The further I’ve gone in my career the more I’ve been thinking about what leadership in campaigning looks like and the more I’ve found that there aren’t easy answers out there.
So it was great to be asked by Jim Coe to chat with him about some of my thoughts about leadership and campaigning a few months ago. You can listen to the whole podcast here, but preparing to speak with Jim and thinking about the topic has got me thinking.
There is of course a legal and project management element to campaign leadership – it’s important to know about the latest regulations from the Charity Commission, or how to manage a budget, or ensure good external stakeholder relations. But what I don’t find is writing about how to lead teams of campaigners or campaigns.
On leadership, I’ve been really inspired and informed by the writing of Margaret Wheatley, who wrote this excellent and very accessible paper (it’s only 6 pages long) on ‘host leadership’ a few years ago.
Most of us aren’t going to the be the ‘heroes’ who are the ‘face’ of a campaign or a cause – indeed I think there is a whole post to write about if the model of campaigns with a ‘figurehead’ leader is largely redundant.
But for those of us in leadership roles in campaigning it’s a really important paper to read, because it speaks to the challenge of managing and leading talented individuals who are hungry to change the world, working in complex (and often changing) situations where plans evolve and the external environment can shift at a moments notice.
So I’m really putting some thoughts out here, not to present them as a ‘blueprint’ but to spark a conversation amongst others in leadership roles in campaigning.
As a campaign leader I’ve found the following important;
1 – Help those around you make sense of the story – Helping others to step back from the now and understand how does a specific win or campaign fit into the bigger picture of the change that you’re going to achieve, how does that win further the cause that you’re all working for.
2 – Intentionally invest in others – This isn’t unique to leading campaigners, but there can be so much ‘doing’ in campaigning that it’s hard to find the time to pause and make sure people are investing in their personal development. What that looks like will be different for different people – some will appreciate being encouraged to find a mentor, others will need a recommendation of a good book to read, but holding the space for others to flourish by investing time in them means we continue to cultivate generations of campaigners.
3 – Model what you’d expect from others – Let’s be honest, burnout is a huge problem for campaigners. One of the hardest things that I find about leading a team is trying to model what the right balance looks like – I’m a workaholic. I know I don’t expect others to be ‘always on’ but often in campaigning its hard to switch off. It’s easy to tell others to do it, but as I’ve stepped into leadership I’ve become more and more aware that unless you ‘walk the walk’ you can’t expect to ‘talk the talk’.
4 – Understand my privilege – I was fortunate to spend a day thinking about power and privilege early in my career – it was insightful in helping me to think about this and challenge my approaches. I’ve still a lot to learn, but those of us in leadership need to be aware of our privilege. This from NEON is a really helpful resource to start to think about this.
5 – Recognise weaknesses – None of us are good at everything – so as much as we might not like to admit it – we need to be vulnerable to others including those we lead about what we’re not good at. I’ve found that people respect you for it.
6 – Assemble a team around you – Some of those I most admire in campaigning are individuals like Ralph Abernathy and Bayard Rustin they’re not household names, but they’re those who stood around Martin Luther King as he ‘led’ the civil rights movement. The one question I often encourage people to ask when they’re applying for another job is to ask their potential future line manager ‘who do they go to when they don’t have the answer’. Why? Because the best leaders I’ve ever worked with have had people around them to council and challenge them – leaders who think they know it all invariably fail.
7 – Create the space to be curious and ask ‘why’ – Like taking time out or investing in development, the space for evaluation is often lost in our busyness. Evaluation is more than just completing the indicators form at the end of a project. Campaign leaders need to be hosting those around them to ask some of the questions that Duncan Green was encouraging us to think about – to be curious about why change is happening or share rumours.
8 – Pass it on – I’ve written before about the importance of mentoring and coaching – which means those of us in leadership need to be generous in offering to do just that to those who are a step or two back in their campaign leadership journey. Not sure where to start Campaign Bootcamp has a mentoring scheme that’s always looking for people.
I’ve very much written this to start to kick off a conversation about leadership in campaigning, so please do comment below on what else I’ve missed.
Author: mrtombaker
Making change happen – reflections for campaigners
One of the joys of my job is I get to go off to talks to listen to interesting people. Last week I got to enjoy thought provoking hour with Duncan Green.
Duncan is Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB – basically from what I can tell he employed to write + say interesting and proactive things to help make NGOs and others involved in international development better. If you’ve not come across his writing before I’d strongly recommend his website ‘From Poverty to Power’.
