Blog
Speaking with impact
Over the past month I have been running a series of workshops for small charities supporting refugees and migrants to help their volunteers and staff develop their confidence to speak with impact in public. I do think that the ability to speak with impact in public is...
Obstacles to campaigning – what do you think?
Since March of last year I have been running a series of posts on my blog about the obstacles to campaigning. If campaigning is as simple as I try to make out, why is it often so difficult to campaign? I've suggested that there are a number of obstacles that...
Coping with ‘proxy reporting ‘
My advice here – and it is pressure that many advocacy campaigners are up against to come up with their indicators – is the same as I offered to the bureaucratisation challenge. It is so important to show that you are committed to being held accountable and to showing...
Free preview of my new book
Sceptical about the need for yet another book about campaigning - check out the free preview of my new book to see what you think!
‘Proxy reporting’
The final obstacle that I have observed is the internal pressure to develop key performance indicators for advocacy campaigns. Now don’t get me wrong – targets can be very important for advocacy campaigns at the right times of the campaigning cycle. But rigid targets...
Promotional video for my new book
Just done a short promotional video for my new book ....
New book and online training course
No blog posts for a while as I have been working to launch my new book and online training course on campaigning I am really excited to have published my book - Campaigning for Change: an Essential Guide for Campaigning around the World, which offers a simple and...
Campaigning for change – part of our common humanity
I’ve just come back from running an advocacy workshop for the Red Cross in Nepal, and I know that I have written about this before, but I am yet further enthused that advocating or campaigning for change is one vital part of our common and shared humanity. Despite...
Coping with the ‘bureaucratising’ of your campaign
I think that it is so important first of all to show as an advocacy campaigner that you are committed to being held to accountable and that you want no special favours. But you want to work in an environment that encourages responsiveness and innovation and allows you...
‘Bureaucratising’ campaigning
Another trend that I have observed especially in larger organisations is an increasing bureaucratisation of advocacy campaigns, by which I mean the campaign is almost suffocated by internal requests for plans, updates and monitoring. Don’t get me wrong; the advocacy...
Coping with the ‘marketising’ of your campaign
It can be very difficult to cope with this ‘marketising’ pressure on your campaign as very often this pressure will come from senior levels of the organisation. Yet there needs to be a continued focus on what the advocacy campaign is all about; the advocacy campaigner...
Examples of ‘marketising’ in campaigning
Some examples of this 'marketising' happening are: An internal pressure for headlines for the organisation irrespective of whether this is helpful for the advocacy campaign. There can be stages of an advocacy campaign where profile is not helpful if the ultimate goal...
‘Marketising’ campaigning
One trend that I have seen in recent years is the deliberate blurring of the distinction between advocacy campaigns and marketing campaigns – what I describe as the ‘marketisation’ of advocacy campaigns. On one level, this really is not an issue as there is some...
More internal obstacles to campaigning….
Over the next few months I intend to post a series of blogs on the internal obstacles to seeking to campaign from within an organisation. This series of blogs will build on the blog posts that I wrote earlier in the year and will reflect on some of the additional...
New online course in development
Having just launched my introduction to campaigning online course on the Udemy platform last month, I am now working on a comprehensive online campaign training course, which will outline a framework for campaigning to help people develop their own campaign for change...
Building a global campaign 2
And secondly, I am fascinated as to the best way to stimulate campaigning around the world. How do you move from a central global plan to real practical campaigning activities in different countries? For me I am utterly convinced that the critical building block in...
Building a global campaign 1
Over the past few years I have worked with quite a few international NGOs, which have been endeavouring to build a global campaign on their key issue, and I've just returned from Rome doing just that, and for me in those discussions two key factors tend to emerge from...
Lessons for movement building
Earlier this month I spoke at the City of Sanctuary AGM in Reading; it was great to be there with people from all over the UK part of this growing network of people keen to offer a welcome to refugees in their local area. We’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about...
Importance of story telling
Last week I was invited to attend a workshop at the Sheila McKechnie Foundation as part of their new social change project. What was really interesting about this meeting was the wide array of people that they had invited to this workshop. Yet there was thing that...
Reflections from Geneva
Last week I ran an advocacy campaigns workshop in Geneva. When I run this training I am always interested to observe where I am challenged on certain approaches. As I have delivered this training around the world over the last decade or so, one constant feature has...
Obstacle 10 – we’re too busy to campaign
I see this so often – we are so busy delivering services meeting the need that we can’t make campaign. So that nothing ever changes, so that you stay busy. I just get excited by those smaller NGOs, which can both deliver services but also embed their campaigning into...
Obstacle 9 – lack of a common goal
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 elements. And this is time well...
Obstacle 8 – internal disharmony
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 campaigning can...
Reflections from South Africa
I’m just back from 10 days working in South Africa for the Red Cross Society. My brief over the next few months is to support them as they seek to develop advocacy strategies across their provinces and nationally. I also had the good fortune to be able to visit some...