Situated and Invented Ethos

• Latto lists five main reasons why people give:
• Feel-good giving, guilt-motivated giving, external pressures to give, conspicuous consumption and conformity, and pity for the defenseless
• If you want people to participate in this event, which you need in order for the "correct image," then you need to focus on Latto's "feel-good giving" (Latto 40).
• People will only feel this if they think their help is needed.
• In order for the even to be a success, people need to feel like they played an instrumental and necessary part in raising money for the cause.
• Remember, this is one part of your two-fold goal for success.

Situated and Invented Ethos: Creating a Successful Charity Event

A Question of Image

Unspoken Rules: What Charities Know that You Don't

Relay for Life

The Research Gap

What is Success?

What is at Stake?

Situated Versus Invented Ethos

Rhetoric as an Art

Past Research on Ethos and Charity

Addressing the Gap:

How to Ensure a Successful Charity Event

Success requires that the charity's goals and the community's goals are met. This means the charity must appear to have the same goals as the community.

"Aristotle unhesitatingly regards rhetoric as an art” (Kennedy 4).

“Among the rhetorical strategies companies utilize for establishing and maintaining relationships with publics, corporate advocacy occupies a central place” (Tsetsura 1).

"Charities now contract out many of their activities, and especially fundraising, to the private sector, a business-like approach that confounds the old bumbling image of charities and is utterly compatible with being in partnership with commercial organizations” (Macdonald, Chrisp 310).

"Each year, more than 4 million people in over 20 countries take part in this global phenomenon and raise much-needed funds and awareness to save lives from cancer"

(American Cancer Society).

• Research on rhetoric and charity focuses on individual motives and incentives for donating. Scholars offer the following motives for charitable participation:
• Guilt of the wealthy
• Trends in charity
• Promoting self-image

Ensuring a successful event requires charities to focus on three main areas:

Inciting competition

• Situated Ethos: Situated ethos concerns one's reputation. It deals with preconceived notions of a speaker's or organization's character.

• Invented Ethos: Invented ethos can be created in order to suit a particular situation. This is the ethos that is projected by an individual speaker or organization.

charity bracelet trend

Paul Ryan washing clean dishes

• There are specific things you can and should do in order to ensure a charity event's success.

• The success of the event is the charity's end goal.
• The mastery and art of rhetoric is essential in meeting this goal.
• Never forget the purpose, otherwise the charity's projected ethos will appear at extreme odds with people's preconceptions. This will deem the event a failure, as people will lose trust in the organization.

• The goals of an event like this must be two-fold. This is because the goals of the community are two-fold.
• Raise money for the cause
• Bring the community together to raise that money

• If you focus on one aspect of this two-fold goal, the event will not be successful.
• If it appears money was only raised from one source, a gap between situated and invented ethos emerges.
• If it appears there is a community effort, but no money is raised, the event is not a success.

• Misunderstood goals lead to failure.
• Macdonald and Chrisp's case study: In a partnership between a pharmaceutical company and a charity, both sides refused to acknowledge the true goals of the partnership. The pharmaceutical company was gaining notoriety, and the charity was raising money. But all they would acknowledge was the "appropriate" charity goal, which was to help teenage nutrition.
• “Because the fundamental purpose went unacknowledged, neither partner was prepared for the problems the partnership encountered, or concerned about possible socials costs" (Macdonald, Chrisp 307).

• If organizations and charities are not careful, their invented ethos may appear at odds with their situated ethos.
• This can be due to disparities concerning:
• The source of monetary donations
• The impact of community involvement

• A successful event requires that the invented ethos of the charity, and the charity event, mirrors the situated ethos of that charity.
• If there is a perceived gap between invented and situated ethos, the event will not be successful.

• The focus on image and individual benefit from charity is not wrong.
• Sponsors have a great deal to gain from giving to charities.
• For large companies, giving to charities is similar to a business arrangement.
• But this focus is limited.
• Rhetoric is operating where people do not acknowledge its presence.
• Charities themselves, not just individuals, participate in ethos invention.
• Organizations must ensure that their invented ethos meets the expectations of their situated ethos.

Choosing words artfully

Seizing the kairotic moment

My experience with Relay for Life has allowed me to witness the essential components that comprise a successful charity event

• Rhetoric is at work where people do not realize.
• The key to a successful charity event rests within this area.

Trends in charity: Lance Armstrong promoted his "LIVESTRONG" bracelets, which garnered significant donations for his charity; however, many people only bought these because the bracelets were "trendy." Some went so far as to purchase them off of Amazon, which was quite controversial, considering this money did not go to Armstrong's charity.

