This morning I am in a beautiful hall at the University of Winnipeg for the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative’s annual general meeting, which is running concurrently with the Peace and Justice Studies Association annual conference.
The campaign to establish a Canadian Department of Peace has prominent supporters, a growing number of chapters (twelve), and Bill C-447 (with bipartisan support) before Parliament to support the creation of this department.
I’ve been asked here this weekend to give an address to begin an interactive strategy session ‘to take the campaign to the next level’.
To start this discussion I offered a mix of principles and specifics utilized by the Council of Canadians in our campaigns as well as some thoughts on how we have tried to take our campaigns to the next level.
1-Start with the firm belief that we will win the campaign.
It is vital to know that we will win. That it may take time to win, maybe many years, but that it will happen. Take it as a given that you’ll be told your campaign goal can’t be won. And remember that once we have won, there will then be the next campaign to both advance our win even further and to defend it.
2-Continually work to build public awareness with good communication through diverse means.
To build our campaign, for people to understand it, we need to tell the story of what we want and what we are doing to get it. We need a narrative. We do that through any number of ways including: fact sheets, FAQs, talking points, buttons, t-shirts, banners, placards, slogans, reports, blogs, op-eds, letters to the editors, articles, pod casts, videos, e-newsletters, and updates. Maintain your website and build your e-mail lists. We have to offer our best arguments, and we have to continually be updating and adding layers to our argumentation.
3-Use all the political tools you can imagine, and keep adding new tools.
The tools we have used over the years include: public forums, speaking tours, conferences, petitions (collected online and on the street), protests (a march, holding a banner, creative stunts), legal opinions, online action alerts, media conferences, bus tours, peoples assemblies, information tables (at malls, farmers markets), lobbying, deputations, election interventions, polls, billboards, imagery, contests, direct action, and so much more.
4-Always seek ways for people to participate in the campaign in whatever ways possible.
This can be a challenge with a national campaign, but a campaign will not go very far without a widening circle of people participating in it. Diversity is essential. As is recognition that there will always be different levels of engagement, but whatever someone offers can move a campaign forward. And there needs to be participation in decision-making and ownership of the campaign activities.
5-Sustain the pressure you are able to apply, be tenacious in your persistence.
This is only to say that a newspaper article one day is good, but several articles over several days will be seen by more people. Several articles are good, but a front-page story is great. Strive for this. This is the principle (and challenge) of creating momentum in a campaign.
6-Build a strong organizational foundation, and remember that organizations are people.
Campaigns can burn out when structure is not nurtured. A campaign needs money, people, people working together, good communication, respect, leaders, spokespeople, organizers, and even constructive critics. Time spent on this is both necessary and productive.
7-Maintain your organizational independence, do not compromise your principles for a win.
An obvious point perhaps, but the Council owes much to an early decision not to take corporate donations or government grants. A number of non-governmental organizations that have relied on government grants – or even charitable status – have sharply felt the limitations of that approach.
8-Be creative, innovate and have fun.
We have a serious, perhaps solemn responsibility to win our campaigns. Creativity will help us do that. And fun can be key to creativity. It breathes life into campaigns.
9-Be nice to each other along the way.
Stress, frustration, competing views, and heavy demands have a way of creating tensions unhelpful to our work. Guard against this, nicely!
10-Believe in luck (and hard work), because when it looks like you’ll never win, something will shift and you will have won.
Part of the belief that we will win, is believing in the combination of luck and hard work. Campaigns that have appeared unwinnable for 24 years have been won in the 25th year (such as Site 41). Terrible things that have appeared unstoppable have been won because of public pressure and some internal implosion on the other side (like the Security and Prosperity Partnership, even arguably the World Trade Organization).
I closed with this simple observation. How can you take your campaign to the next level? In short, work hard and ask yourself that very question every day.
To learn more about the campaign to establish a Department of Peace, go to www.departmentofpeace.ca.
To see a summary of Council of Canadians wins over the years and further consider how those were won, please go to www.canadians.org/join/wins.html.
