Category: sector issues

Are we really out-of-touch, ineffective and bureaucratic? Thoughts on Charles Secrett's article

Charles Secrett has an article on the Guardian website today which concludes by saying ‘Today’s activists regard once radical organisations as part of the NGO establishment: out-of-touch, ineffective and bureaucratic. The wheel has turned full circle. It is time to rethink and reorganise again’.
Secrett who was executive director of Friends of the Earth (FoE) in the 1990s uses his article, written to mark the organisations 40th birthday, to argue that Greenpeace and FoE are “conservative and unimaginative” and their “ambition is lacking through the fear of being seen to be too political”
I’m sure the article will get passed around campaigning organisations in the coming days and will lead to some interesting debates across desks. That’s something to welcome.
Here are a few brief thoughts on some of the comments that Secrett makes.
I agree with the suggestion that we’ve lost some of our creativity in the sector and that perhaps we’ve become over reliant on sending campaign postcards or emails to our campaign targets, rather than exploring more creative forms of action. Secrett writes that ‘Street theatre, consumer boycotts, marches and rallies, backed by authoritative analysis and political campaigning, underpinned strategy’ in the early days of FoE.
It’s good to read the article and be reminded of the way that FoE and others made use of legal channels and other tactics in their earlier campaigning. From this the challenge comes about the need to have a discussion not just about how we use a broader range of tools and tactics, but also how we think more creatively about the targets that we focus on.
I disagree with the assertion that Secrett is making that ‘managers, administrators, communicators and fundraisers outnumber campaigners and researchers’ in our organisations is a wholly bad thing. Why? It’s because it overlooks how vital they can be to running an effective campaign. A good communicator can help to craft a campaigning message that has real impact with a new group that’s currently unengaged, while an effective administrator is the person that plays a pivotal in organising to get activists together.
From my experience many of those ‘managers, administrators, communicators and fundraisers’ have started careers working for NGOs, so they can use the skills and experiences they have to increase the impact of our campaigning. They can be as much a ‘campaigner’ as those who have the word ‘campaign’ in a job title.
I agree that at times some of the larger NGOs haven’t been as agile as they should be. I’ve written about this before and argued that one of the main things that we can learn from movements such as 38 Degrees is that being first to market matters more than ever before.
I disagree with the inference that the higher-levels of activism that built FoE and Greenpeace are the only ones that matter when it comes to policy change. One of the main contributions that organisations like FoE, Greenpeace and WWF have made is that they’ve taken activism from a small group of individuals to a much broader community of activist. We need to accept that not everyone wants to be involved in direct action, but our strength can come from being part of a movement. Sure, we need to continue to debate the most effective tools to use but I think we should find a way that as many as possible can engage.
I agree that we need to think more about how to counter corporate PR. In part, this is a product of the success of our activism which means that companies and other institutions have felt the need as Secrett says ‘employ legions of PR firms to keep campaigners at bay, and support climate deniers and free market optimists to muddy the waters of public opinion’. I don’t think we’ve done enough to understand the extent of these links and the impact that they’ve had on the debate.
No doubt, this is a debate that is going to continue in the coming days. Secrett has highlighted some important challenges, but his article fails to acknowledge a number of things. The role of organisations like FoE and Greenpeace in creating global movements around these issues, the importance of evidence based research to ground our policy recommendations, the changing nature of the media and the way many organisations have innovated around digital media.
What parts of Secrett’s article do you agree or disagree with?

Great free daily organising tips from @neworganizing Institute

I’ve just signed up to get ‘Tip of the Day’ from the New Organising Institute. They’re based in the US and every weekday they send a free tip about organising, many of which would be relevant to campaigners in the UK. How brilliant is that?
This is my favourite so far (which I’ve reproduced in full to illustrate how brilliant they are*). I can’t encourage you enough to sign up for the tips….
The difference between goals, strategies and tactics by Nick Gaw
I see so many campaigns get excited about a new tool, and then use it without considering how it impacts their strategy. There are some really sexy organizing tools out there. In the midst of some amazing innovation, it can be all too easy to get excited about using a particular tool and forget to think about where it fits in to the grand scheme of your primary objective. Unless you can use it to reach your goal, it’s not worth spending time and money on. So, here’s an example to demonstrate the difference between goals, strategy and tactics.
Your Goal: Getting backstage at a Justin Bieber concert.
Possible strategies, with accompanying tactics bulleted:
Strategy 1. Become friends with Justin Bieber’s mom

