Most organisations have a strategy of some sort. If this is not a living, breathing strategy that is clearly communicated to all who need to know about it, it might just be inside various people’s heads and not written down. Or, it may be in a lengthy document gathering dust somewhere.
…what is a strategy?
A strategy is a set of principles and assumptions about why an organisation exists and how it will achieve its mission, interact with the environment it operates in and adapts itself as things change. In the absence of a clear strategy communicated to the right people, in the right way, an organisation may find that different people have different rationales or sets of principles and assumptions about the organisation. The lack of a clear, shared vision for an organisation is problematic, not least because people across the organisation are unlikely to be clear about how they support and help deliver the strategy.
…but what makes a good strategy?
A tip for people wishing to develop a strategy is to start off by asking the question what makes a good strategy?
If you were to ask everyone involved with your organisation this question you may come up with lots of different but perfectly valid answers - it is an important question to keep asking yourself and coming back to as you work on your strategy. It is also crucial that each organisation develops a strategy which meets its needs and does what it wants a strategy to do!
...so do we need a better strategy?
When NCVO considered what makes a good strategy, we came up with a tool which takes things one step further by asking do you need a better strategy?
This tool is a quick quiz that can start some interesting conversations about strategy; whether you need a better strategy and if now is the right time to develop a better strategy. It highlights different areas of your organisation where an effective strategy can make a difference and suggests some issues you could consider.
This tool is available in Thinking Ahead: an introduction to strategic planning, an NCVO guide for leaders and managers who are new to strategic planning or just want a clear and practical introduction to how their organisation can develop an effective strategic plan. This tool will also soon be available for free on this website.
Another interesting newsletter from campaignstrategy.org – and relevant to the current economic climate – talks about why political communicators, governments and campaign groups need tax and why and how we can re-frame the issue of tax.
“We…need a new and more positive way to talk about tax”, says Chris Rose of campaignstrategy.org, arguing that “…instead of just advocating what governments should do in terms of delivery objectives…NGO campaigners should utilise their political advocacy networks to help reframe the tax that is needed to create the wherewithal for government spending.”
What do you think and how might this affect your organisation? Read the newsletter
Another interesting newsletter from campaignstrategy.org – and relevant to the current economic climate – talks about why political communicators, governments and campaign groups need tax and why and how we can re-frame the issue of tax.
“We…need a new and more positive way to talk about tax”, says Chris Rose of campaignstrategy.org, arguing that “…instead of just advocating what governments should do in terms of delivery objectives…NGO campaigners should utilise their political advocacy networks to help reframe the tax that is needed to create the wherewithal for government spending.”
Do read the newsletter – what do you think and how might this affect your organisation?
“A one-size-fits-all strategy for influencing MPs is more likely to fail”, finds a survey of MPs conducted by Fairsay. Instead, MPs positions and preferences should be researched, grouped and targeted appropriately.
Conducted between March and April 2006, the results from this survey set out to answer three key questions:
*Does e-campaigning has an impact on UK MPs?
*How does it impact on UK MPs?
*What strategy and tactics should campaigning organisations use to influence UK MPs?
Findings suggest that:
MPs vary considerably in how they perceive e-campaigning and thus having a one-size-fits-all approach is likely to work well with some MPs and not with others no matter what the strategy. Instead MPs should be researched and segmented for more specific targeting according to a range of factors.
Online, most organisations target all MPs with the same message. Instead they should target segments of MPs and regional assembly members to distinguish the campaign from all the other issues and organisations MPs and regional assembly members are bombarded by
In 2005, Barack Obama was a little known Illinois Senator. By November 2008 he was elected as the 44th President of the United States, carried into the White House by a torrent of voting across the US. But how did his campaign take him on this massive journey and what lessons can we learn and apply to our own campaigns?
Compelling, relevant and targeted messages; cutting edge communication and database technologies; and traditional campaigns tools, were the vital pillars of the President-elect’s campaign.
Campaigning from the grassroots up
The aspirational message of hope and change struck a chord with Americans who, after eight years of Republican leadership, foreign wars and economic decline, felt a keen desire for real change in difficult times. As Paul Schmitz of Public Allies points out, the Obama campaign put ‘values’ – a term democrats had hitherto shied away from – at its very core: respect, empowerment and inclusion.
People were at the heart of this campaign, and community organising was the key. Supporters and undecided voters were invited to attend local meetings, hold parties, and fill vacant volunteer shifts across the country. Working through a team of community organisers, the campaign built relationships locally, motivating and mobilising people on the ground and spreading Obama’s political messages locally, whether through friends, relatives or neighbours.