Duncan is about to release a new book ‘How Change Happens‘ and I’d recommend going along to one of the many lectures and talks he’s giving over the next few months – it’s full of lots of useful content.
This session was especially useful as it was focused on those those involved in running and leading global campaigns, as it was part of a fascinating workshop hosted by Save the Children International and World Vision International sharing what they’d learnt from campaigning on the MDGs (and on that topic this learning from Water Aid about there work on pushing on the post-2015 agenda is also excellent).
The session was also packed full of useful insight, and big credit to both organisations to actively looking to share what they’ve found has worked and not worked from the campaigning they’ve been involved in over the last 5+ years.
But here are a few things from Duncan that got me thinking about our approach to understanding change.
How change happens? It’s complicated.
Campaigning isn’t like making a cake – we can’t just repeatedly add the same ingredients, mix them together, put in the oven, and get the same cake time and time again. Instead change is complex, ‘non-linear’, messy and involves multiple actors. Frankly its complicated!
To reflect this campaigners need to grapple with what changes a system, to reflect on the role of critical junctures in driving change (see some of my thoughts on preparing for crisis’s here) and recognise that causality is uncertain. I was struck that some of the models in Pathways of Change are really helpful here.
But our traditional planning approaches don’t accommodate complexity.
It’s not often Mike Tyson gets quoted in a campaigning presentation but his quote ‘Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth’ is a 21st century take on the ‘No strategy survives first contact with the enemy’ quote. We need to accept that our strategies aren’t up to incorporating the complexity of the challenges we work on.
Instead Duncan suggests that when we to have two types of theories of change – Theories of Change which look at how we think the system is going to be changing even without our interventions, and a Theory of Action which focus on what we hope the impact will be of the interventions that we plan to make. (see more here)
So we need to start to think differently.
As change makers we need to start to think/feel/work in a different way. We need to nurture an inherent curiosity about how change happens, to listen to gossip which can often help us make sense of what’s happening, to learn to embrace uncertainty, and be reflective to recognise our own prejudices and power. In short, we need to ‘learn to dance with the system’ (this draws on the work of Donella Meadows who’s paper on this I’d recommend reading)
Open ourselves to unusual suspects and voices.
To dance with the system we need to look out for those who are already dancing in the system – that might be more ‘junior’ staff in our offices who are actually more ‘in touch’ with with new trends or approaches, to actively get ourselves out of the ‘thought bubbles’ that are so easily to inhabit, or through different ways of seeing he world, for example Duncan ask why do we draw so much from the scientific/econometric approaches in how we try to evaluate advocacy – could we learn as much from history, sociology or social anthropology?
Duncan’s book is published at the end of the month and available at all good bookshops – I’ve pre-ordered my copy.
How to build strong + people powered movements for social change
Thanks to Facebook Memories I’ve rediscovered these ten positive, proactive steps to build a strong, human movements which I first shared a few years ago.
They were written by David Cohen, co-founder of The Advocacy Institute (who died late last year). I find them challenging, inspiring and deeply practical. I’d encourage anyone involved in movement building to journey with them and trying to reflect on them.
They’re wise words for anyone in the business of trying to achieve social change.
1. Remember where you come from, that you are part of something larger. Celebrate your origins and roots.
2. Listen to the insights and experience of people who are affected by the issues and participate in the efforts. They are the real experts – amplify their voices. Keep professional experts “on tap, not on top.”
3. Keep balance in your work and personal life. Work hard, yes. Meet responsibilities, yes. Make an extra effort, yes. But also add humor and rest. Avoid pessimism and martyrdom.
4. Recognise human frailty and accept it. Set the example by not holding yourself – or others – to rigid or impossible standards that drain the organisation’s energy.
5. Motivate others by sharing responsibility, paying attention to others, and encouraging those who make the extra effort. Give praise when it is merited.
6. Model behavior, or set a good example, by fostering cooperation, sharing information with others, and encouraging others’ leadership. Don’t dominate. Leave space for others to share their knowledge and skills.
7. Insist on a calm approach to solving problems. Set real deadlines. Avoid a crisis mentality.
8. Share credit generously within the organisation, sector, and among allies.
9. Be equally civil to those who share your views or tactics, and those who do not. Agree to disagree and do so without personalising disagreements.
10. Recognise that there are incremental steps in the advocacy journey. Celebrate how far a group has come and what it means to the lives of people. New experiences – like meeting with a bureaucrat, politician, or editor – are as much a success as winning a favourable policy. They build confidence and empowerment that, in many ways, are the most profound and lasting changes. Saver them.
