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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...