Stop Wasting Your Time on Awareness Campaigns
Curt and Katie chat about the limitations of performative awareness campaigns and the need for action-oriented advocacy. Inspired by the article Stop Raising Awareness Already by Ann Christiano and Annie Niemand, they critique viral campaigns like Kony 2012 and the CDC’s zombie apocalypse campaign, highlighting the importance of targeting the right audiences, crafting compelling messages, and developing a theory of change.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
Show notes are created in collaboration with otter.ai and ChatGPT.
In this podcast episode we talk about the limitations of awareness campaigns
Curt and Katie talk about what to do instead of focusing precious time, energy, and resources on advocacy that is solely about awareness. We look at what has worked in the past and how to implement that now.
Why Awareness Alone Isn’t Enough
“We’re not saying don’t do any awareness. We’re saying, do awareness that works. And a lot of what we do isn’t working.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT
- Performative awareness (social media posts, profile filters) often doesn’t lead to real change.
- Examples of failed awareness campaigns:
- Kony 2012: Viral but lacked sustainable action.
- CDC’s zombie apocalypse: Popular but ineffective at promoting emergency preparedness.
- HPV vaccine campaign: Faced backlash due to misinterpretation of its message.
- Some awareness efforts even create harmful counter-movements (e.g., “All Lives Matter” in response to BLM).
The Importance of Targeted Advocacy
“Think about whose office that you’re in, how you’re talking about it, the way that the problem is, and most importantly, when you’re talking about the problem, tell the story of how it impacts people.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT
- Broad awareness campaigns often miss key decision-makers—advocacy should focus on specific audiences.
- Examples of effective advocacy efforts:
- Lobbying for minors’ rights to amend therapy records.
- Medicare reform efforts for mental health providers.
- California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) educating legislators about MFTs.
Developing a Theory of Change
- Advocacy needs clear goals and strategic planning.
- The story of Rosa Parks demonstrates effective timing and targeting in advocacy.
- Successful campaigns require repetition, patience, and clear calls to action.
Practical Steps for Effective Advocacy:
- Move beyond awareness—advocate for policy changes, funding, and direct action.
- Target specific audiences (lawmakers, healthcare providers, educators).
- Craft messages that resonate—ensure they lead to measurable change.
- Develop a theory of change—plan advocacy efforts with long-term impact in mind.
Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:
We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!
Stop Raising Awareness Already By Ann Christiano & Annie Neimand
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
A Living Wage for Prelicensees
How to Stay in Your Lane to Support Diversity and Inclusion, An Interview with Dr. Joy Cox, PhD
Topic: Advocacy
Who we are:
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:
Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:
Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:
Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group
Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/
Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).
… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:15
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that we do in our profession, the things that we do with our lives, the ways that we advocate for change. And for longtime listeners of the show, you may recall that from time to time, I’ve talked about the seeded grape industry, how I believe that it is possibly just a money laundering front, but nobody ever has followed up with what do they do with the seeded grapes if nobody’s buying them? And I think it’s time that we talk about that and we bring some attention to how they dry those grapes out. And really what I’m talking about here is raising awareness.
Katie Vernoy 0:56
I was thinking that you were going somewhere where we’re gonna just wine about things.
Curt Widhalm 1:00
Oh, that would have been another good one. So I’m rubbing off on you. Yay!
Katie Vernoy 1:03
Yay.
Curt Widhalm 1:05
But specifically, this episode is about the opposite of that. We’re actually talking about just stop raising awareness. We came across an article from the Essentials of Social Innovation. It’s called ‘Stop Raising Awareness Already’ by Ann Christiano and Annie Neimand. We’ll put a link to this in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. This article is from Spring 2017 but in the wake of just raising my hands and generally gesturing at the world around us, there’s a lot of talk online about, Hey, we should raise awareness about this. We should, somebody should do something. That somebody should be you.
Katie Vernoy 1:49
It should also be you.
Curt Widhalm 1:51
You know…
Katie Vernoy 1:51
It should be all of us.
Curt Widhalm 1:52
It should be all of us. But we want to go through this article a little bit, hit some of the major points, add in a couple of other really wonderful things, just as some other general ideas. But I think in general, people, especially our audience, like to think that we’re good at doing things. We have the potential to. But do we actually follow through on that kind of stuff? And I would like to maybe talk about the comedian Bill Burr here for just a moment. Katie’s look is one of just reticent.
