12 campaign reads for Christmas

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.