Interestingly these positive statements were based on a list written by a 1980s environmental organiser, Byron Kennard entitled ‘Ten Ways to Kill a Citizen Movement‘ – its also worth a read!
Do we need a new map? How the referendum changed the political landscape for campaigners.
For those concerned that this is becoming a blog about political theory. Fear not. Normal service will soon resume.
But a skill for any campaigner is considering how the changing external context is affecting the issue that they’re campaigning on. As a result over the last few months I’ve been thinking a lot about what the uncertain and turbulent times mean for the political context we find ourselves in.
For a long time we’ve considered politics to be about right and left, and tried to place our targets and audiences on that. We’ve always know it was a little simplistic – David Bull explores this some more – but it works when thinking about who to target and who we need to demonstrates supports our issue or cause.
When you have a right of center government you have to consider who are the allies that you might be able to build on the right that you can engage in your coalition, or think about how you frame your message to appeal to ‘right of center’ voters. And the same happens when you have a left of center government.
But so much feels like it’s changed over the last 12 months I’ve started to think about different approach when considering where we place our targets – especially if the negotiations around Brexit dominate the political debate in the UK over the coming years
Instead of thinking about Left – Right, I’ve been thinking about needing to work from a Populist – Establishment/Internationalist – Isolationist matrix.
It’s built on the premise that perhaps there are groupings across political parties that have as much in common as others within their parties – we’ve long known that there are factions within parities – but the referendum seems to highlight new alliances across parties – see the emergence of More United led by Paddy Ashdown, or the continuation of Britain Stronger In becoming Open Britain with strong cross party support.
Populist or Establishment – Lots has been written about the rise of Sanders and Corbyn on the political left, or populist movements on the right across Europe and beyond – all of whom have been able to position themselves as ‘anti establishment’. While part of the reason the Remain campaign failed in the EU referendum was that it wasn’t able to shed an establishment image against the more populist message that was being pushed by Vote Leave. This axis also throws up some interesting challenges for me about how many campaigning organisations and our messages are perceived – are we seen as too much part of the ‘establishment’?
Internationalist or Isolationist – this is a question about the range of policies that people want to see enacted, especially when it comes to Brexit. Internationalists are those that believe that the big challenges we face can only be solved by cooperation and collaboration across boundaries. Isolationists on the other hand believe that first and foremost it’s about solving the problems at home – it’s about ‘taking back control’ or ‘pulling up the drawbridge’ depending on your viewpoint.
But if that’s about political targets. What about the public?
This recent research from Social Market Foundation is well worth diving into. It suggests the public could now be grouped into eight political tribes – these aren’t going to replace the existing parties, but highlights that the political views of the public are more complex, and might shape the possible policy directions of the existing parties, as any good politician is going to think about how they can build an electoral coalition that can win.
I’ve tried to place the tribes onto the Populist – Establishment/Internationalist – Isolationist matrix – which is interesting to consider – especially when you reflect on the relative sizes of the different tribes.
The Social Market Foundation suggest that Our Britain accounts for 24% of the population, compared to 5% for the Community tribe. I think it shows that there is possibly a clear pull towards the Populist/Isolationist side of the matrix which could presents challenges that campaigners are going to have to overcome if politicians feel the need to tack towards that group to sure up electoral support.
I’m not suggesting that campaigners should adopt policies that will appeal to the Our Britain tribe, but as I’ve long argued, as campaigners we need to spend more time considering different perspectives, and understand that we often live in a bit of a ‘bubble’ so we need to become more aware of different tribes. This means finding ways our messages could resonate with other tribes, or find ways of expanding the tribes that support our calls, or at least giving the impression of more size.
Right, that’s the political theory lesson over – normal service will resume next week, but I’m interested in what people think – as a passionate internationalist I’m concerned about the need for voices in the populist and internationalist box that can energize and engage.
10 reflections from NCVO Campaigning Conference
It was the NCVO Campaigning Conference yesterday – it’s always an interesting day bringing together a mix of campaigners and public affairs colleagues from across a range of issues.
As always you walk away with a notebook – or in my case multiple scraps of paper – full of notes, thoughts, good ideas and top tips – and a frustration you couldn’t be in more than one session.
Here are 10 things that I took from my morning at the Conference – do check out #ncvocc for more insight.