  • Join her book club
  • Join her church
  • Get your mom to introduce you

Strategy 2. Get Justin to notice you from on stage and invite you back

  • Procure front-row tickets
  • Coordinate posters and outfits among other attendees
  • Throw something attention-getting onstage

Strategy 3. Become friends with the bouncer

  • Dress in a way that he notices
  • Buy him beer
  • Date his best friend

Notice that the tactics for each strategy are unique, specific, and don’t fit any of the other strategies. If you can stay committed to your goal, put creative strategies into place, and use tactics that are effective in your specific situation, you’ll be in good shape!
And remember, if a tool or tactic helps you implement your strategy to reach your goal, you should use it (Justin Bieber’s mom probably appreciates a nice young person in her book club). If it doesn’t, then it’s only going to be a distraction (throwing something attention-grabbing on stage at her church is probably counter-productive).
If a tool fits your strategy and tactics, use it! But make sure you know why you’re using it, and how it benefits your work.
Go to http://neworganizing.com/tag/noi-tips/ for more and to sign up.

* if you’re from the wonderful folk at New Organising Institute, firstly thanks and secondly let me know if you don’t want this tip to be published in full here…

Five thoughts for those campaigning in smaller organisations

I work for a large NGO (and always have) so I’m not permitted to attend the ‘Campaigning in a small organisation‘ session that NCVO are running tomorrow (although I might follow it via #F4CCSO), but here are few thoughts that I might pass on if I had the opportunity to do so. What would you add?
1. Don’t skip the planning – It might sound boring/time-consuming/hard to do (*delete as appropriate) but it’s worth the investment of time and energy, and I promise you it’ll mean you’ll have a better campaign at the end of it (I’ve learnt the hard way). Bad campaigning comes from rushing in without pausing to consider what you want to change, who can change it and how you can influence them, so make use of the advocacy cycle as you set out. There are excellent tools available, start here at the NCVO website & don’t be afraid to ask campaigners from other organisations to advise and help you. Campaigning for most is more than a job, it’s a vocation and most campaigners are only too pleased to help (look for example at this example from the Digital Charity group).
2. Capture the stories of success and failure – Become meticulous about recording what’s working and what’s not working so well. Use the stories of success, for example a comment from a local decision maker, feedback from a beneficiary, a campaign victory, etc, to build a case to invest more resources in campaigning. Use the not so good to learn for next time.
3. Small should mean agile – Agility is becoming a precious commodity in campaigning. The power of the internet means that you don’t have to have a massive print budget or a network of thousands of supporters to get notice. As a small organisation, you have an inherent advantage when it comes to making quick decisions, so make the most of it.
4. Don’t under-estimate the power of a coalition – Every organisation, no matter what it’s size, has something to contribute to a coalition. It could be the ability to connect with a specific audience, expertise and insight or links with a specific beneficiary group. Whatever it is, find others working on your issue, diverse groups often get noticed by decision makers.
5. Never stop believing that you can change the world! It’s quoted too often but Margaret Mead was onto something when she said “Never underestimate the power of a small but committed group of people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has’
What other thoughts would you share with those attending tomorrow?

EU Citizens Initiative – All you wanted to know (and much more beside)

From the www.eu2011.hu

Yesterday, the European Council adopted a regulation that will allow the ‘European Citizens Initiative’ to go ahead from early 2012.
A key part of the Lisbon Treaty, the initiative allows a group of  citizen to bring legislative proposals to the European Commission, providing they can gain the support of a million other Europeans.
The documentation is suitably dense but in summary, I understand it as follows;
The initiative allows any group of citizens the opportunity to directly approach the European Commission with a proposal for a legal act of the Union. To do this you need to get a million (verifiable) signatures within 12 months from at least 7 member states (and achieve thresholds in each of these countries). Then the initiative will then get considered by the Commission who may or may not act on it and provide you an opportunity for a Public Hearing at the European Parliament.
I have my doubts about the impact that this will have. It’s a nice idea but the opportunities that it really affords to influence or change EU law if you can collect 1 million signatures seem weak. I’ll leave it to readers of the blog to suggest if they think it’s an effective campaigning method or not.
A more detailed summary of the Regulation is below, although the Commission has committed to bring out more comprehensive and user-friendly guide on the citizens’ initiative shortly;

