Campaign Game

How do turn an issue I care about into a campaign?

You may have set up an online group because you were getting ripped off. You may have invited people to a campaign session so people can live better off. You may have written to your MP to support the campaign you care about the most. You may have pitched up your tent to prevent the world turning to toast. You may have stayed at a shelter to help the homeless. You may have gone down the beach to clean up the mess. You may have taken part in a flashmob to show people how exploitation of young people at work just isn’t right. You may have marched through the streets to reclaim the night. You may have been a street captain spreading hope not hate, you may have interviewed the wild and wonderful to instigate debate. You may have got into a bath of baked beans to raise money for comic relief…Or you may not have got involved with any of these. Whether you’ve been involved in organizing before or not, if you’ve opened this game, you’re probably curious about how to campaign and maybe even fired up about an issue you’d like to campaign on. There is no right or wrong way on how to turn an issue you care about into a campaign – just look at the examples above and you can see all the different and exciting ways people have gone about it. If you want to find out what issues really matter to young people where you are, how you can develop an online campaign, how you can communicate it and how you can get others to support your campaign, start playing the game! Get in touch to tell us how you’ve played the game, made it even better and any other ideas you have about bringing people together to turn issues into campaigns. It’s time to take back our future, it’s time for you to take back your communities. Developed by Noel Hatch - [email protected]

How to play This game can be played as below or as part of a “campaign camp” (contact [email protected] for more details).

1. This game1 is best played in small groups, so if there’s more than six in your group, split people up into groups of 4-6 people. If you are a small group, do it all together!

2. Choose one of the exercises in Map people’s needs to do with your group/s and then o

Discuss the groups’ findings using the flipchart to stimulate the debate.

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Vote on which issue your group/s want to campaign on

o What do people think? What seems to be the most recurring issue? Can the group see any links between the people or needs? 3. Get your group/s to choose from a pack of “tool cards” below to address the issue, but there’s a catch: o Your group will have a budget of 25 points they can use and they have to use at least one tool from each section (highlighted in bold). Each “tool card” has a number at the bottom – this indicates how many points the tool “costs”.

o Your group can add its own “tool card” if they have an idea for the campaign. If so, ask them how much money, time and skills their ideas will require out of a scale of 1-3 points.

Title of the tool Description of the tool. A tool you can try out. Number of points

4. Give each group a timeline to pinpoint what they are going to do over the course of the campaign. 1

The game was inspired by the social media game by David Wilcox

5. Although the aim is to guide the first part of the session around getting groups to work out the strategy for their campaign and using the second session to work out how to deliver it, what is really great is for people to experience an accelerated simulation of a campaign in the space of a day. We know campaigns need a good strategy but also need to be flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. 6. Get speakers to drop in and out to advise & challenge the groups on campaigning (with their own individual experiences & tips, whether that's how to organise in your community, get your voice heard in the media, put on events, influence key players, etc) 7. Over the course of the workshop, ask facilitators to advise each group on imaginary "unexpected events" that will affect the issue they're working on. 8. Go and celebrate having turned your issue into a campaign that your group can now go out and get others involved in and make change happen in your community!

How do I find out what really matters to young people? There are many groups across the country who campaign on a variety of issues so why would anyone join yours? There’s no point reinventing the wheel. Try instead and track emerging or unmet needs for young people. The better you understand what they are, the easier you can build campaigns and coalitions around them.

Map people’s needs

Your needs o o

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One thing you would save from their house if it was burning down? One change that would most improve your daily life? One thing you would buy that would most improve your daily life?2

Your friends & family’s needs o

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What three things would you change to improve the basic quality of everyday life of yourself, your friends and family and your neighbourhood? Who do you think should be responsible for making the change?

Adapted from the Young Foundation “Mapping Needs” methodology

Your hopes o

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What in your daily life makes you feel the most reassured or optimistic about your future? What gives you hope for the community you live in?

Map the landscape

Map your community

Map the information

Map the issues and stories

Storyboard the journey

Understand how you can make the best use of your local activists; map the landscape in your area. The best social networks are those focused on where people live and what people want to get involved in.