This bottom-up approach was combined with a sophisticated and inclusive online strategy. The My Barack Obama Community= blogs enabled millions of people to organise their local communities on behalf of Obama. The site, still online, offers suggestions on specific actions an individual could take depending on how involved they wanted to be and their contacts and skills. It also provides links to connect people through contacting other voters, downloading information and suggesting networks of support. As an example, the site had a dedicated area for children under twelve, suggesting ten ways ‘Kids for Obama’ could get involved, ranging from wearing Obama branded clothing on ‘T-Shirt Thursday’, to writing a letter to their local newspaper expressing why Barack Obama should become the next President.
E-campaigning
The internet was a prime communication channel throughout the Obama campaign; most people in America can access the internet from home, work or place of education.
Luke Bozier, former e-campaigns manager for the Labour party, shared his thoughts on how Obama did it, online. E-campaigning was a key tool in the Obama campaign. Resources were allocated to this area and user-generated content was not limited by over censorship.
By spreading Obama’s vision and messages through communities and networks, the campaign succeeded in “outsourcing a lot of canvassing work to passionate supporters…at zero cost to the campaign”.
Attractive design was an important aspect of the online campaign; this meant user-friendly websites with consistent messages delivered through a range of channels. These included Facebook, Youtube, Myspace and others, offering virtual training of volunteers and responsive reporting tools for campaign officials to enable them to report on campaign progress in real time.
FightTheSmears.com was set up to enable Obama’s officials to promptly respond to and correct misrepresentations and accusations made by opponents. Bozier hopes that the nature of the web will keep political campaigns more honest in the future. Certainly for Obama, rapid rebuttal of smears and avoiding negative campaigning was integral to his success.
Networking
Individuals were able to sign up to the campaign online and were asked to enter their zip codes – vital information for assigning people to a specific geographical area, which can then lead to making contact with other people. This was the key to networking: storing and strategically using essential information.
According to Duane Raymond of Fairsay, “Networking is key because it is about not only establishing a relationship with supporters, but also about sustaining it, developing it, extending it and helping supporters do the same”.
Collecting and storing data at every point of contact made local-level personal campaigning achievable. Voters were then segmented and targeted. Using a customer relations management system – a computer database used by businesses to keep track of customer information – meant that potential voters received relevant, timely information. For example individuals were directly contacted to fill vacant local volunteer shifts in their area at crucial times throughout the campaign.
This approach sounds complex and resource intensive, but Raymond reassuringly points out that many campaigns, such as those organised by groups and organisations within the voluntary and community sector, can potentially make even more effective use of this approach. With more focussed objectives and specific target audiences, these campaigns can collect, store and strategically use information to target appropriate messages to the most appropriate people. Campaigners can identify those that they need to motivate and organise to take action. The key is how the internet can be used to connect people – providing supporters with specific actions to take, opportunities to volunteer, and chances to donate, and crucially “focus on what produces the best return, not what costs the most”.
Obama’s campaign also inspired young people – as an example Schmitz notes that Caroline Kennedy and Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri endorsed Obama as a result of their children’s involvement. The campaign appealed to young people’s aspirations, aiming to reach every potential voter with accessible and clear messages adapted to the audience, through a variety of channels.
Marketing success
A powerful campaign brand cannot fail to go unnoticed. With clothing displaying slogans such as ‘Dare to Dream’ and ‘America deserves better’ on sale at the Obamastore, the campaign developed messages to appeal to special interest groups, each leading to information on relevant policy positions and opportunities to take action. And, just as wristbands became a fashion trend in the UK through the Make Poverty History campaign, Obama merchandise became a fashion fad for many people across the US.
Citizens could get involved with the campaign at the community level. David Meerman Scott highlighted how citizen journalists could access opportunities to report and comment on the campaign, along with official press. In some cases, Obama supporters found out information before the mainstream media. On the Twitter social network, the campaign communicated that Joe Biden would be Obama’s running mate.
At what cost?
Fundraising was a key part of Obama’s campaign strategy – $639m was raised by Obama, spending $573m on the campaign itself, with McCain raising $360m and spending $293m. These figures seem unimaginable to civil society groups. Although the cost of the campaign was tremendous, Obama invited people to donate at every opportunity, and much of the funds raised were from small donations. Obama’s campaign did also rely on bigger donors. He was the first major party candidate to reject taxpayers’ money for the general election and as a result there was no spending limit.
My closing thoughts
It remains to be seen whether Obama’s campaign marks the beginning of a landscape change for American politics, and no doubt, lots more will be written about it. The sucess of this campaign emphasises how civil society can be an influential and powerful force for change. Large scale campaigns can bring mass support from across the globe.