  • The initiative in theory affords citizens the same rights as members of the European Parliament and Council to submit proposals for legal acts of the Union.
  • Organisers need to get signatures (known as statements of support) from citizens in at least one-quarter of Member States – so 7 at present.
  • Plus achieve a minimum number from each of these states, which is equal to 750 signatures per MEP from the member state.
    • So you only need to get 4,500 Estonians to agree with you (by virtue of having 6 MEPs) but you’ll need 74,250 Germans to agree with you (because the country has 99 MEPs).
  • It needs to be organised by a ‘Citizens Committee’ comprised of individuals from at least 7 member states.
  • Text needs to be submitted in advance (in any official language) for approval by the Commission who will give this within 2 months.
  • The Commission will also run a website that will hold a register of all valid initiatives.
  • The Commission can reject it if they feel that the initiative does not propose a ‘legal act of the Union‘, is ‘manifestly abusive, frivolous or vexatious‘, or ‘is contrary to the values of the Union‘.
  • Citizens of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland and UK won’t need to provide a valid ID number as part of signing. Citizens of other states will.
  • The organisers of the initiative need to be transparent about any sources of funding they are receiving to promote the petition.
  • Statements of support (names on the petition) need to be collected within 12 months of the initiative being approved by the Commission.
  • Names can be collected on-line and the Commission will provide open-source software to facilitate this.
  • When the target has been reached, the names will need to be submitted to the relevant authority within the a Member State for the purpose of verification. This has to be completed within 3 months and comes at no cost to the organisers.
  • The initiative should then be submitted to the Commission accompanied by the relevant paperwork.
  • The amount spent in support of the initiative needs to be declared to the Commission when it is submitted, and must not be any more than the limits set down for political parties.
  • The Commission will receive the initiative, meeting with representatives of the initiative at a ‘appropriate level’ and will set out its political and legal conclusions within 3 months, including the action it will/won’t take.
  • After this has happened the organisers of the petition will have the opportunity to present the initiative to a public meeting, organised by the European Parliament, where a representative of the Commission will attend.
  • The idea will be reviewed every 3 years.
  • The rest of the document covers the way that the regulation will be implemented in Member States, some issues around data protection and also about delegation of powers.

So when might we see the first successful initiatives?
A year has been allowed for the Commission and Member States to prepare for it implementation so the first initiatives won’t be able to be submitted until March 2012 (and could take 2 months for approval, so May 2012). Then assuming it takes at least (and I reckon it’ll be much longer) 6 months to collect the required signatures (November 2012), another 3 months for Member States to verify the information (February 2013), then another 3 for the Commission to consider the initiative (May 2013), we could see the first Public Hearings happening in early Summer 2013.

