What is the point of your campaigning? Is it policy change? To recruit new supporters? To raise your profile? To raise money? What is your goal? Effective campaigning needs focus and a clear goal. All good campaigns need these two …
This is another sad obstacle. Here the team or organisation is undermined by internal conflict. Sadly this can be a problem especially in small NGOs, but it does undermine effective campaigning. Clearly this disharmony needs to be tackled before the …
Here campaigning is undermined because individuals have their own agendas and seek opportunities to develop their agendas. This will always be tricky when you are dealing with passionate campaigners, but I think an astute organisation will try to work with …
Have you seen this one? So much effort goes into producing the research report and maybe getting some media coverage, and then you just collapse exhausted with little idea of how all this action happens so that something else happens. …
This is another classic. With almost all of the advocacy campaigns consultancy work that I have done over the past 10 years or so this issue comes up. I find myself saying I really don’t mind what your definition of …
Obstacle 5 – lack of a common understanding of advocacy campaigns Read more »
This is a sad one. The obstacle here to campaigning comes down to not having shared values. Again as with earlier obstacles, it can help to be explicit about these values and not to base your actions on assumptions. Are …
This is a classic. We would love to campaign, but we need a full-time campaigns post. What rubbish! I say give me an hour a week and we can begin to make things happen. With a clear focus and plan, …
Here the campaigners are ready, but the organisation’s leadership is nervous and the campaign stalls. An explicit risk assessment can be a great tool to confront this nervousness and show how you are going to minimise any risks. The more …
I have seen this happen so many times – people say we would love to campaign but we need more research. Yes, research is vital for effective campaigning, but it can also be a major delaying tactic. Be wary of …
Back in 2011, I first wrote about a new area of interest in campaigning for me – the internal obstacles to effective campaigning. I had been struck, over the previous few years running training courses around the world, about how …