1. Brexit is the focus for government – both Jess Phillip MP and Jonny Mercer spoke about how the Brexit negotiations will dominate everything that happens in Parliament and Whitehall in the coming years. It’s not just because it’s the most important political decisions that many of us will see in our lifetimes, but it’s also because it’s taking up so much capacity from civil servant and ministers other issues are getting pushed to the side. Campaigners looking to get noticed will have to push harder than ever.
2. MPs really are tired of email petitions – so this isn’t news, and you almost expect to hear it from MPs in sessions like this, but when two pro-campaigning MPs who are instinctively on our side tell you that they’re fed up of pre-written email petitions, you know it’s time to think long and hard about if the tactic is doing more to hinder than help. Jess reminded us that she get’s over 6,000 emails every day, and the response to any pre-written email is to ensure a member of staff responds with a standard template email.
3. It’s MPs staff you should be getting to know – they’re the gatekeepers to most MPs, the ones who make key decisions about diaries and briefings. Build good relationships with them and it can really help you to get your campaign in front of an MP. Treat them badly and don’t expect to see much progress.
4. Ask do you really need to be in a coalition – I was fortunate to chair a really lively and interesting session on coalition campaigning. Jane Cox from Principle Consulting reminded us that there is a cost to coalitions (perhaps Jane had ready my blog on this) – sometimes a strategic partnership is a better approach than the time commitment an effective coalition can be. Jane wrote a really useful post with some of her learning from coalition campaigning.
5. Keep going until the end – too many coalitions just focus on the immediate change outcome, and when they’ve succeeded in delivering that they stop. That can be a mistake and often ensuring that you monitoring implementation is as important. This is something that you should factor into your planning – especially when applying for foundation support for your campaign.
6. We need to talk about power – Heather Kennedy from the Fair Funeral Campaign reminded us of the principle from organising that you either have organised money or organised power – if you’re opposition is organised money it can be easy for them to ‘sit it out’ until you’re coalition has come to an end. It was one of the few references through the day to power – which given campaigning is often about winning feels like it was something missing from the conversation.
7. Celebrate success in a generous way – Heather shared about how the Funeral Poverty Alliance has built it’s coalition over the last few years and managed to put the issue on the agenda – it sounds like a really great campaign coalition which doesn’t have lots of governing documents but has placed building relationships through well facilitated strategy sessions and strong face-to-face relationships. Demonstrating that coalitions don’t have to be dominated by ‘egos and logos’!
8. When developing campaign leaders high commitment should mean high support – I really enjoyed the session on developing volunteers as campaign leaders – it felt that there was a recognition that in response to the declining effectiveness to e-petitions we need to look again at building our networks.
I’ve been aware of the work that Alice Fuller and her team at the MND Association have been doing at building a network of Campaign Contacts in their local groups over the last few years, but it was great to hear more about it – and to hear some honest reflections about how much the team have learnt about the level of support they need to provide, the commitment to training and investing in volunteers, but also letting go and trusting volunteers.
9. Metrics matter – Eleanor Bullimore spoke about the work, and the challenge of developing relevant metrics to measure the impact of the work that volunteer network at The Ramblers is having. Elle suggested that as well as developing metrics for going up the the ‘ladder of engagement’ we also need to be looking at those going down – recognising that some volunteers will find they have less rather than more to offer.
10.Trust us – Joining Alice and Eleanor was Katy Styles, one of MND Associations local campaigners. It was so refreshing to hear of the ways that Katy had been able to get involved in leading MND’s campaign (Katy has helped to produce this cracking toolkit) – and to be reminded that most people aren’t paid to campaign they do it because of a passion. The big message that I’m taking from Katy was as professional campaigners we need to let go of our concerns about brand and reputation and trust our volunteers.
Update – all the presentations from the sessions are available here.
Book Review – Blueprint for Revolution
One of the things I most enjoy about going on holiday is the opportunity to dip into a good book or two.
Over the last week I’ve really been enjoying Blueprint for Revolution – How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men and Other Non-Violent Techniques to Galvanise Communities, Overthrow Dictators or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popvic.
Popvic is one of the leaders of the CANVAS (The Centre of Nonviolent Actions and Strategies), the Serbian based organisation that was behind the movement overthrowing Slobodan Milošević, and has taken these lessons to help other movements around the world (this is a good read on the work of CANVAS).
It’d be easy to think that the book is only intended for those who are interested in learning about overthrowing dictators, but it’s not. I found the book packed full of practical insight and brilliant stories that are relevant to anyone involved in campaigning.