This election was a crucial tipping point in American politics and thanks to the internet and networking was higher in global consciousness than any that came before. But, with campaigners now influencing in a less favourable UK environment than the last ten years have allowed – both financially and politically – it is vital that we think creatively about the most effective ways to bring about lasting and sustainable change.
If you haven’t already done so, you could visit the Obama campaign website and read different perspectives on what made the campaign a success, and to draw out lessons that you can apply to your campaigns.
A recent newsletter from Fairsay highlights the success of a new campaign by the British Humanist Society which demonstrates that donating can be a successful campaigning action: a way for people to make a political statement by funding a campaign action.
The lessons from this example show that organisations and campaigners could consider:
Starting to integrate donations as a campaigning action
Linking donations the success of the campaigning action: it is up to supporters to make it happen
Be prepared for success and for supporters to have a more ambitious vision that the organisation
Tell your fundraisers: campaigning can be income generating
I would be very interested to hear any views and/or experiences people can share on this?
It is important to think about how the uncertain economic environment may impact upon the effectiveness of voluntary and community sector campaigns.
Not only are government priorities likely to shift – and so the tactics and tone campaigners employ to influence policy and practice likely to change – the credit crunch may also impact upon funding. But what other effects might this have on campaigning? How might public attitudes change towards poverty and social justice? How might public attitudes towards campaigning change?
I have come across an interesting newsletter from Chris Rose at campaignstragegy.org which explores ‘campaigning your way out of recession’ – so rather than looking at the ways the financial crisis may impact upon campaigns more generally, it explores the opportunities that this may offer to campaigns, using renewable energy to illustrate this, but principles could be applied to other sectors where campaign objectives could be met by economic growth.
I have included key points and included a link to the newsletter should you wish to read it in full and find the references:
To achieve this, campaigners will need to:
Put the case in terms which meet the psychological needs of the time – first for security, safety and belonging, then profitability, and only after that, their favourite territory of ethics and global responsibility
Persuade by providing evidence, not argument: allow politicians and the media to draw their own conclusions
Resist the temptation to say “we told you so” and to push themselves forward as advocates in place of conventional pundits
Speak to the immediate needs of the moment, and frame 1 the solution in terms of the problem as perceived by those who you need to influence (mainstream politicians and media), not an alternative ‘vision’
The New Role Of Governments
By part-nationalising banks governments previously 100 percent behind neo-liberal economics have changed their role, and the first element in the new campaigning opportunity is to use this newfound will for intervention and get it applied to the economy. This is why the financial crisis is a social storm wave: it has brought about a major social upheaval, particularly in political thinking.
However no government is going to try and replace the market – their strategy will be to try and kick-start the market economy. To do this they will need to build confidence and it’s in this soft, slippery and mercurial field that communications play a central role. Whereas campaigners can’t influence anything with their money, they can influence public conversations and perceptions.
Creating Centres of Confidence
The design brief for campaign strategies here should be to create ‘centres of confidence’: places, sectors, programmes and activities which attract investment, create jobs and engender growth, with the obvious subtext for campaigners that they also do social good. More about this below.
Fitting the Frame
Of course this ‘win-win’ was already the agenda of many ‘green growth’ advocates and some politicians already made this argument before the crisis broke. For example in London on 22 October UNEP is due to publish a report 2 calling for a ‘Green Economy Initiative’. The plan, backed by Germany, Norway and the EU, arises from a study commissioned by the G8 in 2000. It aims to promote investment in job-creating programmes that ‘restore natural systems underpinning the economy’.
To those who already perceive the erosion of such systems as the biggest problem the world faces this is timely and may be ‘best’ response to the financial crisis but even this initiative, with its G8 pedigree, runs the risk of being filtered out of serious consideration by use of the ‘financial crisis’ or ‘economic crisis’ frame, as it does not start from the current problem of a lack of confidence.
Similarly, campaigners and Ministers engaged in the forthcoming climate negotiations at Poznan and Copenhagen face calls to set aside climate emission cuts because “we can no longer afford it”. Fixing the climate does not, as a solution, fit the frame of the financial and economic crisis. The jigsaw pieces – the problem and solution – are not aligned (see the motivation sequence)
Saying that that the world faces climate change on a scale which may makes the consequences of the financial crisis seem puny, or that deforestation costs the world more than the banking crisis 3 and government advisers saying that we ought to be cutting CO2 emissions 80% by 2050 4 – to mention but a few, merely makes any messenger sound as if they have a different and irrelevant agenda.