Katie Vernoy 2:28
Like, what’s going on here?
Curt Widhalm 2:30
You did not prepare me for this part of the episode. Bill Burr has one of his comedies that he talks about how white people today tend to believe that they would have helped in the Underground Railroad, that they would have got out of their way, they would have addressed this tragesty that happened in our history. They would have put their lives on the line in order to help fleeing slaves be able to escape. And in true Bill Burr fashion, he goes, That’s bullshit. You wouldn’t have done that. You know how we know you’re not doing anything today. You’re sitting on your couch and you’re putting hashtag Black Lives Matter, but you’re not actually out there doing things that would go and change some of the laws around the ways that systemic injustices are actually put in place. Now some of you will say, you know, I was out there marching in Black Lives Matter parades, and I have been posting stuff, but you just called me out on the posting. I marched. Is kind of what I’m expecting somebody’s reaction to be. And I will say, to what end? What did it accomplish? Because part of what this article talks about is that we need to create awareness that actually leads to action. The raising awareness can sometimes just end up being, hey, that’s really nice. People are talking about Kony 2012 and you know, it’s now 2025 whatever happened with Kony?
Katie Vernoy 4:00
I don’t even know what you’re talking about.
Curt Widhalm 4:01
You don’t know about Kony 2012?
Katie Vernoy 4:04
No.
Curt Widhalm 4:05
So, Kony 2012 was about this guy who went to Africa and saw that this guy named Kony was militarizing children in order to kind of have this space that was anti government. And this guy came back to America and made this campaign, we should interfere in Central African politics and get rid of Kony. There was this movie made, and then the guy ended up getting really stressed out and had like a public breakdown or something. And then it kind of fizzled out. And I don’t know that anything ever ended up happening with Kony. So, raising awareness about things is sometimes nice, but it’s got to be something that actually leads to some kind of action.
Katie Vernoy 4:49
Yeah, I agree.
Curt Widhalm 4:51
We even point out sometimes Mental Health Awareness Month, Black History Month, Women’s Health Month, Men’s Health Month, whatever it might be. And at some point, you know, all of the months start to overlap, and then what is it that we actually do with anything other than change our social media profiles to have, you know, a little graphic over our profile picture?
Katie Vernoy 5:09
Yeah, my sense of awareness is that there are different types of awareness. There’s the performative awareness, the hashtags, the the things on our profile pictures, those types of things, and I have participated in those, and sometimes it’s to show solidarity or try to show acceptance, and I think that can do something for my friends or the people who want to know that I’m kind of in their corner. But when you look deeper on what the goals of awareness are that people will actually do something different, that laws will change. I think that’s a much different kind of awareness. When we look at that. I did not have a chance to read the article in full disclosure, so I want to kind of come at this with more of a curious and questioning stance. Is there an assessment about what type of awareness might be helpful? Because I don’t think we can actually do anything without awareness of a problem. Like the first step has to be an understanding and awareness of the problem and so, so maybe that’s down the road, but I think being able to understand like we’re not saying don’t do any awareness. We’re saying, Do awareness that works. And a lot of what we do isn’t working. Is that kind of where we’re starting from?
Curt Widhalm 6:28
That’s the excellent point and transition us really well into what we do with this. And sometimes awareness campaigns can actually end up backfiring for a variety of reasons. Around 2012 or so, the CDC put out a how to survive the zombie apocalypse campaign. It was wildly popular. It actually crashed the CDC website within like the first 30 minutes of it, because people were going and Whoa, look at this hilarious little thing. And the idea behind it was that it was to get people to prepare emergency kits for things like natural disasters, earthquakes, fires, that kind of stuff. And it was lost in the message. What they found is that people were more looking at the comedy of the writing than actually being able to follow through on things. This article also points out that raising awareness can also end up creating backlash and make things worse. One of the examples that they use in this article is around the HPV vaccine that was widely put out and talked about raising awareness to everybody, as far as being able to prevent cervical cancer in later life, especially for young women. However, raising awareness about this being a STI allowed for people to interpret the message as being something that encourages children to engage in premarital sex.
Katie Vernoy 8:02
Oh, wow.
Curt Widhalm 8:03
So it ends up creating resistance by those people who can implement that, as far as policy. And in retrospect, what they recognize that they should have done is not this huge, wide public facing campaign, but educating pediatricians about it, because they’re the ones who could talk with their individual clients about things.
