I’m starting to get ready for Christmas, so I wanted to share a few of the articles that I’ve read this year in a reading list for anyone looking for some campaign reading across the holiday period;
1 -Stop Raising Awareness Already – one of many great articles from SSIR. This one challenges us to adopt a more strategic approach to public interest communications.
2 – Why the Conservatives lost – 2017 saw an unexpected election and an even more unexpected result. This 3 part series from Mark Wallace looks at where they went wrong. I shared a few learnings here.
3 -Protest and persist: why giving up hope is not an option – a beautiful and much-needed essay on change from Rebecca Solnit, and this has some important lessons about building resilience as campaigners in hard times.
4 – How do I know I’m making a difference – Kate Norgrove wrote some brilliant blogs at the end of her time leading campaigns at Water Aid looking to address that question.
5 – Is this the beginning of the end of the charity sector – it’s hard to pick my top reads from ACEVO at 30 series, but this one from Danny Sriskandarajah is especially good to read.
6 – The Three Types of Leaders Who Create Radical Change – are you an agitator, innovator, or orchestrator?
7 – I supported 500 online campaigns for 500 days — This is what I learnt by being the ultimate slacktivist – I love a challenge like this, or this from Glyn Thomas.
8 – Creative Coalitions – a handbook for change from Crisis Action is one of the most helpful resources I’ve read all year. More here.
9 – Newspapers Lost Their Monopoly On The Political News Agenda – Buzzfeed has done some brilliant pieces this year about how the media landscape is changing. It’s a topic I need to come back to write about more in 2018.
10 – Telling people ‘you’re wrong’ doesn’t work – I’ve really enjoyed reading Nicky Hawkins writing this year about how we need to get our message to work.
11 – 13 things I learned from six years at the Guardian – lots of applicable lessons in this for campaigners.
12 -Beyond Command-and-Control Campaigns – the Networked Change report was one of the best things I read in 2017, so this case study of how to apply it from IDPC is really interesting.
and adding in 13 – Want Gun Control? Learn From the N.R.A – the always excellent on Hahrie Han on learning from our opponents.
And finally, this will probably be my last post in 2017, so a huge thank you to everyone who has read, commented on or shared a post I’ve written this year. It’s been a record-breaking year on the blog, and a special thank you to all those who’ve encouraged me to keep writing this year, it’s much appreciated.
12 campaign reads for Christmas

And thank you for all your interesting posts through the year.