Introduction
Social change work presents many challenges, including deciding what to do next! The path to success tends not to be even, straight or sign posted. If you’ve recently experienced one of these:
- An election
- A major win
- A crisis in your team or finances
- Big shifts in public opinion or attacks from opponents
… you may benefit from taking a pause and using some of these tools.
1. Campaign Clinic
A Campaign Clinic is a structured, time constrained process for generating new ideas for a “stuck” campaign by inviting a range of rapid-fire, fresh perspectives. The new ideas come from a brains trust of fellow travelers – people passionate about social change but who are not working on your specific campaign. The process helps generate new ideas, approaches and strategies for campaigns or organising challenges. – Anita Tang, Australian Progress
Campaign Clinics work best in a group of people with diverse backgrounds, different approaches to change, and different skill sets. Australian Progress run campaign clinics as part of their Fellowships, but a campaign clinic could also be convened as a stand-alone development session with participants taking turns to present their challenges and gain feedback from the group.
2. Strategic Questioning
Asking a question that leads to a strategy for action is a powerful contribution to resolving any problem… Asking questions and listening for the strategies and ideas embedded in people’s own answers can be the greatest service a social change worker can give to a particular issue. – Fran Peavey
Strategic questioning is a powerful tool for personal and social change which helps people discover their own strategies and ideas for change. Strategic questioning can be valuable in campaign strategy processes, group consultations, one-to-one organising conversations, coaching and many other contexts.
For clarifying your campaign’s next step the following kinds of questions can be especially beneficial:
- Visioning Questions: ‘How would you like it to be?’ ‘What would it look like if we won?’
- Change Questions: ‘What will it take to bring the current situation towards the ideal?’
- Consider all the Alternatives: ‘What are all the ways you can think of that would accomplish these changes?’
- Consider the Consequences: ‘Who might be impacted by our campaign?’ ‘What would be the political effect if we did ….?’
- Consider the Obstacles: ‘What could get in the way of our success?’ ‘How can we overcome these factors?’
3. Spectrum of Allies
Movements and campaigns are won not by overpowering one’s active opposition, but by shifting each group one notch around the spectrum (passive allies into active allies, neutrals into passive allies, and passive opponents into neutrals), thereby increasing people power in favour of change and weakening your opposition. – Nadine Bloch, Beautiful Trouble
Use the Spectrum of Allies tool to map the stakeholders relevant to your campaign. Consider each ‘slice of pie’ and what it would take to move people one slice in your direction. Decide where you want to focus in the next stage of your campaign. For example, you might choose particular actions or messaging to help passive allies to become active, or neutral parties to become passive allies.
4. Creative Idea Generation
Adapting and including a design thinking approach in campaign planning develops empathy with audiences, challenges assumptions, and helps us better understand people’s challenges and needs… This creates inspiration for innovation and greater creativity in our campaigns. – Mobilisation Lab
Mobilisation Lab’s Campaign Accelerator training includes many tools for generating creative ideas. Take your pick from:
- Creative Principles: Warm your team up to think big with fast paced playful activities.
- Idea Generation: Techniques to draw out many ideas, including picture prompts and idea mash-ups.
- Idea Evaluation and Selection: Tools to categorise ideas, pitch them, and assess them.
Explore the tools in MobLab’s Create toolkit.
5. Learn from Experience
When we choose to set aside time for reflection, we’re creating the conditions for people to develop their knowledge, skills and wisdom. – Randall Smith, PowerLabs
Learning from the past can be key to planning future action. Learn from the experience of your own campaign through:
- Campaign Debrief sessions
- Before Action Reviews and After Action Reviews
- Impact evaluation with clear indicators and measurable outcomes
Every campaign is a learning opportunity. With each campaign we should get smarter and better as an organisation. The risk is that at the end of a campaign everyone is so tired/exhilarated they can overlook making the time to really learn the lessons. – Holly Hammond
You can also learn from the broader history of social change. If you’re feeling stuck, consider the choices other campaigners have made and the consequences of those choices. Explore campaign case studies, read books and watch films.
Explore Further
- Campaign Scoping Template
- 3 Tools to Test your Campaign
- Campaign Strategy: Training and Planning Tools
- Templates, Worksheets & Checklists for Changemakers
- What Makes A Successful Campaign? Eight Key Tools for a Successful Campaign
- Becoming Allies: Reaching across the Divide
- Changemakers’ Toolkit
- You’re not Failing, Social Change can Be Slow
- How Healthy Campaigns Respond in the Face of Bad News
- What we can Learn from the Marriage Equality Campaign
- Campaign Strategy: Start Here