Saying that we need to invest in climate-solving technologies and programmes ‘anyway’ as an answer to “we can’t afford it” is effectively to advocate a distress-purchase: something you must buy even though you don’t want to. That’s not very attractive to Prospectors, who are almost certainly those most traumatized by the collapse of the success-ladder occasioned by the current crisis. Thus it will have little political traction.
When the banks were ‘collapsing’ and politicians used metaphors like the house is burning down, the ship has hit an iceberg, the patient has had a heart attack caused by over-eating, or the dominoes are tumbling, the frames demanded a rescue, a lifeboat, a lifeline, putting things back up again, or dousing the fire. It was no time to say “we’ve taken a wrong direction” – rescue not navigation lessons, resuscitation not health education was the order of the day.
So all those who hope that the immediate response can be turned into a moment of realization that we need to ‘think differently’, maybe think again. This is the most important reality check for campaign groups.
Creating Centres of Confidence
Put yourself in the shoes of politicians. Most must fervently hope for a progressive ‘return to normality’. Of course we may want that to be a different reality from ‘business-as-usual’ but the first steps out must be in ‘normal’ terms and ones which resonate with the public mood, which is above all scared, anxious, nervous, seeking reassurance. The trick is to find ways to show politicians and opinion formers what advertisers would call ‘evidences’ that lead them to take actions which, in turn, start us on a journey towards that different future.
This is different from calling for such a future, or, unless you can get “quality time” with sympathetic political strategists advising Ministers, from explaining such a strategy. Calls for ‘vision’ and saying that, for example, we “ought to be investing more in renewable energy” or “we need to decarbonize our economy”, imply that they are (in the case of ‘vision’) for the future, which means not-applicable-today, and, in the case of ‘ought’, that it isn’t happening now. The only evidence which will really count is what works now.
So welcome though the UNEP report will be, a more compelling ‘narrative’ could be started with evidence that ‘smart money’ is going into renewable energy now, and rather than from an environmental messenger, this needs to be sourced from the world of finance. The website www.greenchipstocks.com for example talks about the bull market in wind energy. The philosophy of that site, “a new way of life, a new generation of wealth” comes much closer to the tune that we need politicians to take up. As that site details, there are supply chain problems in meeting demand for building wind farms: that’s a problem which politicians could show leadership on. That’s a campaign agenda for these times.
Evidence from market analysts showing the profitability of wind suppliers, is one useful element in a package of evidence. Another is the car market. Although sales are down, sales of the Smart Car and the Toyota Prius for instance are up 5.
Campaigners only need a handful of such evidences to start a conversation between media, politicians and the public which is optimistic, positive and about opportunity not sacrifice, forward movement not retrenchment.
Governments could also take a number of actions in a sector such as renewables (or small or electric car production and transport-energy infrastructure) to give it greater prospects for growth and hence attract further investment. For example:
They could create a larger market with direct public expenditure, bringing down unit costs, for instance by subsidising installation of solar thermal or pv on homes
They could create wealth at a stroke by relaxing consent conditions on renewables eg wind (equivalent in resource economics terms to discovering oil or declaring they own the airwaves for licensing)
They could create a tax holiday for renewables (eg no tax worldwide for ten years)
They could create stability and predictability by committing to long term programmes
They could invest in (or mandate) training for associated service industries
Outside renewable energy environmental jobs are being created in waste-to-energy schemes (eg biogas) and many other sectors. There is no reason however why the same approach can’t also be applied to non-environmental issues. I’m not an expert but it might even apply to such ‘unexpected’ areas as international drug trafficking and terrorism. It has been suggested for example that Afghanistan’s poppy crop could be diverted into meeting the world shortage of morphine (and that the UK is experimenting with licensed poppy production for codeine 6). Could this be used to generate a more positive form of economic growth in pharmaceuticals? Less imaginatively, public procurement rules could be used to stimulate growth in a wide range of markets.
Communications Rules
One of the first tasks is to secure the right language. ‘Green Chip Investments’ is good, as is the Green Collar Economy – another American invention 7 At the very least this makes it possible to have a sound bite exchange in which the existence of such investment opportunities is naturally plausible.
But words are less powerful than stories and pictures. The iconic images of the crisis are of bankers faces starting aghast at stock market screens, and the Wall Street ex-employees existing their offices with possessions in a cardboard storage box. Last week The Times of London had a front page picture of an ‘investor’ wheeling a private wall-safe out of the front door of a shop, ostensibly on his way home to stash away his cash, having lost confidence in stocks and shares. An image quite likely to precipitate a further squirreling away of funds.
Any strategy to create a centre of confidence in renewables means catalysing events which create images that say “this is profitable” or “this is where the smart money is going”. That might involve symbols of success, and people, institutions or processes associated with being clever with cash.