Campaign tweeters you should be following

A very lazy Sunday evening post, but here is my list of some of the people I think you should be following on twitter for interesting thinking about campaigning.
It’s the list of campaigning people I look out for in my twitter. I’ve tried to avoid the corporate feeds from organisations but I’m sure I’ve missed people.
Additional contributions encouraged.
Monday 14 Feb – UPDATED with some new additions.
@forumforchange – Forum for Change from NCVO – consistantly useful sources of information, UK NGO sector should always grateful for what Forum For Change is doing.
@fairsay – Duane Raymond, Fairsay – was talking about e-campaigning before Malcolm Gladwell had heard about Twitter!
@j_chatterton – Jonny Chatterton, 38degrees – the latest from 38 degrees and lots of other interesting things aside.
@mcgregormt – Matthew McGregor, Blue State Digital – works for Obama’s ‘favourite internet strategy firm’ but used to work for War on Want so get’s UK campaigning.
@SMKcampaigners – Campaign Central from Sheila McKechnie Foundation – supporting the next generation of campaigners.
@brandzel – Ben Brandzel – appears to have been involved in almost every big e-campaign you’ve heard about, taught me the concept of ‘crisis-tiunity’ which I’ve bored colleagues with every since!
@HUdigital – Hands Up Digital – great little campaigns consultancy run by former colleague of mine (@benclowney).
@paulhilder – Paul Hilder – involved with Avaaz, author of Contentious citizens: Civil society’s role in campaigning for social change.
@kelcurrah – Kel Currah – should have more followers, heads up What World Strategies, knows lots about global campaigning.
@PolDyn – Political Dynamite – I’m biased, but constantly challenging blog about what’s working in campaigning.
@GlenTarman – Glen Tarman, BOND – consistently useful source of info about campaigning and the UK development scene.
@BenNiblett – Ben Niblett, Tearfund – my boss but also tweeter of interesting things, especially on climate change.
@stevenbuckley – Steven Buckley, Christian Aid – lots of useful tweets about comms trends, my bridge into the scary world of corporate comms and fundraising!
@timsowula – Tim Sowula – fellow collaborator in the short lived ‘Young Campaigners Forum’. Thinks alot about comms and campaigning.
Suggested by @BenNiblett
@imchrisjohnston – Chris Johnson – author of the brilliant http://activismismyrent.wordpress.com/ blog
Suggested by @timsowula
@aaronjohnpeters – Aaron John Peters – blogs at http://radicaldandy.wordpress.com/
@caspertk – Casper ter Kuile, Co-founder of the UKYCC – blogs at http://www.caspertk.co.uk
@KenRoth– Ken Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
@AdamRamsay – Adam Ramsay – blogs at http://www.brightgreenscotland.org
Suggested by @haroldforbes
@billmckibben – Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org
Update 2
@nicola_gilbert – Nicola Gilbert, Campaign Effectiveness Officer at NCVO
@hackofalltrades – Liam Barrington-Bush
@emmataggart – Emma Taggart

When a NGO admits it’s wrong. WWF and it’s (non) involvement in the Save Our Forests campaign

