounting the organization’s bold vision.

To engage the Late Majority:

• Adjust your brand messaging for different audiences while maintaining clarity and simplicity. In fact, include messaging specifically for the Late Majority. As nonprofit audiences become less tolerant of risk, clear and simple communication increases in importance.
• If you’ve established a widely-supported standard of excellence, make that clear in your communications. The power of social proof works here, too.

“Finally there are the laggards. These people simply don’t want anything to do with new technology, for any of a variety of reasons, some personal and some economic. The only time they ever buy a technological product is when it is buried deep inside another product—the way, say, that a microprocessor is designed into the braking system of a new car—such that they don’t even know it is there. From a market development perspective laggards are generally regarded as not worth pursuing on any other basis.”

Don’t invest time or resources attempting to convince skeptics that your organization or program are worth investing in. Instead, focus on moving supporters through the earlier stages of adoption.

For nonprofits, there are clear parallels between technology adoption and building support for social change initiatives. The key is ensuring you can address different interests—and levels of risk tolerance—from the range of supporters, partners, and funders. This means anticipating your audience’s unique needs and building relationships through strategic brand communications for each group. It will require you to change your message for different audiences and highlight the unique value for different buyers. Ultimately, single-size messaging usually only fits one audience.