Sarah
Most organisations have a strategy of some sort. If this is not a living, breathing strategy that is clearly communicated to all who need to know about it, it might just be inside various people’s heads and not written down. Or, it may be in a lengthy document gathering dust somewhere.
…what is a strategy?
A strategy is a set of principles and assumptions about why an organisation exists and how it will achieve its mission, interact with the environment it operates in and adapts itself as things change. In the absence of a clear strategy communicated to the right people, in the right way, an organisation may find that different people have different rationales or sets of principles and assumptions about the organisation. The lack of a clear, shared vision for an organisation is problematic, not least because people across the organisation are unlikely to be clear about how they support and help deliver the strategy.
…but what makes a good strategy?
A tip for people wishing to develop a strategy is to start off by asking the question what makes a good strategy?
If you were to ask everyone involved with your organisation this question you may come up with lots of different but perfectly valid answers - it is an important question to keep asking yourself and coming back to as you work on your strategy. It is also crucial that each organisation develops a strategy which meets its needs and does what it wants a strategy to do!
...so do we need a better strategy?
When NCVO considered what makes a good strategy, we came up with a tool which takes things one step further by asking do you need a better strategy?
This tool is a quick quiz that can start some interesting conversations about strategy; whether you need a better strategy and if now is the right time to develop a better strategy. It highlights different areas of your organisation where an effective strategy can make a difference and suggests some issues you could consider.
This tool is available in Thinking Ahead: an introduction to strategic planning, an NCVO guide for leaders and managers who are new to strategic planning or just want a clear and practical introduction to how their organisation can develop an effective strategic plan. This tool will also soon be available for free on this website.
Sarah
Spend 10 minutes to fill in our online questionnaire and enter the prize draw to win a FREE place at the National Campaigning Conference on 1st April.
We want to hear your views if you’re interested in policy work, campaigning or influencing.
You don’t have to have been in touch with us or even have heard of NCVO’s Campaigning Effectiveness team!
Please forward this on to your colleagues.
Closing date: Friday 13th March.
To order a paper copy of the questions please email campaigning@ncvo-vol.org.uk
Sarah
Another interesting newsletter from campaignstrategy.org – and relevant to the current economic climate – talks about why political communicators, governments and campaign groups need tax and why and how we can re-frame the issue of tax.
“We…need a new and more positive way to talk about tax”, says Chris Rose of campaignstrategy.org, arguing that “…instead of just advocating what governments should do in terms of delivery objectives…NGO campaigners should utilise their political advocacy networks to help reframe the tax that is needed to create the wherewithal for government spending.”
What do you think and how might this affect your organisation?
Read the newsletter
Sarah
Another interesting newsletter from campaignstrategy.org – and relevant to the current economic climate – talks about why political communicators, governments and campaign groups need tax and why and how we can re-frame the issue of tax.
“We…need a new and more positive way to talk about tax”, says Chris Rose of campaignstrategy.org, arguing that “…instead of just advocating what governments should do in terms of delivery objectives…NGO campaigners should utilise their political advocacy networks to help reframe the tax that is needed to create the wherewithal for government spending.”
Do read the newsletter – what do you think and how might this affect your organisation?
Sarah
“A one-size-fits-all strategy for influencing MPs is more likely to fail”, finds a survey of MPs conducted by Fairsay. Instead, MPs positions and preferences should be researched, grouped and targeted appropriately.
Conducted between March and April 2006, the results from this survey set out to answer three key questions:
*Does e-campaigning has an impact on UK MPs?
*How does it impact on UK MPs?
*What strategy and tactics should campaigning organisations use to influence UK MPs?
Findings suggest that:
MPs vary considerably in how they perceive e-campaigning and thus having a one-size-fits-all approach is likely to work well with some MPs and not with others no matter what the strategy. Instead MPs should be researched and segmented for more specific targeting according to a range of factors.
Online, most organisations target all MPs with the same message. Instead they should target segments of MPs and regional assembly members to distinguish the campaign from all the other issues and organisations MPs and regional assembly members are bombarded by
To find out more, read the report UK e-campaigning survey 2006
Sarah
In 2005, Barack Obama was a little known Illinois Senator. By November 2008 he was elected as the 44th President of the United States, carried into the White House by a torrent of voting across the US. But how did his campaign take him on this massive journey and what lessons can we learn and apply to our own campaigns?
Compelling, relevant and targeted messages; cutting edge communication and database technologies; and traditional campaigns tools, were the vital pillars of the President-elect’s campaign.