Try and understand how people access information on issues that matter to them and campaigns, how involved they are in their community and how they relate to campaigning groups.

Monitor campaigning activity on a much more local level – like neighbourhoods or wards. Try tools that analyse this by postcode or enable people to share stories of places they have personal connections to.

o Illustrate the “campaign

Try mapping.

Try this.

Try TwitterLocal & Placeography

Try Amap or Debategraph.

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journey” through a series of images or drawings with text. Try out tools which enable people to map out complex arguments.

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Make random links

Go on a campaign safari

Go on a virtual safari

Pick an item that’s really random. This can be a physical item (like a pack of sweets) or a word picked at random.

o Ask friends or other activists

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Then try thinking about the characteristics of the random object and apply them back to your problem.

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o o o o

Try sweets.

where you live to suggest campaign activities you could take part in. Tell your story and share your photos Summarise and highlight what the campaign is about and what happened Focus on the campaigners and their actions Illuminate your story with anecdotes and photos Was there a gap between your expectations and what actually happened?

Try Kings Cross Environment. 2

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If the campaign you need to explore is online, try taking part with a friend watching and asking what you’re doing and why. Try joining new campaigns, both good and bad; this will help you judge the campaigns you run. Share insights and what you have learnt from your experience Reflect on what you learned and how it might be applied to your campaign

Try virtual anthropology. 2

Get the “moments that matter” Take photos or videos – capture the “moments that matter” – the memorable moments (good or bad experiences that stood out from your trip). Capture key activists, places and interactions with the public. The pictures can be used as part of a storyboard that captures your experience for when you return.

Try Socialreporter. 2

Identify people to join your campaign If you need people to organise activities, but they’ll only join if they can take part, how do you get them to join your group or campaign? Once people can see what you want to achieve and how they can contribute, they will be more likely to sign up. Many groups work out how they can engage with their supporters. What they focus less on, is how people influence each other and how they can use this to persuade their supporters to get their friends, relatives or colleagues to campaign.

The groups they belong to

Their friends or neighbours

The places they meet

Find ways of targeting groups of people who care about the issue you’re campaigning on or who live in your neighbourhood.

Target your social networks – friends, relatives, neighbours - to work out how they can be influenced to join the campaign.

Engage people where they are comfortable, not just where you are.

Try GroupsNearYou.

Try SocialTwist.

Try youth clubs, music shops or bus stops

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The interests they share

The issues they care about

The pledges they’ll make

Identify who your potential supporters might be, what their interests are, what they would like to contribute to your group and how.

Personalise message to different groups which target “what’s in it for them” through tools to search people by issue.

Encourage your members to help recruit amongst their own social networks.

Try Socialistics.

Try Facebook Groups.

Try Pledgebank.

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Spread your message If people’s friends engage in good (or bad!) practices, they are more likely to engage in them than they are if someone they don’t know tells them to and this applies as much to joining your campaign as it does doing the recycling or giving up smoking. Treat your supporters like real people, not just as “hits” on a website or “subscribers” on your mailing list. In other words, ask yourself who might support your issue, how will you contact these people or organisations and how can they help?

Personalised invitations

Video about your campaign

Contact list

Stories

Design personalised invitations so that people feel they will add and get value from joining, rather than being “spammed” by yet another group.

Produce a video which explains what your group stands for and what activities it organises.

Keep a complete list of people, groups and other resources involved in the campaign, and those you would like to involve, will help to bring the most relevant people together at the right time.

Send people comments and stories by supporters on why they signed up to the campaign

Try this.

Try JayCut.

Try Google Docs.

Try Twitter.

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How do I develop an online campaign group?

Organize meetings

Develop a community

Link people up

Cluster people

Organise meetings so that individuals on your campaign team can share ideas (especially if they represent different groups).

Focus on how to facilitate the campaign team and to develop a community around your supporters.

Provide ways for your activists to find like-minded people where they live. Get them to organise locally – from house parties to setting up groups – with your support but without needing your permission.

Ask your members for their postcodes, filter your database and cluster people by local area and then tell them that there are other members in their area and facilitate bringing them together.

