Putting life into your campaign plans

This month I want to pick up on my story that I started last month reflecting on an experience that I had several years ago at the ski resort of Borovets in Bulgaria supporting Roma communities across the country with their campaigning plans.

You may recall that all seemed to be going really well until we moved onto the penultimate session for the workshop, where we were focusing on what I would call the future story or the chain of events that you will make happen that will help bring about change on your issue.

Last month I focused on how the representative of the funder was willing to get up and persuade the group that she actively wanted them to do things, to fail, to reflect on that failure, and then use their learning to strengthen their campaigning plan. And she wanted to understand their learning journey.

This intervention really seemed to help, at least with most of the group, and I was able then to move on and talk about this concept of a future story. I firmly believe that in addition to a strong message as a campaigner, you need to be able to articulate, in a crisp and clear way, the future story that you are going to make happen, working with others, that will bring about the change you want to see.

At the end of the session one of the group said to me, “Jonathan, this is all really interesting, but I just don’t see how I can apply in practice.” It was a totally fair challenge. I had been able to convey an interesting concept that he was engaging with intellectually, but just couldn’t see the relevance to his own professional practice.

Once again, I used the tea break to take stock and think about how I could address his legitimate concern.

The way I tried to do it was to begin to tell them a story.

It was a story based upon the reality of what they had already shared with me: that they were working with a network of parents, who were looking to improve local health services in rural communities. I began to talk through with them how the parents might develop a campaign message, how they might develop a future story, how they might begin to make that future story happen, what might happen along the way, how they might reflect on setbacks and failure, and how they might amend their plan. I talked them through a number of stages of this future story with ensuing setbacks, until ultimately this group of parents were able to succeed.

This fabricated story, albeit based on the reality of what they had previously shared with me, seem to give them that lightbulb moment, whereby they could see how this concept of a future story could help them.

It was such a powerful learning moment for me. Then after this workshop, I wrote up the story and it is still available on my website. If you have time to take a look, I would be intrigued to know whether it helps you understand how this concept of a future story can help us as campaigners.

In my work supporting these Roma communities across Bulgaria, this was a pivotal moment.

Not only had they understood the concept in practical terms relating to their own work, I would then have a good fortune to stay connected with this group over the next few years. We would meet occasionally for online catch ups, and they would kindly fund the necessary translation services for me to engage with them. But it was a privilege to hear how they were developing their future story, how they were reflecting on their learning, and how they were amending their future story as their learning developed.

The group would go on to have some major campaigning successes including reform of the health service in regards to maternity checks for women in Roma communities.

Yet the critical thing wasn’t so much the success, but the fact that they could cope with adversity and setbacks. They also showed me that they could handle a variety of different scenarios and that they could debate and discuss what they had learned and what they could take from this learning to enhance their plan.

I will never forget that experience, and it showed me that this incredibly simple concept of a future story can be such a powerful way to bring life to your campaign plan. Do let me know what you think and whether you think this concept could help you?