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section 11

Plan for success

Most information on campaigning focuses on achieving a breakthrough, for example: your target politician agreeing with your campaign message. But what will you do when you get such agreement? In campaigning this is a key time when problems occur.

Sadly, too many campaigns that gain agreement for their stated goal find that problems occur when it reaches the practical implementation stage.  The politicians and decision-makers who can promise change are almost never the ones within their departments who work out all the details and then implement the changes.

So, as campaigners it is important to have a plan for success. What will you do when your target politician agrees? It’s best to plan for this and not find yourself having to make quick or difficult decisions. Will you work with your target politician on the practicalities and details of implementation?

As part of your campaign planning, your stakeholder group could decide to have a simple position like this one:

Once we have got a commitment from our target politician, we plan to be very involved in the implementation of this new policy and will push to be included in the working group for implementation. We will continue to campaign for change internally and externally until we see people actually benefiting from this new policy and finding new lives off the streets.

A plan for success is vital for a campaign. But also remember you must never stop campaigning until your change is truly delivering for people on the ground. A commitment in principle to change is not enough!