It’s an easy and enjoyable read, with Popvic mixing a range of stories from his personal experience with lessons from history.
I’ll be recommending it to anyone who asks me about what makes a good campaign as it’s packed full of practical wisdom that could be applied to anyone involved in movement building.
Here are a few lessons I’m walking away with after reading the book that I’ll be looking to apply in my campaigning;
1 – Focus on small victories to build your movement – those campaigns that focus first on small achievable battles that they can win are more likely to succeed. They understand that victories can help to give your supporters confidence that they’re part on a winning side, and also help to attract others to your cause.
2 – It takes time to plan your strategy – Popvic shares a lot about the time Otpor! in Serbia took to plan and build for the actions that they then took. He’s at time critical of movements that he feels have moved to action too quickly. To be successful you need to be meticulous as you can in your planning and preparation. Leave nothing to chance.
3 – Change comes when two or more groups come together for mutual benefit – campaigns can’t be won if they just reflect the views or worldview of just one group with a community – they need to bring together different groups. Throughout the book is the message that building unity, community and trust with others is central to anyone who wants to win.
4 – Focus on the ‘Pillars of Support’ – remembering the work of Gene Sharp, who suggested that every regime is held in place by a handful of pillars – apply enough pressure to one or more pillar, and the whole system will soon collapse. But this means thinking laterally and considering what the pillars are – for example for using businesses which have close connections with those you’re looking to target. See this for how the concept has applied to the campaign for equal marriage.
5 – Make it funny – campaign can be a serious business, but Popvic is a big advocate of using ‘laughtivism’ as a tool for change, using humor as a way of undermining your target, but having some fun at the same time.
The book is, as they say, available from all good bookshops – I’d highly recommend it.
How Theory of Change can help your campaign win gold
Suggesting campaigners spend some time thinking about Theory of Change doesn’t normally elicit the same energising response that cheering on Team GB in the Olympics does!
So while I’ve been spending the last two weeks watching the Olympics, it’s got me thinking about winning and the approach that UK Sport has taken to ensure this was our greatest ever Olympics.
It strikes me that they have an incredibly clear theory of change about how they we’re going to approach Rio 2016 and build on the success from London 2012.
But what could campaigners learn from the rush of medals Team GB has won in the last fortnight?
Alongside other colleagues at Bond, we’ve been working with Jenny Ross to produce resources on Theory of Change which we hope will help to provide a useful introduction, and encourage more campaigners to use it as an approach.
Theory of Change is a key approach for any campaigner who is serious about winning to take, but one I think many of us shy away from as it’s been built up into that’s impenetrably complicated, so we hope that this video and accompany resource will help to make it more accessible.
So drawing on the lessons from the success of Team GB here are a few thoughts on how theory of change can help you approach planning your campaigning;
1. Be clear on what success looks – It’s simplistic to suggest that all Olympic athletes are going for Gold. Yes that’s what they want to achieve, but many realise it’s unlikely, but for sports that UK Sport funds it’s clear on how many medals they’re looking to achieve.
Using Theory of Change can help you be clear on what your specifically looking to achieve and be able to articulate it for all those your working with.
2. Map out the route to success – Listen to any of the Olympians and they’ve been successful by building up to the competition in Rio. It has come about through months and years of planning and meeting milestones on the way – achieving certain targets in training, winning an important competition, etc.
In the same way using Theory of Change can help you to set out what the progress on the way that you expect to see before winning the overall change – it helps you to map out the goals that you need me to meet on the way.
3. Challenge your assumptions – One of the issues where UK Sport has been criticised is the way it ruthlessly allocates resources to sports where it believes it has a medal opportunity, even when they’re unpopular. It’s a harsh approach but one which clearly produces results by making sure resources are going to the right place.
In Theory of Change, we’re asked to test our assumptions and to make sure that the resources we have are being allocated in the most effective way to deliver the outcome – just because we’ve always done something doesn’t mean we should continue to do it.
4. Look for marginal gains – Those being Team GB success in the velodrome are famous for a focus on marginal gains, which is all about small incremental improvements in any process adding up to a significant improvement when they are all added together. It means when it comes to winning nothing is left un-investigated.
Theory of Change asks us to think about the context within which we’re working, and what that will mean for the work. To investigate and consider all the factors that might help or hinder us on our route to winning.
5. Reflect, review and repeat – Listen to the interviews with officials in UK Sport and they’re already planning for Tokyo 2020, building on the success and learning of the last 16 days.
