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 …
Category: My blog
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Obstacle 7 – individual agendas taking over
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 …
Obstacle 6 – lack of a theory of change
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. …
Obstacle 5 – lack of a common understanding of advocacy campaigns
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 …
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