It’s not often you see a big NGO come out in public and admit that they got something wrong.
So it’s great to see WWF put out a statement today effectively apologising for its lack of public action and clarifying its stance on UK forest sell-off in response to some harsh criticism it’s received in the press this week.
It’s a spat that started in the Guardian on Monday when environmentalist Jonathan Porritt accused major charities, including WWF, RSPB and the National Trust of “collectively betrayed” for their failure to support the grassroots campaign that has grown in the recent weeks to halt the sale of English forests, while Polly Toynbee put the boot in on Tuesday accusing green groups of ‘keeping their heads down over selling off forests’.
Today, WWF have responded with an excellent statement on their website confessing that they should have done more from the start. 
Porrit stated “There have been no statements, no mobilisation of its massive membership, no recognition that this is an absolutely critical issue for the future wellbeing of conservation in the UK. Nothing”.
Suggesting that the lack of action had “made themselves look foolish and irrelevant as one of the largest grassroots protests this country has seen for a long time grows and grows without them – indeed, despite them.”
There is no doubt that the campaign mounted by 38 degrees and others has gathered a huge amount of momentum in a short time, it’s petition has just gone over the half a million mark.
Perhaps most interestingly, it feels like it’s not only the ‘usual suspects’ who are signing on. A non-campaigning friend of mine posted the link to the petition on Facebook tonight encouraging people to sign, and the Observer reported of the opposition of many land owners last weekend. 
So I’m impressed to see the response from WWF today, who write of the statement that ‘It’s fair to say this is a bit overdue as loads of you have asked us what we’re doing about the proposed government sell-off (or long-term leasing) of UK forests’
Going on to explain ‘Not having much of a history working on UK forests, we did most of our work behind the scenes and focused our public firepower on issues like illegal logging via our ‘What Wood You Choose?’ campaign. We are working with peers getting an amendment tabled in the House of Lords and had questions asked in parliament, but to be honest we did precious little in public’ (emphasis mine)
In time it might be right to ask if criticising environmental NGOs in such a public way was the right approach by Porritt? As an unnamed source in the original article says ‘Rule one of clever campaigning is that you don’t criticise members of your team, at least not in public’ and WWF say they’ve been working on this behind the scenes.
But for me this spat has once again highlights some of the challenges that the more ‘traditional’ NGOs need to address in their campaigning.
1. Agility
Movements like 38 degrees are so well placed, because they can respond within hours not days. They lack the restrictions of charitable status and often no desire for a seat at the table in ongoing consultation. Combine this with a phenomenal e-mail network mean that they can be ‘first to market’. The challenge that many ‘traditional’ NGOs face is that they’re not set up to turn around a response in the time that online campaigns like 38 degrees.
No doubt heated discussions have been happening at all the NGOs that Porritt choose to criticise (as you can see implied by the response from WWF), but the very nature of these organisations mean that multiple departments need to be involved and opportunities and risks needs to be carefully calculated, but that whole process takes time, and internal compromises often have to be negotiated. In this digital age waiting even 24 hours to respond or act can be too long.
2 – Collaboration
Within a day or so 38 degrees had already collected the first 50,000+ names on its petition, and then you have to ask how much value there is in starting a second competing petition. This for me is the second challenge are traditional NGO prepared to ‘brand’ and ‘profile’ aside and collaborate for the common good when situations like this arise?
Would the NGOs named be prepared to promote the 38 degrees petition assuming they agreed with the essence of what it was calling for?
On this regard I’ve got a huge amount of respect for WWF for saying in their statement ‘To their great credit, 38 Degrees organised a massive public response (sign here if you haven’t already)’ but no doubt that line will cause some anxiety in the organisation as supporters are encouraged to share their valuable data with others. 
Collaboration is essential, and to do it well campaigners need to recognise the different roles and approaches needed for effective campaigns.
Save our Forests is no different, surely it’d be of huge value to have organisations with both years of experience in nature conservation joining the campaign and impressive contacts within Parliament to be involved.  But to do that requires someone to initiate the collaboration, and in situations like this perhaps it’s not clear who that should be.
3. Accountability 
Perhaps it wasn’t Porritt’s criticism and the Guardian articles that lead WWF to clarify their position. The statement from WWF certainly indicates that they’ve also been hearing complaints from supporters saying ‘The scale of passion around this issue has led to a lot of emails as to WWF’s role’.
This case seems to be another example of the increasingly complex relationship that organisations have with their supporters. The tools of collaboration and campaigning aren’t just in the hands of a few professionalised campaigners, they’re available to supporters to lobby the organisations they belong to. It also shows that many campaigners are active in more than one campaigning network.
So congratulation on an excellent response from WWF, a response that already seems to be yielding appreciation from supporters with one writing;
Thank you. As a WWF member and supporter of the Save Our Forests campaign, I’m very glad you’ve joined the campaign. The statement above is everything we could have hoped for.
Now I’m left wondering if we’ll see the National Trust and RSPB come out with a statement in recent days.

Protecting the right to campaign

Whatever campaigning tactics you or your organisation use, we should be grateful we live in a country where free speech is protected and the right to campaign upheld.
That’s why campaigners of all styles and viewpoints should be concerned about the erosion of campaigning space, much of which happened under the last government.
This film made by campaigners from People and Planet shows what happens when they recently tried to collect petitions in a busy Birmingham shopping centre, while the accompany post details a number of recent examples where activists have been asked to ‘move on’ for campaigning in public spaces owned by private companies (often shopping centres or other similar spaces in towns and cities).
The  government has plans to introduce a Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill into parliament in the coming months and I’ve argued before that this bill should remove some of the worst bits of legislation the reduce campaigning space in London and around the UK, but we need to do more.
I’d strongly encourage you to add your name to the petition that 38degrees are running which wants to “Reclaim the right to campaign” and asks you to “support the right to protest in areas which are freely open to the public but which are privately owned, such as the walkways of shopping centres.”
You and your organisation may never plan to make use of the opportunity, but we should stand alongside other campaigning organisations who do to ensure that we keep the maximum possible opportunities to exercise the opportunity to campaign in the UK.

NCVO consultation on Freedom of Information

I’ve been meaning to blog for some time about  the usefulness of Freedom of Information as a campaign tool. Having used it to some limited extent I can see the value of it. NCVO are running a consultation on how it’s been used by campaigning organisations at the moment. They hope the results will lead to a guide on using it effectively as a campaign tool.
I’d encourage you to get involved and share your experiences – http://forumforchange.org.uk/forum/topics/ncvo-freedom-of-information