It should be the same with Theory of Change, it isn’t just a document to be produced and forgotten. It should be a living document that responds and reacts to – looking forward to the next opportunity.
Getting the most from your time as a intern
I’m re-posting some of my favorite and still relevant posts from the archives. This post still feels relevant for those starting internships and volunteer this summer. It also provides me the opportunity to highlight;
- Applications for the next Campaign Bootcamp are open, including a stack of awesome scholarships that are available to help anyone who wants to come.
- I’m looking to recruit a Campaign and Policy Trainee to join the team at Bond. Applications close on Wednesday. It’s a great role, paid at the London Living Wage, for someone looking to make a start working in an exciting team (and with me!)
School’s out for the summer for university students, and some will be heading into summer internships with campaigning organisations across the UK and beyond.
Doing an (hopefully paid) internships is one of the routes for getting a permanent job in campaigning, it’s also a good way of finding out that this perhaps isn’t the career for you.
I’ve been fortunate to have hosted lots of great volunteers, interns and trainees in the organisation I’ve worked in over the years, and as such come up with my 8 top tips for getting the most out of your time as a volunteer/intern with a campaigns team.
1. Be honest – Find out why you’re being asked to do the tasks your being asked to do. Some of them won’t be glamorous, but there should be a good reason for everything you’re being asked to do. Asking lots of questions is one of the best ways of understanding how different tactics and approaches come together to make a campaign.
2. Be clear – Make sure you get the time you need at the start of your time with an organisation to understand what they want you to achieve from your time, and for you to explain what you hope to achieve. If there are certain areas that you’re interested in finding out about more, ask at the start as it’s often possible to arrange something. Be clear what your objectives from the time you’ll be volunteering are.
3. Be in the room – I always try to make an effort to invite volunteers and interns to different meetings that are going on. Some of them are directly related to a project they may be involved with, but often I see them as a good opportunity to learn. If you’re invited to these meeting, GO. You’ll almost certainly get an insight that you wouldn’t have done if you’d just stayed at your desk.
4. Be bold – It can be intimidating being a volunteer or intern, but be bold and if you think that somethings been overlooked in a meeting or if you have a good idea to contribute speak up. Chances are those involved will welcome the new insight that you’re able to bring.
5. Be a networker – Make time to try to get to know others around the organisation, approach people from different teams and ask if you might be able to meet them for lunch to find out more about their work. They’ll probably be happy to share more about it, go with some good question and you’ll come back an hour later with a better picture of how the work you’re doing links with the work of the rest of the organisation.
6. Be a learner – Ask those you’re working with for suggestions of good books, websites, reports and resources. It’s a good way to learn more about the campaigning craft and find out how others do it. Many organisations also have lunchtime sessions with internal/external speakers, go along to these as well.
7. Be cheerful – it sounds so obvious, but bring energy into the office you work in. There is little worse that a volunteer who appears uninterested. Get involved in making the tea or partaking in whatever other office routines you encounter.
8. Give feedback – At the end of your time let those you’ve been working with know what you’ve enjoyed doing, and what you found could do with some more consideration. You’ll be helping out future volunteers/interns.
What advice would you give to those coming to intern for you this summer?
Update – The team at Bright One have also come up with an excellent list of Do’s and Don’ts for an intern.
Networked Campaigns – a winning approach?
This graph has got me thinking.
It comes from Networked Change, a report that anyone serious about thinking at what campaigning in the 21st century is going to look like needs to be reading.
Written by Jason Mogus, a consultant-cum-movement builders who’s work with a range of North American based networks it explores what are the characteristics of winning campaigns today.
In the report, Jason, with his co-author Tom Lucas, argue that those campaigns that are having the most impact and traction on issues today are those that adopt a networked approach.
It’s a theme that’s echoed in this piece by Nicole Carty, who accurately identifies that the most successful online campaigns a had ‘one essential thing in common — they had a sustained offline presence’.
Even before Brexit, I’ve been thinking if many of the campaigning models that NGOs are using aren’t fit for purpose our current age. But with Brexit and how we respond to it, it makes me feel that it’s even more important to take a long hard look and ask how do we ensure we continue to win.
Where are we at the moment?
Jason and Tom suggest that a typology for campaigning organisations and structures could be seen as;
Membership campaigns – these are hierarchical organisations, often as a result of a democratic structure at the heart of them which set direction (and sometimes elects who’ll run them). They’re built on a structure of local groups/chapters made up of individuals who pay to be part of the organisations.