Paul Ryan stages a photo shoot in Ohio. The former vice presidential candidate showed up, unannounced, to an Ohio soup kitchen, and started scrubbing clean dishes. Ryan was clearly trying to construct a positive self-image for the American public.

Addressing the Gap: How to Ensure a Successful Charity Event

Inciting Competition

Seizing the Kairotic Moment

Choosing Words Artfully

In order to get more members to participate, which is key for the charity's image, the charity must do everything in their power to raise the community's involvement. Competition is key to raising community involvement, as people are inherently drawn to situations where there is opposition, or something at stake. There are three key ways to incite competition:

"Because non-profit strategists and marketers know potential donors want to feel good, they center the helper in the discourse: they emphasize how important YOU are, how much their organization needs YOU and how grateful they are to YOU for YOUR support” (Latto 40).

“Kairos, then, enables a consideration of ‘invention-in-the-middle,’ a space-time which marks the emergence of a pro-visional ‘subject,’ one that works on – and is worked on by – the situation” (Hawhee 18).

DO NOT USE COLLECTIVE LANGUAGE

What is Kairos?

USE THE THERMOMETER

• Anytime you are speaking to a prospective participant, or current participant, use words such as "you."
• Language geared toward the individual is essential, even when people are already committed to the cause.
• Every individual person needs to feel he is instrumental in the event's success.

• Kairos draws upon the existence of particularly advantageous or opportune moments. When a rhetor seizes those moments correctly, he or she is bound to be most rhetorically effective.
• The ability of the charity to notice these moments, and act upon them correctly, is critical to their success.

CONSTRUCT SMART CATCH PHRASES

INTER-TEAM COMPETITION

DO NOT ANNOUNCE DONATIONS FROM CORPORATE SPONSORS UNTIL THE FINAL COUNT

• Catch phrases are essential in order to recruit participants.
• All catch phrases must include language geared toward the individual.
• Do not use the word "we" in a catch phrase.
• Example: "The American Cancer Society needs YOUR help."
• Someone needs to feel as though he or she, specifically, is needed.

• People like to know they are making progress.
• The use of the "progress thermometer" draws upon the notion of self-competition.
• If you allow people to see other people's thermometers, they can see the status of their competitors. Thus, they will be tempted to compete against other participants.

• Make sure you have teams!
• Organizing participants into actual teams makes fundraising a clear competition, not a speculative one.
• More people will join and fundraise if they know they can compete against other teams.

• Have prizes for the participants who raise the most money.
• Ensure these prizes are for individuals, not teams as a whole.
• Prizes ensure intra-team competition amongst individual participants.
• While the team effort is important, it is even more important that people feel invested in this cause individually. This will aid the success of the event, as it will contribute to people's individual involvement.

• People will want to know how much money the charity has earned.
• This should reflect:
• Money donated by local businesses
• Individual donations
• People do not want to know that the majority of the money raised was from a small handful of large businesses and corporations.
• Revealing this would create a gap between the charity's situated and invented ethos.
• This would deem the event unsuccessful.

...Wondering Why?

INTRA-TEAM COMPETITION

ONE MONTH BEFORE THE EVENT, BE EVERYWHERE

• This will ensure people feel the majority of money raised was from the community's collective donations, not a handful of corporate sponsors.
• Bake sales and product sales are a great way to enforce the image of collective effort.
• If people see when you have been raising money, they won't question the community's role in raising the bulk of the donations, which are reported at the conclusion of the event.

Situated And Invented Ethos

Guidelines for Creating a Successful Charity Event

Conclusion

The Successful Event:

Closing the Gap Between Invented and Situated Ethos

Marissa Moshell

Professor Pavesich

ENGL 291-01

12 December 2012

"There are three qualities which delivery should posses. It should be conciliatory, persuasive and moving, and the possession of these three qualities involves charm as a further requisite” (Quintilian 329).

Ethos

"The most authoritative form of persuasion" (Kennedy 39).

Aristotle and Ethos

• Success of a charity event cannot be attained by focusing on one objective.
• The charity needs to be aware that they have a situated ethos; a charity's invented ethos must comply with this preconception.

• People want to feel they are making an impact, and they must also see the results of that impact.
• It is up to the charity to close the gap between invented and situated ethos.
• It is up to the charity to produce an image that ensures a successful event.

• Ethos is one of three modes of persuasion:
• Logos, Ethos, and Pathos
• Ethos deals with people's perceptions of a rhetor's character.
• People may already have an ethos established, or they may need to invent their ethos for a particular situation.