Campaigning from the grassroots up
The aspirational message of hope and change struck a chord with Americans who, after eight years of Republican leadership, foreign wars and economic decline, felt a keen desire for real change in difficult times. As Paul Schmitz of Public Allies points out, the Obama campaign put ‘values’ – a term democrats had hitherto shied away from – at its very core: respect, empowerment and inclusion.
People were at the heart of this campaign, and community organising was the key. Supporters and undecided voters were invited to attend local meetings, hold parties, and fill vacant volunteer shifts across the country. Working through a team of community organisers, the campaign built relationships locally, motivating and mobilising people on the ground and spreading Obama’s political messages locally, whether through friends, relatives or neighbours.
This bottom-up approach was combined with a sophisticated and inclusive online strategy. The My Barack Obama Community= blogs enabled millions of people to organise their local communities on behalf of Obama. The site, still online, offers suggestions on specific actions an individual could take depending on how involved they wanted to be and their contacts and skills. It also provides links to connect people through contacting other voters, downloading information and suggesting networks of support. As an example, the site had a dedicated area for children under twelve, suggesting ten ways ‘Kids for Obama’ could get involved, ranging from wearing Obama branded clothing on ‘T-Shirt Thursday’, to writing a letter to their local newspaper expressing why Barack Obama should become the next President.
E-campaigning
The internet was a prime communication channel throughout the Obama campaign; most people in America can access the internet from home, work or place of education.
Luke Bozier, former e-campaigns manager for the Labour party, shared his thoughts on how Obama did it, online. E-campaigning was a key tool in the Obama campaign. Resources were allocated to this area and user-generated content was not limited by over censorship.
By spreading Obama’s vision and messages through communities and networks, the campaign succeeded in “outsourcing a lot of canvassing work to passionate supporters…at zero cost to the campaign”.
Attractive design was an important aspect of the online campaign; this meant user-friendly websites with consistent messages delivered through a range of channels. These included Facebook, Youtube, Myspace and others, offering virtual training of volunteers and responsive reporting tools for campaign officials to enable them to report on campaign progress in real time.
FightTheSmears.com was set up to enable Obama’s officials to promptly respond to and correct misrepresentations and accusations made by opponents. Bozier hopes that the nature of the web will keep political campaigns more honest in the future. Certainly for Obama, rapid rebuttal of smears and avoiding negative campaigning was integral to his success.
Networking
Individuals were able to sign up to the campaign online and were asked to enter their zip codes – vital information for assigning people to a specific geographical area, which can then lead to making contact with other people. This was the key to networking: storing and strategically using essential information.
According to Duane Raymond of Fairsay, “Networking is key because it is about not only establishing a relationship with supporters, but also about sustaining it, developing it, extending it and helping supporters do the same”.
Collecting and storing data at every point of contact made local-level personal campaigning achievable. Voters were then segmented and targeted. Using a customer relations management system – a computer database used by businesses to keep track of customer information – meant that potential voters received relevant, timely information. For example individuals were directly contacted to fill vacant local volunteer shifts in their area at crucial times throughout the campaign.
This approach sounds complex and resource intensive, but Raymond reassuringly points out that many campaigns, such as those organised by groups and organisations within the voluntary and community sector, can potentially make even more effective use of this approach. With more focussed objectives and specific target audiences, these campaigns can collect, store and strategically use information to target appropriate messages to the most appropriate people. Campaigners can identify those that they need to motivate and organise to take action. The key is how the internet can be used to connect people – providing supporters with specific actions to take, opportunities to volunteer, and chances to donate, and crucially “focus on what produces the best return, not what costs the most”.
Obama’s campaign also inspired young people – as an example Schmitz notes that Caroline Kennedy and Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri endorsed Obama as a result of their children’s involvement. The campaign appealed to young people’s aspirations, aiming to reach every potential voter with accessible and clear messages adapted to the audience, through a variety of channels.
Marketing success
A powerful campaign brand cannot fail to go unnoticed. With clothing displaying slogans such as ‘Dare to Dream’ and ‘America deserves better’ on sale at the Obamastore, the campaign developed messages to appeal to special interest groups, each leading to information on relevant policy positions and opportunities to take action. And, just as wristbands became a fashion trend in the UK through the Make Poverty History campaign, Obama merchandise became a fashion fad for many people across the US.
Citizens could get involved with the campaign at the community level. David Meerman Scott highlighted how citizen journalists could access opportunities to report and comment on the campaign, along with official press. In some cases, Obama supporters found out information before the mainstream media. On the Twitter social network, the campaign communicated that Joe Biden would be Obama’s running mate.
At what cost?