As a result they often as a result have significant resources which are drawn from membership fees, That means the structure can be accompanied by resources for insider lobbying and influencing. In the UK, you might associate this model with the Trade Unions, although elements of the membership approach exist in organisations like Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International.
Managerial campaigns again are hierarchical, but the accountability isn’t to a democratic structure, but rather to the board or management team of the organisation. Many will have advisory groups of service uses or supporters, but those groups don’t have control over the direction of the activities.
These campaigns largely direct their grassroots into the actions they should be taking, and while those grassroots are mobilised regularly, the strategic direction is controlled, and there is an emphasis on brand and staying ‘on message’ over a freedom to innovate.
Many NGO campaigns are based on this approach and arguably emerged at a time when membership organisations were in decline, but people want to engage in activism but had less time to do so, so did so by making a donation.
Mass mobilisations platforms like Avaaz and 38 Degrees which utilise the power, as a result they can be nimble and responsive to the public mood, often the tools of the platform are available to others (see Campaigns By You from 38 Degrees) but there strength is combining mass mobilisation tools, like email petitions, with high profile activities. An importance is placed on the volume of activity rather than the depth of it.
Networked campaigns according to the report are ‘they are typically led by a central body that frames the issues and coordinates energies towards shared milestones but also leaves a fair amount of freedom and agency to grassroots supporters and a diverse network of inside and cross movement allies’.
I think it’s an accurate typology, and as I look around many of those involved in NGO campaigning seem to be trying to make the move from managerial campaigns to mass mobilisation platforms.
But while that could be the right move, if you follow the logic of the lessons from the report, campaigns that want to have impact should be looking to move from bottom left to top right, building campaign approaches that harness the power.
Jason and Tom suggest that networked campaigns have the following principles;
The report suggests that it’s a journey that can be made for NGO campaigning, although its’s not without its challenges.
How to respond?
So what are the steps that an organisation could take to start to make the move to taking a more networked approach? Here are some areas that could be explored first.
1 – Have super sharp political analysis – networked campaigns don’t relinquish control over the political strategy, they spot the opportunities and the weak points in their opponents. That can mean rethinking the targets and strategies to avoid asking people ‘to support an approach that is too arcane to grasp, too single-issue to make a difference, or to join a fight that seems hopeless from the beginning’ instead looking at ‘action worthy‘ problems where activism can be focused.
2 – Create ways to open feedback loops – those campaigns that succeed are ones that actively listen to those in their audience and then react and respond. According to the report ‘Active audience input and listening can take the form of polling supporters on future priorities, letting supporters suggest and initiate their own online petitions, and allowing supporters to generate their own digital campaign content through images and other forms of testimonials’.
3 – Give away more control – the most successful campaigns don’t try to control everything, but instead ‘allow their supporters to customize and adapt campaign messages and visuals to better suit their local contexts’. That doesn’t mean that anarchy has to rule, the report is clear that networked organisations ‘carefully outline roles and responsibilities for their distributed leadership, prepare a digital “toolkit” for self-starters and convene regular checkins led by central staff to ensure that problems are addressed and that the overall movement is aligned’.
4 – Make it about the issue not the brand – Managerial campaigns can often be accompanied with a strong focus on building brand profile – that’s a natural and rational decision as they’re often being funded solely by an organisations. The report suggests that ‘When the campaign is designed to be open from the beginning, to function more like a hashtag and a shared rallying point for a wider coalition of independent actors, this enables a shift from cause campaign to wider social movement, and the result is often much greater impact and reach’. While that makes lots of sense, what it doesn’t explore is how an organisation can fund such a campaign when the pressures to support activism can often be significant.
5 – Test, fail, adapt – being inspired by the tech world – networked campaigns are approaching campaigning by ‘Taking a product development approach to campaign design, organizers are led to work on rapid “iterations” of their plans and messaging with daily status check-ins between point people in various departments’. Be less risk adverse and failing fast are key characteristics.
6 – Actively look outside of usual networks – At the heart of networked organsiations are bridge builders, individuals who a comfortable operating in a networked way they are ‘network builders must actively seek out “unusual suspects”, groups that are not natural allies but are deeply impacted by campaign issues’. This by Lisa Witter is excellent on the skills that bridge builders need.
7 – Tell great stories – the report suggests that those campaigns that succeed are ones that are able to frame a compelling case. In short, they can tell a good story.
