On this page, authors of Activist Handbook discuss the 'Strategy' chapter. Read this page if you are interested in making this chapter better.

Models: Basic strategy elements #

Many models/frameworks exist for developing campaign strategies. On this page, we outline a few. We have tried not to clutter the main chapter content with discussions around other models than the one Activist Handbook uses.

There is definitely value in explaining where our model comes from, and showing the diversity in models. Importantly, it acknowledges the hard work of authors before us.

However, Activist Handbook is not written for change-makers who want to read a book. It is written for people who want to start taking action. Not every activist should not have to understand the whole history of activism, before they can even start to think about making a difference themselves.

On this page, we make an exception: most people will not read this page, it is specifically written for people who want to make Activist Handbook better, so we can discuss things a bit more on a meta level.

Activist Handbook model #

The current model used on Activist Handbook is based on the one described by The Change Agency in the People Power Manual.

What is a campaign strategy? #

A campaign strategy is a plan or roadmap. It helps us determine what we need to do today and next week to get closer to our goals.

A strategy is not a long detailed document that you update every 3 years. It's a continuous practice of taking deliberate steps. A strategy consists out of the following 5 elements:

1. Journeys — Each step is part of a journey that brings us further: Our steps are connected. Everything we do is a preparation for the next thing we do. Impactful campaigns are about designing these journeys.

2. Vision — Our visions are a big ideas of a better future that bind us together: They are an ambitious stories that tell what direction to go in. It is a collaborative process that helps us understand our shared goals.

3. Focus — Focus help us narrow down what exactly we want to achieve: It helps us position our campaigns relative to what other change-makers are doing. It also helps make smart campaign objectives: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound.

4. Context — Context helps us understand what world we live in right now.

   • Stakeholders & power:

   • Resources available:

   • Urgency & severity:

5. Practice —

   • Organizing

   • Tactics

   • Wellbeing

   • Communication

• A strategy is not a long detailed document that you update every 3 years, it's a continuous practice.

• A strategy helps you determine what you need to do today and next week to get closer to your endgoals.

🛤️ Journeys (pathways) #

Connection between nodes (every event, action, campaign is connected). Even if reality is very far away from your vision, journeys help us choose more appropriate actions for today and next week that help you make progress towards your final goals.

💡 Vision #

• A vision enables us to dare to imagine a different future.

• It helps us understand the direction we want to go in.

• It brings us closer together.

• By contrasting your vision with reality, we can see more clearly the problem definition.

🌐 Context #

• Analysis of what is. The hard facts (from your perspective). Not: what do we decide?

• Stakeholders

  • 'Stakeholders' as an umbrella term for allies, constituents, third parties and targets.

  • 'Power' is the connection between the network of nodes (the stakeholders)

  • We put Stakeholders as a sub-item of Context, as we believe a situational analysis is always in the end about Stakeholders. While defining the Context, one logically already finds the Stakeholders. However, we do make a distinction between the analysis of your Stakeholder surroundings, and your decision to Position yourself in relation to those Stakeholders. This decision is not part of the Context.

• Resources available: people & money that you have available, with what capacity are you starting? (and thus also: what capacity still needs to be built?)

• Urgency & severity: urgency requires different strategic decisions. Severity is about what happens if your campaign fails. What are the stakes? Severity also impacts strategic decisions.

• Use the term 'Strategy context', instead of 'Situational analysis': the latter is more difficult to understand for non-native speakers. Both seem equally popular in Google Trends (with 'strategy context' on the rise, and fewer webpages, so higher ranking potential). However, we will include a sentence "also called situational analysis" in case people look up that work on our own search engine.

🎯 Focus #

• Focus helps you make the work you need to do more concrete and manageable.

• It positions your movement/campaign within the wider ecosystem of movements. What are you doing that others aren't?

  • Positioning (within movement of movements)

    • Stakeholders = answers: where are others?