Katie Vernoy 8:25
Yeah, yeah. I think that there’s times when we have a message of some injustice or some important process or safety mechanism that we can put in place to make life better, and whether it is based on partisanship or, quote, unquote, undue strain on industry, or whatever it is where there’s backlash in that regard, or there’s more of this kind of puritanical mindset around how it can be misinterpreted, or what they think it’s going to be, it becomes controversial and really quite hard to get anything accomplished. It becomes people screaming at each other across some divide. I think about, you know, climate change and environmental things, and it is shocking to me that it has become controversial and a talking point and an argument, and so I hadn’t thought about it that way, that awareness campaigns or awareness processes are what’s bringing in some of this backlash. But I I understand how that could be possible.
Curt Widhalm 9:37
Another way of looking at it is with Black Lives Matter. I think many people also point to the subsequent things, like all lives matter and blue lives matter, that became antithetical and even against the Black Lives Matter message. But also in some states where laws got enacted that allowed for the drivers of motor vehicles to be able to legally run over protesters who are on the streets blocking traffic. So sometimes greater awareness can actually end up creating the potential for harm. And that’s why they recommend that you should target your audience as narrowly as possible. Be able to speak very specifically to the people that can actually do something with the message in a way that puts pressure on them. Now, where you were five minutes ago, as far as like, we need some awareness. Yes, we need awareness by enough people to change the ideas of the people who can actually make change.
Katie Vernoy 10:47
Yeah.
… 10:47
(Advertisement Break)
Katie Vernoy 10:48
I like the idea around awareness campaigns to medical doctors, to pediatricians, to give them additional knowledge that they can talk with their patients about. I think when the targeted audience is legislators, it does seem like there’s a few different audiences that you have to approach, because legislators, in and of themselves, are impacted by their constituents. Their constituents have to be behind it. Like it becomes more complicated when laws have to be enacted. Do you have a sense or does this article talk about how to decide where that message needs to be put forward?
Curt Widhalm 11:29
Well, you and I have both done lobbying. Part of our training on this was: think about whose office that you’re in, how you’re talking about it, the way that the problem is, and most importantly, when you’re talking about the problem, tell the story of how it impacts people. So when you and I were campaigning about something as specific as minors in California being able to amend their treatment records, being able to write 250 words if they disagreed with what was in their therapy notes. We would talk about it in some ways with some offices around the idea that, yeah, minors should have some rights to be able to correct their record if they see fit, without their parents approval. This is what being in control and having action in your life would be. And in other cases, what we would talk about is stories around somebody’s therapy notes, records, had a wrong diagnosis and it prevented them from being able to join the military. So we would very, very specifically craft the message to some very, very pro military offices, and we would craft it much differently to offices that believed very much in individual rights.
Katie Vernoy 12:41
And there was some good success there. So I think it’s, it’s something where it’s, if we’re looking at the action steps, we haven’t started, we haven’t gone through them in order. But this is crafting a very specific message to a very specific audience.
Curt Widhalm 12:54
Yes.
Katie Vernoy 12:55
Or a compelling message to a specific audience. That honestly is both easier and harder.
Curt Widhalm 13:03
It requires some thought. It requires the ability to think about how the impact of one step leads to another leads to another. You know, we had Dr. Ben Caldwell and Tony Rousmaniere on our podcast here…is that two years ago now?
Katie Vernoy 13:21
I think so. Wow.
Curt Widhalm 13:24
And what it was is talking about racial disparities in the ways that, in particular, the ASWB national exam was preventing black first time test takers from being able to pass at a rate that was comparable to test takers from just about every other race. And Ben and Tony did the right thing. They got into platforms like ours, and really helps that they’re good friends of ours, and we’re like, Hey, come on the show anytime. But as we talk about that, that’s where those kinds of podcasts of ours get sent to the people at…I got a phone call one day from somebody at the Texas Psychological Board. So my caller ID is showing Texas Psychological Board. And anytime that you’re dealing with a board, you see something like that. No matter what you’ve done, you get that little bit of panic like, no, what did I do?
Katie Vernoy 14:18
I must have done something wrong.