Try Meetup.

Try Ning.

Try Crowdvine.

Try FriendMapper.

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Let people personalize your website

Let people tell their stories

Develop campaigns on issues

Let people build coalitions

Let them personalise your website or your campaign.

Let people upload their experiences and stories of campaigning on the issues that matter to them.

Identify and develop campaign ideas on issues.

Organise activity sharing, time trading and matchmaking users and providers, collaborative fundraising. Enable your activists to build coalitions of support.

Try Netvibes.

Try Stories of Recovery.

Try How to Live.

Try YoungTimeBank.

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Matchmake people

Match their skills together

Introduce “a skills swap” Encourage more experienced campaigners to share what they know with people who have just joined the campaign Try School of Everything. 2

What’s the skill you’d like to share Who are the people you interact with most frequently? Who are your key contacts? Try SurveyMonkey. 2

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What if the people you engage say…

“I don’t know if I can trust your group”

“Why should I sign up to your campaign, I’ve already signed up to loads of others”

“The bottom line is that your campaign is not understood to most people”

o Think about how to develop o Invite other organisers you o There can be a messy

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a culture of trust and openness so that meaningful dialogue can take place between organisers and activists. Telling stories about people and campaigns is a natural way for people to transfer what they know into a campaign.

Try a listening campaign 3

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know to sign up to your campaign and offer them to recommend your campaign to their group in return for you doing the same on their campaign Send people comments and stories by supporters on why they signed up to the campaign

Use content from your events 1

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picture around certain campaigns. On some issues, there are so many groups involved, but paradoxically not many of them know each other. When they do know others involved, they don’t why, how and what they’re campaigning on and they’re also too busy to work out the “big picture” on that issue.

Go back to first principles 2

“I don’t get what difference your campaign will make”

o Highlight the difference the o

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campaign would make on their daily lives Show real-life stories of people most affected by the issue Encourage people involved to explain why they believe the issue matters

Try video diaries 2

“I don’t know how to campaign in this way” o

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The way you use participative tools to campaign is not the way most activists work, let alone newcomers, in this sense they’re awkward. The training needed for these tools – learning by doing - doesn't match the way most organisers train activists. Try and raise awareness through stories from other campaigns of how these methods of campaign have been successful.

“The people who run your group aren’t committed”

o There is the risk that the

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Try training days.

leadership of your campaign group is more likely to listen to the vocal minorities than people involved in a participative process of policy making or campaigning. This risk is inevitable in all organizations and those minorities should not be viewed or promoted as representative of your group. Try and get key leaders to champion participative campaigning Showcase examples of how participative campaigning can work to your leaders

See Colalife. 3

“Some people aren’t likely to campaign unless the issue affects them” o It works best when everyone is equally enthusiastic and capable to campaign. o However, the majority of people haven't been brought up in an environment of campaigning on issues that matter to them so there is no guarantee everyone will be immediately and automatically enthusiastic in doing so for your campaign. o Accompany them through the ways they can get involved. Test your campaign strategy out with people where this campaign would have a direct impact.

Try creative campaigns. 2

How can you communicate your campaign?

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Being able to communicate your message is very important. This method is helpful in the very early stages of a campaign for exploring how you will communicate and what tools you will use. You want to piggyback on what currently exists as well as understand where there are gaps.

Communicate your campaign

Blog your campaign

o Find

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out if people are actually taking any notice to your communications. What’s the proportion of people who sign up to your actions? Are you even asking them to sign up to them, or are your communications only telling them what you’re doing? What’s the proportion of people who are contacting you to want to help out in other ways?

Try Google Analytics 1

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Get your organisers to blog regularly; revealing what they really think not just what they want you to believe. Encourage them to communicate in a way that supporters can see them as real people. Create a campaign blog yourself.

See Tom Miller’s blog. 2

Social network it

Video it

o Create a profile on Facebook. o

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Links in a variety of tools to recruit and involve members, promote your causes and campaigns, raise funds and build links with partners. Write petitions on ePetitions, make pledges on Pledgebank, recruit support to join and donate on Facebook Causes

Try Facebook Causes 2

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Record all activities and campaigns on video/podcast/camera: add to a YouTube channel and other video and photosharing sites Produce vox pops, expert interviews and mini documentaries on the issues that matter to people. These could eventually contribute to a short film.

