Blog
Campaigning with your heart and your head
I recently came back from Almaty in Kazakhstan, where I was running an advocacy campaigns workshop for parent groups across the country. It was great to have the opportunity to do this in person, despite the temperature being 36 degrees! I ran through the twelve key...
Climate refugees?
Over the past few months I have been doing some work for a global organisation working to support refugees to help them think through some of the advocacy angles around the challenge of climate change. This is a really important question and one that has been around...
How do you make a campaign take off?
One question that I have been thinking quite a lot about over last few months is how do you make a campaign take off? In a lot of my work around the world, my initial focus for support is helping people think through their campaign message. And, as I written about...
Biggest online assignment
Back in 2017 I was invited by the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) to develop an advocacy training programme for use around the world. After we had piloted it in Nepal, it was launched in 2018 and has, so I understand, been used by Red Cross/ Red...
Digital advocacy
The final issue which we explored at the recent Helvetas workshop in Northern Macedonia with colleagues from across the Balkans was digital advocacy campaigns. In this short video, I offer some reflections on some simple principles for effective advocacy campaigns...
Polarised environments
Another issue which we explored at the recent Helvetas workshop in Northern Macedonia with colleagues from across the Balkans was running advocacy campaigns in polarised environments. Sadly this is the reality for many people around the world trying to run advocacy...
Future story video
Late last year I had the good fortune to travel out to Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia to support a regional advocacy workshop run by the Swiss INGO, Helvetas. This regional network had been running for several years and was well established, and Helvetas wanted me to...
Impact in Honduras
Firstly, I'd like to wish all the readers of my blog a happy New Year! I can only wish that we all have a better year and that travel once again becomes a possibility for those of us who can and want to do so. Before the last year finished, I got some really...
2021 what a year!
Despite all of the craziness of 2021, I have somehow managed to have an incredible year. My international work has grown wider even though I have only made one trip to North Macedonia for Helvetas in October. To give some sense of my work over the last 12 months, I...
My first international assignment
I’m just back from my first international assignment in a while. I had the pleasure of working in Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia supporting an advocacy network across the Western Balkans. There was a focus on three key areas: Firstly, we discussed the importance of...
Something different
Over the last year I have had the opportunity to do something different in my training. I was asked by NCVO to deliver one day of their five day charity management awareness course. The course is run for military personnel in the final two years of their time in the...
Campaigning and service delivery
I've done a few assignments recently with the dilemma of campaigning and service delivery has come up. You know this dilemma – an organisation asks should they be providing direct services to people or should they be campaigning? And this issue has come up within...
Going on a fishing trip
I've recently been doing some work supporting a group in Kenya to develop an advocacy campaign, and I heard myself encouraging them to go on a fishing trip. What did I mean by that? Well, we had spent a lot of time thinking about our campaign message, our targets and...
Change the future story
I've recently been working 'in' Sierra Leone, and I recently met up with colleagues, who urgently told me that they needed to change the future story. We've been working well together discussing a common approach to advocacy campaigning, and agreeing our key messages...
Developing a future story in Liberia
I recently ran a workshop session for two INGOs to help them in developing a future story in Liberia. They were looking to launch a new report as the catalyst for a new piece of advocacy around food security and nutrition. What was immediately striking for me was that...
Inspired by a future story
Over the past few months, I’ve been supporting a number of groups around the world to develop their theory of change, or future story, for their campaign. In both Tajikistan and Ukraine, I’ve been supporting coalitions of parents’ groups initially by providing them...
An alternative approach to M&E
Last month I was invited to speak on a panel at a meeting of advocacy campaigners from across MSF worldwide on my approach to M&E. I found this invitation really timely in encouraging me to document my more recent thinking on this subject, which has been evolving...
Client list
I was looking at a colleague's website the other day, and was very taken by his client list. Since 2004, I have worked for a variety of clients both in the UK and internationally. I am now one client shy of 40 over this period with many of my clients coming back to me...
Confidence and Humility
Over the past few months in the advocacy training that I have been running across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, I found myself focusing on two words: confidence and humility. I found that having done an initial training in advocacy, it is often the case that people...
2020 visitors
I've just had the report through for my 2020 visitors to this site. Over the past 12 months there were over 1,000 visitors from 88 countries! While maybe not too surprisingly over half of these visitors came from the UK, I was really pleased to see Bulgaria in the top...
Speaking with impact online
It is only a couple of months since I published my new book on public speaking, and I am already thinking that it needs a new chapter - speaking with impact online. When I wrote my latest book, I was thinking about giving a speech in public to an audience there in...
Campaigning is a global language
Over the last few days I have run a couple of webinars which have shown me, if I needed showing, that campaigning is a global language. The webinars were held with colleagues in Tajikistan and Ukraine. Both sessions were follow up sessions to earlier training sessions...
Another way to communicate campaigning
Today I've launched another way to communicate campaigning. After my website, books and video courses, I am delighted to have done a new audio course on campaigning. I know myself that I gain a lot from listening from podcasts. And I like the approach taken by...
New Book on Public Speaking
Well, it's been another labour of love but my new book on public speaking has just been published! Speaking with Impact: an Essential Guide to Public Speaking is based on over 30 years of me giving talks and speeches in public. This book offers a practical guide to...