Governing campaigns

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Political skills are often critical for charities and voluntary organisations to achieve their objectives. As the economic crisis bites and spending decisions become tougher, political skills are more important than ever. Your organisation's ability to campaign and influence decisions should be an integral part of any strategy, alongside service delivery, finance, fundraising, staff development and communications.

This short piece summarises the benefits of effective campaigning and offers some practical tips for voluntary board members.

Political action

Although some board members are wary of being 'political', the most effective boards have highly developed political skills, even if they don’t call it that.

Guidance on charity law says that 'charities may undertake campaigning and political activity as a positive way of furthering or supporting their purposes'. Charities must not be aligned with any political party, and it is also smart politics to avoid being closely associated with one party.

That said, charities like the Centre for Social Justice, Institute of Economic Affairs or IPPR have close associations with different parties and have influenced policy as a result, but they are not allowed to advocate support for any party.

Political action is often essential to achieve the aims of your organisation and effective campaigning gets results: Jubilee 2000 persuaded G7 governments to cancel $100bn of debt owed by poor countries, releasing more money for international development than a thousand years of Christian Aid weeks. ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) won a ban on smoking in public places in 2006 which could save over 2,000 lives and billions of pounds a year. The Empty Homes Agency is working with local authorities to bring empty properties into use as a result of winning an amendment to the Housing Act 2004.

Advocacy is the first of six key practices of high-impact non profits identified in Forces for Good (a book by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant). Effective advocacy increases funding and support for our work at all levels.

Description of the diagram

The diagram shows a cycle, with 'policy advocacy' at the top. An arrow from this leads clockwise to a box with four bullet points: greater impact through legislation, government funding, increase credibility and influence and innovation. A second arrow leads from here to 'direct services' and from direct services, a third arrow points to four more bullet points: greater impact on the ground, grassroots support, channels for implementation and innovation. The final arrow leads back to policy advocacy.

Visible and invisible campaigns

The most effective campaigns are often invisible, influencing thinking and priorities from inside government, business or other agencies through contacts, advisory bodies and umbrella bodies.

But sometimes it is necessary to go public, building visible support through public meetings, the media, petitions, demonstrations or other methods. Direct action, mass movements and stunts can win a seat at the table or even change the shape, location and people around the table itself.

The most important things to consider when going public are:

• What is the outcome we want?
• Who has the power to make it happen?
• What is the best way to influence them?

Influence and relationships

Many effective campaigns involve influencing both inside and outside the system. Some campaigns seek to influence many people to reach a few key decision-makers. Other campaigns seek to influence the few in order to reach the many. It all depends on the outcome you want.

Whatever the campaign, relationships with decision-makers and the people who influence them are key. 'Office politics' are the heart of decision-making. A campaign may win the argument, a vote or even a revolution but lose the office politics that follow. Effective campaigners are therefore also on boards, advisory groups or even in government to see changes through. The skill is knowing when and how to lobby from within or when to campaign in public.

What is the role of board members in campaigning?

Board members have a critical role in campaigning by:

• asking searching questions, as a critical friend of the organisation
• deciding which campaign(s) to run or ensuring oversight and accountability if decision-making is delegated
• prioritising campaigns if necessary
• providing support, as a public voice or within the organisation
• suggesting or making contacts with influential individuals or networks
• helping with problem solving and troubleshooting in difficult times.

The board is ultimately accountable for the organisation and needs to be confident that campaigns are in line with the organisation's aims, in its best interests, and within the law. Where the board decides that a campaign may need to break the law to achieve its objective, every board member must be fully aware of possible consequences and be willing to face them. However, breaking the law is usually unnecessary and often counterproductive, unless the objective of the campaign concerns oppressive or unjust laws, such as racial segregation.

Interest in the campaign from board members

Once the organisation decides on a campaign, do not underestimate the power of an encouraging word from the board to the staff involved and the benefits of showing a positive interest in its progress. Above all, show that you understand the challenges and want to hear about difficulties as well as successes, because if things go wrong you want to be the first to hear.

It is worth nominating a board member to link with every campaign you run.

Searching questions when developing a campaign

The following questions can help anyone developing a campaign. If it is not possible for the whole board to discuss every campaign in depth, a board member could go through these questions with the chief officer and staff most closely involved, or the board could ask for a short campaign report (no more than two sides) addressing these questions.