Try video competitions 3

Create a flyer

Produce a pamphlet

Place articles and banners on your websites

Promote your across the media

o Showcase your campaign

o Create a portfolio of ideas –

o If you know movements and

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through exhibits (i.e. placards, posters, postcards etc). Opening how the message is communicated to local groups who can personalise exhibits may encourage your campaign to be more localised. It is also a great opportunity to collect feedback from your organisers. Consider who your potential supporters might be and whether you want to communicate in an intimate way to particular groups.

See Valentine’s Day campaign. 3

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from guides to campaigning, articles on your blog, videos of our activities and campaigns, Produce a distinctive and exciting new style of pamphlet – an accessible, user generated and comprehensive snapshot of how your group campaigns.

Try Blurb.

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websites which could be interested in placing links and banners to your website or write an article about your group, please contact them. For this you can upload promotional material onto your site so then members could download and put on their websites or print out to distribute, therefore saving on paper and money to print and send out.

Try Widgetbox and Scribd. 3

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activities

To reach out to audiences that are more likely to support and join your group so you can support and media which are likely to mock you so we can provoke publicity Enhance the debate: On your blog Attract support: i.e. Guardian Provoke publicity: i.e. Daily Mail Spread links: Bloggers 4 Labour and Labour Home

Try CommentisFree. 1

React quickly but smartly o

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Engage in conversations with your networks, monitoring forums and blogs and joining in with the views of the people you want to attract. Respond quickly to any feedback from members but in a human way, not with a standard email response.

Try Netvibes or Addictomatic. 2

Link back to your website

o Share web links with other progressive websites.

o Increase search engine rating of your website.

o Create Wikipedia page for your group.

Try Experimental. 1

Campaign email You might think that email isn’t the sexiest way of communicating with people, unless you’re spamming people with viagra ads. After all, there are new tools and apps coming out every day that are more intuitive and collaborative than the other. It’s vital you use the different channels that the people you want to reach out to are using. It’s even more important you use the channel that most people all use – email. So here are some of the questions you might want to ask yourself before sending out a campaign email. What audiences are you reaching out to?

Why would they want to read the email?

Don’t by default want to get involved

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Interested in specific benefits your campaign can offer, but have little time

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Interested but afraid to engage with campaign

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What content would appeal to them?

If they can see the direct benefit to the issues they care about or the skills they want to contribute

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If they can see precisely what amount of time it takes to contribute to the campaign If they trust a friend to describe the benefits of the campaign If they can join a group of supporters to

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What format would appeal to them? Clear and concise

How can they contribute to the campaign email?

Number of points

Issues/Activities that they are already interested in Links to websites that will help them find out more Issues/Activities that grab their attention

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Captivating titles

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Rate what should be the next actions of the campaign

o Rating

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Jargon busters on the issues Exciting visuals

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Accessible and readable

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Share links Recommended by a friend who is more involved in this campaign Join supporters group

o Link sharer

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Personalised version of the news update Short version of the update

What tools can you provide that enable them to contribute? o Blog aggregator o Screencast of news update

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Email contact importer for people to recommend email to colleague Animation that

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see others are engaging with it

o Curious to engage with campaign

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If they can see issues/activities that aren’t covered by other campaign emails they already receive

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Interested and want to get involved

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If we gave them a way to get involved in shaping the campaign

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Activities that generate curiosity “If you’re doing this, you may be interested in this” Best articles, images, podcasts, posts, publications, tweets & videos on your campaign Enable them to feedback their ideas on how to improve the campaign Calls to participate in campaign actions Offer for them to select activist and campaign action of the month

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Colourful and interesting typography

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Focus on calls for action

o Select an action

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Comment on articles Fill in survey

for the next email Attend meetings with other groups you’re working with on the campaign Participate in street campaign