Fundraising was a key part of Obama’s campaign strategy – $639m was raised by Obama, spending $573m on the campaign itself, with McCain raising $360m and spending $293m. These figures seem unimaginable to civil society groups. Although the cost of the campaign was tremendous, Obama invited people to donate at every opportunity, and much of the funds raised were from small donations. Obama’s campaign did also rely on bigger donors. He was the first major party candidate to reject taxpayers’ money for the general election and as a result there was no spending limit.
My closing thoughts
It remains to be seen whether Obama’s campaign marks the beginning of a landscape change for American politics, and no doubt, lots more will be written about it. The sucess of this campaign emphasises how civil society can be an influential and powerful force for change. Large scale campaigns can bring mass support from across the globe.
This election was a crucial tipping point in American politics and thanks to the internet and networking was higher in global consciousness than any that came before. But, with campaigners now influencing in a less favourable UK environment than the last ten years have allowed – both financially and politically – it is vital that we think creatively about the most effective ways to bring about lasting and sustainable change.
If you haven’t already done so, you could visit the Obama campaign website and read different perspectives on what made the campaign a success, and to draw out lessons that you can apply to your campaigns.
Further reading:
Has US politics changed forever? 10 November 2008, BBC News
How Obama did it, online 07 November 2008, Public Allies
Obama’s win and the power of networking 05 November 2008 – Fairsay
In a successful campaign: lessons for Nonprofits Fall 2008, The Nonprofit Quarterly
Ten Marketing lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign November 2008, WebInkNow
Leave a comment and tell me what you think!
Sarah
A recent newsletter from Fairsay highlights the success of a new campaign by the British Humanist Society which demonstrates that donating can be a successful campaigning action: a way for people to make a political statement by funding a campaign action.
The lessons from this example show that organisations and campaigners could consider:
I would be very interested to hear any views and/or experiences people can share on this?
Read the article and more information about the campaign
Sarah
It is important to think about how the uncertain economic environment may impact upon the effectiveness of voluntary and community sector campaigns.
Not only are government priorities likely to shift – and so the tactics and tone campaigners employ to influence policy and practice likely to change – the credit crunch may also impact upon funding. But what other effects might this have on campaigning? How might public attitudes change towards poverty and social justice? How might public attitudes towards campaigning change?
I have come across an interesting newsletter from Chris Rose at campaignstragegy.org which explores ‘campaigning your way out of recession’ – so rather than looking at the ways the financial crisis may impact upon campaigns more generally, it explores the opportunities that this may offer to campaigns, using renewable energy to illustrate this, but principles could be applied to other sectors where campaign objectives could be met by economic growth.
I have included key points and included a link to the newsletter should you wish to read it in full and find the references:
To achieve this, campaigners will need to:
The New Role Of Governments
By part-nationalising banks governments previously 100 percent behind neo-liberal economics have changed their role, and the first element in the new campaigning opportunity is to use this newfound will for intervention and get it applied to the economy. This is why the financial crisis is a social storm wave: it has brought about a major social upheaval, particularly in political thinking.
However no government is going to try and replace the market – their strategy will be to try and kick-start the market economy. To do this they will need to build confidence and it’s in this soft, slippery and mercurial field that communications play a central role. Whereas campaigners can’t influence anything with their money, they can influence public conversations and perceptions.
Creating Centres of Confidence
The design brief for campaign strategies here should be to create ‘centres of confidence’: places, sectors, programmes and activities which attract investment, create jobs and engender growth, with the obvious subtext for campaigners that they also do social good. More about this below.
Fitting the Frame
Of course this ‘win-win’ was already the agenda of many ‘green growth’ advocates and some politicians already made this argument before the crisis broke. For example in London on 22 October UNEP is due to publish a report 2 calling for a ‘Green Economy Initiative’. The plan, backed by Germany, Norway and the EU, arises from a study commissioned by the G8 in 2000. It aims to promote investment in job-creating programmes that ‘restore natural systems underpinning the economy’.
To those who already perceive the erosion of such systems as the biggest problem the world faces this is timely and may be ‘best’ response to the financial crisis but even this initiative, with its G8 pedigree, runs the risk of being filtered out of serious consideration by use of the ‘financial crisis’ or ‘economic crisis’ frame, as it does not start from the current problem of a lack of confidence.
Similarly, campaigners and Ministers engaged in the forthcoming climate negotiations at Poznan and Copenhagen face calls to set aside climate emission cuts because “we can no longer afford it”. Fixing the climate does not, as a solution, fit the frame of the financial and economic crisis. The jigsaw pieces – the problem and solution – are not aligned (see the motivation sequence)
Saying that that the world faces climate change on a scale which may makes the consequences of the financial crisis seem puny, or that deforestation costs the world more than the banking crisis 3 and government advisers saying that we ought to be cutting CO2 emissions 80% by 2050 4 – to mention but a few, merely makes any messenger sound as if they have a different and irrelevant agenda.