1. What is the result you want? What will be different if your campaign succeeds?
2. Can you give examples of where this has worked successfully anywhere in the world?
3. What is the evidence to support your case? What are the 'killer facts' or stories which tell people why this matters and the result you want will make a significant difference?
4. What other ways could we/you achieve this result? For example, could we do it ourselves and create a demonstration model which influences others that way?
5. Who do you need to influence to achieve this result? Be specific: name individuals departments and agencies, and the people who influence them. (Could members of the board help by making an introduction or convening a meeting?)
6. Who cares about this issue or problem? What are they doing about it? Can you give ten or more individuals or organisations who are or should be concerned about it? Could we join or form an alliance?
7. Who is against it? Who doesn’t believe this matters, and why? What opposition will we/you face?
8. What’s your strategy or plan of action? Working backwards from the goal, what are the main steps from where we are now? What’s missing: why is it not happening?
9. What will it take? How much will it cost in money and time? Do we have the capacity to do it?
10. Why us? Why should we support/be involved/lead this campaign? How does it support our core mission? What benefits will it have for our reputation, relationships, wider influence or ability to generate income?
11. What are the risks? What is the worst that could happen? What if we fail?
12. What do you want from the board? How can we help you reach key decision-makers? Can we help build alliances with likely or unlikely supporters?  Can we help pull in additional resources to achieve your goal faster?

Effective change

The following summarises some of the core abilities of an effective change agency, which is what any worthwhile voluntary organisation is.

• Clarity of purpose, vision and values so that just mentioning your organisation puts your issues on the agenda.
• Walk the talk: practical action and analyses rooted in experience gives credibility to any campaign. The test of an effective change agency is that it is respected by those who disagree as well as by supporters.
• Know your stuff: be a learning organisation, where everyone shares frontline experience and understands the issues, power structures and conflicting theories about the problem you aim to solve. Make evaluation, impact analysis and research routine parts of your work. Learn from your opposition and competing solutions to the problem you are tackling: what are their motives, mindsets, and what keeps them awake at night?
• Question! Good questions open many doors and minds. Decision Maker Dialogue is one way of enabling powerful people to think differently about a problem and come to a new solution. The test is: is your issue near the top of the agenda of relevant decision-makers and power structures?
• Strategy: work backwards from your vision (the outcome you want, your core purpose) to identify stages between where you are to the world you want: What big changes are necessary to achieve your organisation’s purpose? This may take you away from your organisation’s perceived mission or current role, in which case your first political task is to change the organisation.The test of a good strategy is that all staff and supporters know how their work contributes towards the bigger picture.
• Concentrate on crunch points: focus on major decision-making moments, such as an act of parliament, election, summit meeting or appointments to key posts. Get in early to define the problem and shape outcome, not just the argument – and prepare to follow up: success comes from implementation, not the decision itself.
• Get in position: change in an organisation, society or government is like a dance: get in position, communicate through actions as well as words, build a relationship and then get the result.The test is that 1) your organisation is part of the discussion when your issue is on the agenda, whether others like it or not, and 2) the action you want is clear to those who would have to do it.
• Cultivate your networks: Even the biggest voluntary organisations are small compared with the issues they address and the powers of the state and corporations, so potential gains from cooperation are large. A policy-focused alliance increases impact and influence at any level. The key is to have clear ground rules, be open and work on practical projects together, including learning and knowledge sharing. Sharing relationships, encouraging staff to network, organising joint activities and campaigns are vital.
• Communicate: seek to understand those you wish to influence and use actions, language and evidence they understand, not that which appeals to you. This is often the hardest challenge for campaigners. If you are motivated by justice and those you seek to influence are motivated by fear, money or faith, there will be little communication until you speak their language.
• Celebrate! Many small successes enable you to build, while a perceived setback can last a long time. An effective strategy has many small achievable steps, with occasional leaps when opportunities arise. You may not be able to plan for these, but with good analysis and networks you can expect them.

Conclusion

The voluntary sector deals with some of the most challenging problems facing society. To solve these problems, voluntary organisations often need to influence attitudes, behaviour, policy and legislation. This takes political skill and campaigning ability. Organisations need to build advocacy and campaigning into their core strategy as well as their training and development for staff, supporters and users.

Source: Titus Alexander is Head of Learning and Campaigning at Novas Scarman, and author of Campaigning is OK!; a guide to capacity building for the third sector and report on eight regional road shows run with the NCVO/Capacitybuilders Improving Support for Campaigning programme.

For a free campaign guide and resource list, email: titus.alexander@novvascarman.org

Useful links

• For more on the case for learning practical politics, see Learning Power.
• For more on 'Decision maker dialogue', see Everyone's guide to achieving change from the Oxford research group.
• Charity Commission, CC9 - Speaking Out - Guidance on Campaigning and Political Activity by Charities.
• Forces for Good by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant (2007).

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