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means they have to sign up to the email alerts Community of Practice Comment enabler Survey creator Integrated social networking tools

o Event or pilot signup form

o Embedded shout box

o Suggestion box o Community-led search engine they can customise

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Already involved

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If we gave them a way to lead on the campaign in their organisations or neighbourhoods

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Calls to lead on activities

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Focus on calls for action

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actions Contribute guest posts Help facilitate campaign meetups Act as champions in their local areas Produce their own localised email Host their own meetups

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Administrator login

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What if the people you engage say… When faced with the choice of learning new technology and talking through a campaign on the phone or email, if it can be done with what organisers already know they will go with that. If you don’t have enough time or money to organise meetups or call people all the time, rather than sacrifice keeping in touch with your campaign team, make it easier for them to use the communication tools that are free.

“I don’t like going online to campaign” o

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Use tools that enable interactive communication and facilitate multi-tasking. In other words, those that allow communication from many to many as opposed to one-to-one. While email is vital to supporters, try and use it as little as possible with your campaign team – endless email conversations will cloud decisions and actions that need to be taken.

Try Skype. 1

“I don’t know how to comment on blogs”

“It’s always the same people taking part”

o Most people who go to

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websites do so to view, not to comment but you can let them see their voice represented. Start with where people are talking to each other already on the issue you’re campaigning on and summarise their conversations, use quotes, and why not try a few oneminute interviews in the style of the Metro.

Try Metro 60 second interviews. 2

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Take on-line comments and questions and feed them back into off-line discussions, then take the responses back online. Do all you can to encourage people to see their views represented on-line and see the activity this generates. Value what views people already have and use this as a springboard to encourage them to share these – either online or at a meetup.

Try Twitter Search. 1

How do I get other organisations to support my campaign? In looking at involving other organisations in your campaign, work out what are the best ways for them to work with you. Some campaigns require more support, while others can self-organise more easily. Non-partisan progressive organisations are not likely to directly support political party campaigns, because they have to represent their membership who didn't join on the basis of affiliation to a party but to a cause, however progressive this may be. It is therefore challenging for both the party and the organisations to work together effectively without compromising their identities or image. By campaigning alongside each other rather than instead of each other, you can both tap into the mutual benefits of the membership and influence of your group and theirs.

Who do you want to work with?

Active local groups

Decision makers

Coalitions

o Select the most interested or active local o Find out who makes decisions and at what groups as early adopters not only to take their campaigns to the next level but also to enable them to mentor other local groups who may be finding it more difficult to grow or have just been set up.

o o

See Haringgay Online.

levels (often there is more than one decisionmaker in a chain). How do they stand on your issue? Find out who you know that knows who can influence these decision makers? How can you use the people that have an influence on the decision makers?

Try Sustainable Communities Act. 2

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Introduce your campaign to different types of groups who may be able help you organise – coalitions who can bring in a wide range of partners, who can bring in both local involvement and national influence and community groups who can bring in the trust and understanding of the neighbourhood.

See London Citizens. 2

Who are the stakeholders and how are they going to be engaged?

Make connections with organisers in your local area

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Many of these people will – at least initially – get involved out of goodwill. They can advise you on issues you want to address on developing a campaign and what the “mood for engagement” is in the area.

Try speed networking. 2

Create spaces for supporters to share concerns, hopes and skills o

Try out inviting supporters and organisers from partner groups to joint or separate activities so you can work out what is the best way to work together.

Design a stakeholder engagement matrix

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Try campaign surgeries. 3

Ask people who have already taken part in your previous activities how you can link up people very active in the local area and those who aren’t. Design a stakeholder engagement matrix to work out how and when you engage the key “movers and shakers”.

Try WWF stakeholder matrix. 1

Partner with local representatives

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Partner up with progressive media, focusing on those in which your group may have already appeared in. Partner with trade unions and socially responsible businesses who want to participate through corporate social responsibility or championing campaigns.

See Living Wage Employers. 3

Credits: Thanks to minifig, Jamison, edmittance, ukslim, Merrick Brown, Oberazzi, Dunechaser and moleitau for the photos published under Creative Commons Licence. Extra thanks to David Wilcox, Dave Briggs and Tim Davies from this game has been inspired.