    • Positioning = answers: where do you position your organisation/campaign] - an active decision

• Only use term 'Strategy focus' (or 'strategy scope'), instead of 'strategy goals': The difference between 'goals' and 'objectives' is frequently misunderstood by activists. These words are also often difficult to translate into other language (for example, in German, they both translate as "Ziele"). Solution: Use the term 'strategy focus' instead of 'campaign goals' .

👉 Practice #

• Organizing: organisational framework

• Tactics: Individual points of action.

  • Different types of tactics training, recruit people, strengthen community, create visibility, direct actions

• Wellbeing

• Communication

  • Audiences

  • What message?

  • Means to spread the message

Change Agency #

The Activist Handbook model was based on the People Power: Campaign Strategy book.

Midwest Academy #

The Midwest Academy propose a simple campaign planning grid with columns for seven elements of strategy:

1. Vision

2. Goals

3. Objectives

4. Organisational considerations

5. Constituents, allies and opponents

6. Tactics

7. Timeline.

Robert Burrowes #

Scholar and activist Robert Burrowes has developed an alternative framework for capturing and presenting the key elements of a campaign.

The four central elements are:

1. Assessment

2. Political purpose and demands

3. Strategic aims and goals

4. Conception of nonviolent action.

These four elements inform and direct the eight other elements Burrowes advocates:

1. Organisation

2. Leadership

3. Communication

4. Preparations

5. Constructive program (positive community and political development to meet human needs)

6. Strategic timeframe

7. Tactics and peacekeeping

8. Evaluation.

Burrowes uses some of these terms differently from the definitions we’ve presented in this manual. His expression ‘assessment’ is similar to our expression ‘situational analysis’; ‘political purpose’ is similar to ‘demands’ while ‘strategic aims’ refers to broader movement goals.

Democracy Centre #

The Democracy Centre recommends nine steps to plan advocacy campaigns based around a sequence of simple questions. By answering each question, campaigners develop each element of their strategy:

• What do we want? (goals and objectives)

• Who can give it to us? (audiences)

• What do they need to hear? (messages)

• Who do they need to hear it from? (messengers)

• How do we get them to hear it? (delivery)

• What have we got? (resources; strengths)

• What do we need to develop? (challenges; gaps)

• How do we begin? (first steps)

• How will we know it’s working, or not working? (evaluation)

North East Forest Alliance #

The North East Forest Alliance advocate a campaign planning approach that focuses on eight ‘contributing strategies’ that together comprise the grand strategy or overall campaign plan.
1. Research
2. Public education

3. Media
4. Legal
5. Political
6. Fundraising
7. Directaction,and
8. Survival and renewal.

This eighth element is critical. What’s the point of winning if your members are burnt out and your organisation has fallen into conflict, debt or despair?

Improve readability #

This chapter contains lots of high quality guides and valuable external resources. However, it is too much for the average reader to process.

• Increase consistency between workshops and Activist Handbook model: each workshop has other basic strategy elements. Create a bit more consistency between, or at least explain which model is more useful in what context. For example, for new activists just starting out, the main Activist Handbook model might be a bit overwhelming: "If you’re new to campaigning and looking for a simpler approach, you might instead experiment with the ‘Strategy as a House’ process developed by the Sierra Club or the ‘Short term campaign strategy planning template’ that we’ve included in the guide." (People Power Manual)

• Create context-specific strategy guides: if you're just starting out, what pathway to follow? If you work for a large nonprofit, what pathway?

• Summarise guides: In every guide, add a 'Summary' section at the top.

• Evaluate external resources: Go through all external resources, and summarise what value each resource provides. This way, readers know what to expect, and do not have to read every single external resource to find the bit they are looking for.

Other improvements #

Potential new sub-pages/sections #

• Interventions: things your movement can change about society/in a community (see more in ‘types of strategies’)

• Dealing with backlash

  • What to expect

  • Prepare

  • Responding

Chapter organisation #

• Add link to ‘power mapping’ guide on ‘stakeholders’ page

Find a place to put these guides #

• Dealing with opposition

• Power mapping

• Local context

Search keywords #

People are searching for:

*According to Semrush