Jason and Tom draw from the work of Jonah Sachs and his Wining the Story Wars book in suggesting that campaigns need to frame messages with heroes and villains, but perhaps importantly adding that ‘Many of today’s most successful campaigns employ a storytelling strategy that casts their grassroots supporter base as the heroes in this story and give them an active role in taking the villain to task. The NGO is the mentor in the story, not the hero, and the language of “you” taking action and eventually prevailing replaces “we”.’
8 – Focus on organising to build power – I’ve explored this theme before, but perhaps this is one of the biggest difference between the networked approach that they advocate to the mass mobilisation platforms, suggesting that.
I think this quote in the report form Geoffrey MacDougall, at Consumer Reports nails it ‘“You can’t always be mobilizing. Without a clear end date or win state, you’ll just burn through people and build a machine you constantly need to feed just to stay at the same scale. Hold back your power until you’re at one of those 1/0 state moments, then go for broke.”
Brexit – some immediate thoughts for campaigners
It’s been a difficult fortnight.
From the murder of Jo Cox MP, someone I didn’t know personally but had worked with a huge number of my friends and was a tireless champion for many of the causes that matter to me, to the Brexit vote and the ongoing political fallout from it, it’s hard to identify a more difficult couple of weeks in my professional career.
Judging from the news from the last 24 hours it’s not ending yet, but here are a few initial thoughts for campaigners – I suspect these will change in the coming days and weeks!
1. Be intentional about focusing on self care – I sent this to many people I worked with on Friday. We’re in turbulent times and they’ll require us to organise, but we can’t do that without looking after ourselves. We really do need to be in this for the long-run. This is also really good on the topic. Getting together, taking time off from social media, building community are all things that matter more than ever before.
2. Get out of the city and into the country – Many have written eloquently about the implications of the divisions or splits between the parts of the country that voted for Remain and Leave. This polling from Lord Ashcroft is useful to get a sense of the difference in views on a range of issues.
For all campaigners, if we want to grow support for our issues then we have to do that amoung enough groups to demonstrate their are political gains to be made from backing our issues – to do that will mean getting outside of the big cities. Failure to do so and there is a risk that the issues that we’re campaigning on are seen in the same way that the Remain campaign was, as part of the elite establishment.
At times like this I can’t help but think of the example of Shelter who deliberately sent there teams out and about to marginal seats to test their key messages for their 2015 election housing campaign, or Invisible Children who while found success Kony 2012 but honed their message from years and years of presentations to groups of young people.
Both are examples of campaigns that got the need to understand the way to build support is to get out and understand the public they’re looking to support their campaign.
3. Talk to people – On Wednesday evening I heard from academic Josh Kalla talk about research he’s done with community organisers in LA to prove its possible to change minds on transgender people through deep canvassing – they’ve found that from persuasion conversations you actually can change the minds of people.
But deep canvassing not only requires time and people but also listening and sharing personal stories – all resources that require investing in and are perhaps in short supply.
One of my criticisms of the Stronger In campaign was its apparent obsession with high-visibility campaigning like street stalls and leafleting outside stations. While they might have been a necessity given the resources they had, it never felt like a strategy for connecting people with personal reasons to vote Remain.
4. Recognise that expert voices don’t cut through to all – The Stronger In campaign has spent most of the campaign telling us how many experts were for Remain. I’m sure that was backed up and informed by polling, but as the polling below shows for a myriad of reasons many people don’t trust ‘experts’ any more. It means we need to think again about our messengers as well as our messages.
5. Bring our issues together – Our campaigning can sometimes pit one issue against another, but in wake of the referendum we need to explore how our campaigning issues are connected together and actively finding common cause. It’s a strong finding that comes out the Networked Change report (which I need to write more about) that those networks that are more successful are ones which cross movement boundaries – we need to find ways to connect issues together.
6. We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for – In the coming weeks and months we’ll need to organise ourselves with plans and strategies that respond to the situation we find ourselves in. Sometimes I live in the belief that others will be the leaders to help navigate a path forward, but if you’re reading this its down to you, me and other campaigners to explore solutions that allow us to do that.
7. We have #MoreInCommon – On Wednesday afternoon I stood with 5,000+ others in Trafalgar Square to say that we have #MoreInCommon to celebrate the life of Jo Cox. The event, which was one of 20+ around the world, was organised in just 5 days by friends and colleagues of Jo Cox. None of those friends wanted to be organising the event in such circumstances, but the way they went about wanting to celebrate the life was inspiring, helping to ensure the message from Jo Cox’s maiden speech that ‘We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us’ was shared. It’s a message to hold onto in all of the current uncertainty.