Curt Widhalm 14:20
Yes, but it was somebody saying, hey, because you four talked about this, this got sent to us. And so it was taking that message and it was targeting it to somebody specifically. And not only are we looking at the ASWB, but you also mentioned the EPPP-2, and that is something that we feel is also problematic in getting more mental health providers here. Can you come and talk to our town halls about this, so that way we can get more legislators on board with we don’t need these extra steps to getting licensed. Right now, you’re smiling.
Katie Vernoy 14:55
Yeah, no, I just think it’s great when we actually can make a difference. It feels really good. I know, on the flip side, we went to DC for a number of years to work on Medicare, and that actually came through. But it took so many visits, it took so many targeted conversations with legislators and a groundswell from MFTs and LPCCs across the country to say, hey, this does matter. And so it’s exciting when it works, and it takes a lot of effort, and I always like to caveat when we talk about social justice and advocacy, you also have to look at your own bandwidth and how best to use your efforts, because it can be exhausting even when you’re doing it effectively.
Curt Widhalm 15:41
And that’s one of the last major ideas around how to effectively create change, is develop a theory of change. The political action committee, the organization that Katie and I have both been involved with for years, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, they strategically look at some years, we have specific legislation that we need to push through, that are changes that need to be made. We need a seat at the table. And there are other years where their theory of change is we have a legislature in California that’s half brand new people who’ve never held office at this level before, and this is a year that we need to focus our efforts on going in and talking to staff of the legislatures about what marriage and family therapists actually do. That it’s more than just couples counseling. It’s raising awareness, but it’s following the steps around, we know that these people have no idea what we do. They’re people in positions who can effectively help us later on. But this is knowing when the right time and the right person to deliver the message. The idea around the Rosa Parks story and the Montgomery Bus Boycotts is an example of this. She wasn’t the first person to get arrested for refusing to give up her seat, she was the right person to get arrested and to be the face of the campaign, because two of the people who got arrested before her were people who fought the police officers or were other not great faces of the campaign in order to really effectively mobilize people. Here was Rosa Parks. She got arrested in a way that was compelling enough to motivate 75% of the bus riders in Montgomery at the time, and black bus riders to boycott for over a year. I think somewhere lost in history is that was a really long time.
Katie Vernoy 17:40
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 17:41
And it created change, but we have to get over the idea that just knowledge is what’s going to help people. One of the most effective TED Talks that I’ve ever seen was by Ben Bratton, who talks about TED talks don’t work.
Katie Vernoy 18:00
That’s hilarious that you had a TED talk about how TED talks don’t work.
Curt Widhalm 18:03
And I think, to be fair, it was a TEDx talk about how TED talks don’t work.
Katie Vernoy 18:07
Okay.
Curt Widhalm 18:08
But he goes on that it feels nice. It’s a way to get middle brow kind of ideas. It’s showmanship that makes us feel more like Malcolm Gladwell giving half truths off of what’s kind of scientifically based, but it’s told in the way that makes us all feel a little bit smarter, and then we go home and we don’t do anything.
Katie Vernoy 18:30
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 18:31
You know, it’s things like a lot of organizations do things like land acknowledgements, and it’s really wonderful to be able to go and acknowledge that, yeah, this land used to be somebody else’s, and if they were in the room, I’d sure look them in the eye while I said this. But if it doesn’t come with anything else, even a lot of the native tribes are coming out and saying, yeah, it’s just performative.
Katie Vernoy 18:56
Yeah.
… 18:56
(Advertisement Break)
Curt Widhalm 18:57
So we’re gonna talk to our audience here, people who are therapists, people who are listening to us, people who like these ideas, and people who are hopefully a little bit more motivated right now. Number one, if you’re doing land acknowledgments, if you’re part of an organization that does it do do like two extra steps, find out organizations that actually are run by or support the tribes or the nations. The people that you’re acknowledging, seek out those organizations and put a donation link in whatever meeting that you’re in and say, These are the people that we should be supporting.
Katie Vernoy 19:36
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a really interesting idea. I like that idea. So we’ve been talking a little round in circles. So I want to make sure that we actually get the these four action steps. And you were just talking about the first one, create awareness that actually leads to action.
Curt Widhalm 19:52
Yes.
Katie Vernoy 19:53
Okay.
