8.3 Planning a Campaign

Effective campaigning means using the minimum amount of effort to achieve the maximum impact. Many campaigns like to follow their gut instincts and seize opportunities as they arise - leading to a danger of doing a lot of things but without getting anywhere. Planning is critical to making your campaign focused and effective. Consider the following in your campaigning:

External factors play a significant role in campaigns. Try to predict how the external environment or the area you are working in might change, for example, what kind of response might your campaign get? Do you understand the political climate in which you are campaigning? Will the current economic conditions affect your campaign?

Resources can be organized in many different ways and the people you are seeking to change can be influenced in many different ways. Analysis will help think through some of the best routes to take and make an informed judgement.

How can you best reach your end goal? What changes do you need to achieve along the way? For example, to get the change you want, will you need to have on meeting with officials or to have 1000 people protesting outside the ministry? Keep the change you want to create forefront in your mind, as you think about what methods you could use.

All of these factors should be addressed in the early stages of campaign planning. Your campaign may not successes or has the impact you want if you haven't given sufficient thought to planning what you are going...

8.3 Planning a Campaign

...to do. Our key planning questions will help you to start planning your campaign strategy.

Campaign Planning Process
In order to increase the likelihood of your campaign succeeding, you need to put sufficient time and effort into planning what you are going to do and thinking about why about why you are going to do it. The four stages of good campaigning are: analysis, planning, action, impact.

What do we mean by campaign 'impact'? The Good Campaigns guide defines 'impact' as "Significant or lasting changes in people's lives, brought about by a given action, or series of actions". It goes on to explain: "This definition is important because it identifies the ultimate goal of campaigning in relation to changes in people lives. Changes in institutional policies and practice, for example, should be seen as means to that end, not ends in themselves. Effective campaigning is about impact not action, results not effort, outcomes not outputs."

The campaign cycle. Another useful way of understanding campaign planning is through the 'campaign cycle'. This builds on the areas of work carried out by the campaigner in the planning process and grounds them in the context of the broader campaign process. Here, campaigns are viewed cyclically, planned on premise that they will perpetuate themselves until the issue is no longer relevant.

8.3 Planning a Campaign

2.	Developing a strategy.

3.	Planning the campaign.

4.	Campaign delivery and monitoring progress.

5.	Evaluation.

Campaign Elements
A good campaign plan needs to contain all of the following elements:

1.	Campaign aim, this is what you ultimately want to achieve. It could be a broad, short statement of what is

you want to do.

2.	Campaign opportunities and risks, this involves finding out what is happening on that issue at the

present time, what has happened in the past and what may occur in the near future. This could lead to you

discovering you could take advantage of to help your campaign, or equally whether there is something that

could derail your campaign or cause you difficulties. This is important as it will help to shape your/td>

objectives, and the tasks you use to deliver the objectives.

3.	Campaign objectives, this is where you break down your campaign aim into the smaller things you want

to achieve. These are the things that will enable you to achieve your overall campaign aim. You should try

to make each of your objectives SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and within a...

8.3 Planning a Campaign

...timescale).

4.	Campaign stages. It is highly unlikely that you are going to be able to work on all of your campaign

objectives at the same time. A much better way of working is to look at your objectives, what they involve

and what timescales you have set for them, and then to divide your campaign into different stages. Often,

your objectives will follow-on from each other in a logical sequence so it will be quite clear in what order

you should do things. But if not, look at what are the simple, easy things to do, start with those and build-up

from there.

5.	Campaign tasks. For each stage, take the objective or part of the objective you are going to be working

on, and break it down into the tasks you will need to do to achieve that. This will include things like doing

research, contacting your MP, designing a leaflet etc. The tasks should be as specific as possible, and

should include details of how they are going to be done.

6.	Campaign action plan. Having worked out what the first stage of your campaign is going to be, and the

key tasks needed to deliver that, you then need to put this information into an action plan. Draw a table with

the objective (or part of the objective) you are going to be working on across the top, the different tasks

listed underneath, and then work out who in the group is going to do each task, and when. Remember to

include a column in your table for information, so you are clear how you are going to check that you are...

8.3 Planning a Campaign

...on track. Probably the best way of doing this is to set aside 5-10 minutes at each meeting for reviewing

where you have got up to and whether the tasks have been met.

7.	Campaign contingency plan. There will always be a chance that things will not go as planned. To

ensure that this doesn't completely derail your campaign, it is better to be prepared with some clear ideas

of what scenarios could occur, and how you would respond to these.

8.	Campaign rationale. This should be a statement about why you are going to campaign on this issue.

Why have you picked that campaign aim, and why is it important? This will ensure you are all clear in your

own minds about why you are going to run that particular campaign. This in turn will enable you to

communicate effectively with the public and media when they question you about your campaign and why

they should take an interest in it.

9.	Campaign message. This is a short, snappy statement that will be your key communication tool with the

public and media. It should be a simple message about your campaign issue that you want people to

remember, and which will encapsulate why the issue is important and why people should care about it. It

should be the way in which you engage people in your campaign.

8.3 Planning a Campaign

Understanding the Outcomes/Impact of a Campaign
What's important is to link the impact �the change in the world- you want to achieve and then the possible methods you could use to achieve that, rather than thinking of a method first. A realistic plan of how are you going to do this will help you to campaign effectively. Without this, it will be difficult to assess your progress and achievements and understand what is or isn't working well.

The real impact of your campaign can be harder to identify or measure than achievement of campaign goals. While you may have helped contribute to a specific policy change, it can be harder to see and to track how (and if) that has lead to a change in people's lives.

For example, securing commitments from rich countries to increase overseas aid may represent a great campaign victory, but it is only a meaningful victory if it makes a positive difference to people's lives. This may require international campaigning to help build southern advocacy capacity, to help ensure that southern governments use and spend the money wisely.

Unintended consequences of campaigns:
Campaigns and sometimes have unexpected, and even negative impacts, as result of your campaign's objectives. For example, a charity successfully campaigned to end the down-rating of welfare benefits for long-stay hospital patients to a weekly allowance of 15.9 pounds, ensuring that the patients' original level of benefit, pre-admittance was maintained. An unexpected consequence of this victory was that the small number of patients who hadn't been in receipt of benefits before going into the hospital, no longer received this weekly...

8.3 Planning a Campaign

...allowance. This was initially overlooked as a potential side effect of theca campaign.

The campaign impact chain:
The process which leads to your campaign's impact is outlines in the following diagram.

The diagram shows two related processes. The first process starts with the campaign, moves to the social/political effects of change secured and ends with improvement in people's lives. Each stage correlates to the related process which starts with activities, moves to outcomes and ends with impact.