Saying that we need to invest in climate-solving technologies and programmes ‘anyway’ as an answer to “we can’t afford it” is effectively to advocate a distress-purchase: something you must buy even though you don’t want to. That’s not very attractive to Prospectors, who are almost certainly those most traumatized by the collapse of the success-ladder occasioned by the current crisis. Thus it will have little political traction.
When the banks were ‘collapsing’ and politicians used metaphors like the house is burning down, the ship has hit an iceberg, the patient has had a heart attack caused by over-eating, or the dominoes are tumbling, the frames demanded a rescue, a lifeboat, a lifeline, putting things back up again, or dousing the fire. It was no time to say “we’ve taken a wrong direction” – rescue not navigation lessons, resuscitation not health education was the order of the day.
So all those who hope that the immediate response can be turned into a moment of realization that we need to ‘think differently’, maybe think again. This is the most important reality check for campaign groups.
Creating Centres of Confidence
Put yourself in the shoes of politicians. Most must fervently hope for a progressive ‘return to normality’. Of course we may want that to be a different reality from ‘business-as-usual’ but the first steps out must be in ‘normal’ terms and ones which resonate with the public mood, which is above all scared, anxious, nervous, seeking reassurance. The trick is to find ways to show politicians and opinion formers what advertisers would call ‘evidences’ that lead them to take actions which, in turn, start us on a journey towards that different future.
This is different from calling for such a future, or, unless you can get “quality time” with sympathetic political strategists advising Ministers, from explaining such a strategy. Calls for ‘vision’ and saying that, for example, we “ought to be investing more in renewable energy” or “we need to decarbonize our economy”, imply that they are (in the case of ‘vision’) for the future, which means not-applicable-today, and, in the case of ‘ought’, that it isn’t happening now. The only evidence which will really count is what works now.
So welcome though the UNEP report will be, a more compelling ‘narrative’ could be started with evidence that ‘smart money’ is going into renewable energy now, and rather than from an environmental messenger, this needs to be sourced from the world of finance. The website www.greenchipstocks.com for example talks about the bull market in wind energy. The philosophy of that site, “a new way of life, a new generation of wealth” comes much closer to the tune that we need politicians to take up. As that site details, there are supply chain problems in meeting demand for building wind farms: that’s a problem which politicians could show leadership on. That’s a campaign agenda for these times.
Evidence from market analysts showing the profitability of wind suppliers, is one useful element in a package of evidence. Another is the car market. Although sales are down, sales of the Smart Car and the Toyota Prius for instance are up 5.
Campaigners only need a handful of such evidences to start a conversation between media, politicians and the public which is optimistic, positive and about opportunity not sacrifice, forward movement not retrenchment.
Governments could also take a number of actions in a sector such as renewables (or small or electric car production and transport-energy infrastructure) to give it greater prospects for growth and hence attract further investment. For example:
Outside renewable energy environmental jobs are being created in waste-to-energy schemes (eg biogas) and many other sectors. There is no reason however why the same approach can’t also be applied to non-environmental issues. I’m not an expert but it might even apply to such ‘unexpected’ areas as international drug trafficking and terrorism. It has been suggested for example that Afghanistan’s poppy crop could be diverted into meeting the world shortage of morphine (and that the UK is experimenting with licensed poppy production for codeine 6). Could this be used to generate a more positive form of economic growth in pharmaceuticals? Less imaginatively, public procurement rules could be used to stimulate growth in a wide range of markets.
Communications Rules
One of the first tasks is to secure the right language. ‘Green Chip Investments’ is good, as is the Green Collar Economy – another American invention 7 At the very least this makes it possible to have a sound bite exchange in which the existence of such investment opportunities is naturally plausible.
But words are less powerful than stories and pictures. The iconic images of the crisis are of bankers faces starting aghast at stock market screens, and the Wall Street ex-employees existing their offices with possessions in a cardboard storage box. Last week The Times of London had a front page picture of an ‘investor’ wheeling a private wall-safe out of the front door of a shop, ostensibly on his way home to stash away his cash, having lost confidence in stocks and shares. An image quite likely to precipitate a further squirreling away of funds.
Any strategy to create a centre of confidence in renewables means catalysing events which create images that say “this is profitable” or “this is where the smart money is going”. That might involve symbols of success, and people, institutions or processes associated with being clever with cash.
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