Curt Widhalm 19:54
So, awareness. Hey, we can call out performative stuff all the time. We’re all wonderful at being able to be snarky about things. There’s lots of things in the news that we can react to minute by minute, and it changes things. And for full transparency, we’re recording this on January 23 2025 and I’m going to remind Katie, do you remember the cyber truck that was outside the Las Vegas hotel and had the fireworks in it and exploded? That was this year. That’s how…
Katie Vernoy 20:25
This is the longest January in my life.
Curt Widhalm 20:29
And Katie and I have dealt with wildfires in Southern California and…
Katie Vernoy 20:35
Inauguration.
Curt Widhalm 20:36
Inauguration.
Katie Vernoy 20:36
Tons of executive actions and…
Curt Widhalm 20:39
Yes, and so there are lots of things that can really end up being, things that you can react to and react to and react to, create awareness, that can actually lead to action. And…
Katie Vernoy 20:50
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 20:51
It’s don’t necessarily be reactionary, be actionary.
Katie Vernoy 20:58
Well, and I think that the thing that’s been very apparent this month is that there’s so much to be aware of, and there’s so many different really valuable causes and things that need to change. And I speak again to exhaustion, and maybe because it’s, you know, January 45th but when we talk about things that are important to us, oftentimes we’re talking to people who already are aware, who already agree. We get the thumbs ups and the loves and the likes and the care emojis, and I worry, and I think this you were talking about this before we hit record, Curt, but I think that it becomes very easy to become complacent because we’ve engaged in a conversation about it, and yet there’s not anything that we’ve actually done. We’re talking to people who agree with us. We’re not changing anyone’s mind, and we’re all just saying, Yeah, this sucks, and I wish it wasn’t this way, and somebody should do something, right, and it doesn’t actually get stuff done. And furthermore, I think, yes, donations are great, and I think we need to fully vet who we’re donating to, because it can be very easy to say, Okay, I’ll put, like, a little bit of money here. I’ll put a little bit of money here, and not necessarily understand, is it going somewhere. So that’s a whole other conversation. But I think creating systemic changes, creating even, you know, smaller systems like community changes or personal changes and how you operate can be so helpful to the larger picture, it needs to actually be something that’s moving the needle, even if it’s just a tiny bit, versus feeling good that you’ve said something and people have liked your post.
Curt Widhalm 22:43
Yes. And so part of doing that support might be organizations that are already doing things. One of the things that we’ll link in our show notes is the episode that we did after we got CAMFT to put a statement out about paying all pre licensees a living wage.
Katie Vernoy 22:59
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 22:59
And even in reflecting on that episode, we talk about how long it took to get that done, but that is something that has directed CAMFT as an organization to formulate how they go about lobbying things. And they can point to we have been advocating for this for eight years now.
Katie Vernoy 23:19
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the second step is target audience as narrowly as possible.
Curt Widhalm 23:26
So this is targeting the people who can actually effectively create change. Now your representative might be somebody who is from a party that you don’t vote for, so they might not listen to you, but you might want to then create a very, very specific campaign to convince voters in that district to put the pressure on that representative. And that has worked. And again, it takes time, and it takes repeated effort to be able to get that message over and over there. If you’re getting people from other congressional districts, it’s nice to pad numbers, but if they’re not voters, they’re not going to do anything.
Katie Vernoy 24:11
Well, and then that leads to the next step, which is making sure that you have a compelling message with clear calls to action. Because even if you get folks excited about something, if they don’t know what to do with that, it’s not going to get anywhere. And so this is a skill set. It’s what we were talking about before determining what these folks want to hear, what’s going to move the needle for them, what’s going to create that awareness for them. And it could be a large scale, you know, campaign that goes across the community or across a large organization, or it could be a message that you say to one person who has an impact.
Curt Widhalm 24:49
And the last step is developing a theory of change. And part of this is acknowledging that many of these things are going to be multi step. That there are going to be slower actions than you want. Hey, I called my congressional person. They didn’t change their vote. Call again. Get your friends to call, get your family to call.
Katie Vernoy 25:13
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 25:14
We would love to hear your thoughts on this episodes. We would love to have you follow us on our social media, engage with us on our social media, so that way we know what’s important to you, and you can follow us on any of those. We’ll link to those in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Join us in our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, until next time I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and go out and do something.
… 25:42
(Advertisement Break)
Announcer 25:44
Thank you for listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at mtsgpodcast.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter, and please don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss any of our episodes.
SPEAK YOUR MIND