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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 those...
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. But without your theory of change...
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 advocacy campaigning is, but I wish you had a common...
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 we really a campaigning organisation agitating...
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, you can achieve so much with so little – if you have the will. But...
Just back from a weekend in Zurich where I was speaking at the Campaigning Summit Switzerland. What I found quite remarkable about this event was their success in attracting participants from across an array of sectors including both the not for profit and...
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 do campaigning, the more I...
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 the call for more research. It can just push your energy...
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 often this issue had cropped up. So...
Last month I spent some time in Prague running an advocacy workshop for an alliance of international NGOs based across Europe. After taking stock of progress made and lessons learnt to date, we brainstormed future advocacy priorities. Having developed a long list, we...
I’m just back from running an advocacy campaigns workshop for the International Federation of the Red Cross/ Red Crescent Societies in Hungary for national societies working across the Balkans and Central Asia. As ever my approach is always to try to de-mystify the...
Last week I ran a session for NCVO's Certificate in Campaigning. I have been doing such a session since the certificate first started in 2007. If you don't know about this course it is well worth a look - I wish it had been around when I first started campaigning. The...
I have long admired Titus Alexander and his persistent quest to promote the need for effective teaching about politics in this country. How are people meant to learn about how politics works? I have often been surprised when I have run introductory campaigning courses...
I’ve just come back from Lima where I was running a training workshop for NGOs from Bolivia, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala as well as Peru. I’ve done training courses across the world but not before with Spanish translation. So I was somewhat nervous beforehand to see if...
Several years ago I was due to run a campaigns workshop in Thailand, and the organiser contacted me to say that they were hoping to combine my sessions with training on story telling and wondered if I felt that this combination might work. My view was that it seemed a...