Campaigning
See also Fundraising
Collaboration
https://www.feasta.org/category/documents/projects/cap-and-share/
Public Subscriptions via Patreon etc
- Which social media platforms to utilise
- Reach per channel: - total number of people reached x density of interested people (e.g. Youtube is massive but the average viewer has v. low interest). Density is going to be more useful than raw numbers at your stage - see Neil Patel: https://neilpatel.com/blog/#p-175078
- Geography - UK, Aus, NZ based donors may be more likely
- Donations/marketing funnel
- Donor journey:
- See some kind of marketing material (what are these?) on some kind of channel (what are these?) that drives them to the website
- They review the website content and make a decision of if they want to donate (how many people are going to the website and what proportion of them are donating)?
- They make a donation (how much do people typically donate?) It would be good to then set some goals of how many people move through each step e.g.
- 10,000 site visits a week
- 10% donate
- Average donation of £5
- Total weekly donation revenue of £500 - translates to £26k p.a. (minimum multi-year sustainable threshold)
- If we can answer these questions, then we can start getting into the specific marketing tactics we should employ (the marketing materials are part of this). The specific tactics we employ are dependent on which part of the funnel we are trying to optimise. So, the 3-minute video is likely to be utilised to drive people to donate once they are on the website as it's a relatively high time commitment. I suspect that we need to increase traffic to the website (i.e. we need to optimise step 1: a hypothesis that is worth testing). Bottom line is we need to diagnose what we need to optimise before deciding on how we optimise.
Strategic Planning Resources
SWOT (Strength/Weakness, Opportunities/Threats)
SMART
- specific: what is the obvious criteria for DONE?
- measurable: data monitoring
- achievable: can it be accomplished, attained?
- resourced: is it worth it?
- time-limited: deadlines
Theory of Change examples to learn from:
- https://green-alliance.org.uk/publication/strategy-2021-24/
- https://www.feasta.org/theory-of-change/
- https://www.worldlandtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/WLT-Strategic-Plan-2021-2025-Digital.pdf
Charity Excellence & Mission creation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN4-5WDdFSk
NPC ToC resources: https://www.thinknpc.org/resource-hub/ten-steps/
LogFrames (and results chains): https://www.ukaiddirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/UKAD-Guidance-Logframes.pdf
Strategy generalities from professor of social https://razgo.medium.com/lessons-from-national-geographics-planet-or-plastic-campaign-on-sustainable-behavior-change-33307f829da
US progressive campaign strategy: https://rosadefoc.noblogs.org/files/2018/02/The-ALL-NEW-Dont-Think-of-an-Elephant_-K-George-Lakoff.pdf
C3 Messaging this moment https://www.asocommunications.com/messaging-guides (pdf)
Network for Good's 'successful campaign planning' article
Chris Rose / Greenpeace http://campaignstrategy.org/twelve_guidelines.php?pg=intro
Duncan Green / Oxfam - How Change Happens - pdf on laptop
Leslie Crutchfield's How Change Happens - https://howchangehappens.com/ LBGT+ movement, anti-smoking, talking to reptile brain not discussing facts....
Social Change Agency - Movement Building - pdf on laptop
Made it stick - Chip & Dan Heath - on bookshelf
Campaign Tutorials
https://campaignbootcamp.org/resources/the-basics-start-your-campaign/
https://campaignbootcamp.org/resources/how-to-set-up-a-petition/
https://campaignbootcamp.org/resources/media-getting-your-campaign-in-the-press/
https://campaignbootcamp.org/resources/how-to-get-your-campaign-on-the-internet/
https://campaignbootcamp.org/resources/how-to-raise-funds-to-help-with-your-campaign/
https://campaignbootcamp.org/resources/how-to-use-email-in-your-campaigning/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/01/12-habits-of-successful-change-makers-mission-led/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/05/12-habits-of-successful-change-makers-in-whose-name/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/06/12-habits-of-successful-change-makers-the-primacy-of-relationships/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/07/12-habits-of-successful-change-makers-understanding-others/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/09/collaborating-rather-than-competing/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/10/knowing-our-tools/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/11/evaluating-what-matters-and-learning-from-it/
https://www.acevo.org.uk/2019/12/taking-responsible-risks/
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/guides/planning
http://www.takepart.org/contentControl/documentControl/12729_how%20to%20start%20a%20campaign.pdf
Network for Good's 'successful campaign planning' article
1. Define the Victory
- measurably reducing the carbon footprints of North Londoners
- a just energy transition
2. Evaluate the Campaign
Climate attitudes in the UK: https://climateoutreach.org/reports/engaging-audiences-cop26/#
Categorising US citizens by climate attitude: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/09/how-to-effectively-show-climate-change-in-25-images/
The six fundamental moral tastebuds that define people's reactions: https://www.highexistence.com/how-jonathan-haidts-6-moral-tastebuds-can-heal-a-divided-world/
Are we gaining support from each of these types of people:
- Public citizens - deniers / delayers / free market proponents
- Public, slightly aware, business-as-usual
- Public, concerned (different nationalities?) - moral contributors
- Public, concerned youth - woke contributors :)
- Policy-literate carbon tax/price advocates
- Business-literate Paris Agreement believers
- People like us
Careful with complexity - it takes effort to bring it across
Marketing surveys - MarketingSurveys
3. Chart the Course - Milestones
- Generate social media, blogging content, talks & podcasts - goal to become trusted voice on climate, earn credibility in social media
- production of articles and videos - apply for medium-sized grants for employment costs for research and public education via charity and research grants
- organise local carbon rationing town by town, build up local council co-operation and facilitation, generate business interest and creation of rationed products and services
- generate interest and credibility from news agencies / news feeds from journalism & research, get policy support from a major big player - Oil company, UN, Central bank, Politicians (Green Party, Zac Goldsmith, Ed Miliband)
4. Choose Your Influence Strategy
Along with each step, understand the decision-makers who will determine your success. These may be voters, business partners, or public officials.
- Technical advisors - Climate Change Commission
- Civil service departments
- Politician secretaries
- Glasgow COP 2020 - Claire
- Secretary of State responsible
Then, find out who will have the most influence on these decision-makers. These are the people you want to reach and activate to help your initiative gain momentum. Warning: avoid naming broad groups such as “the general public,” “voters” or “women.” Just as you did with your campaign goal, get very specific about your influencers so you have a clear picture of the kind of person you need to reach to achieve victory.
- People who want govt to provide a climate fix, newspapers, muggles, Conservatives,
- People who want everyone to play their part
5. Message for Impact
All campaigns benefit from a messaging platform that provides everyone in your organization with a consistent positioning statement. Keep in mind that a messaging platform doesn’t need to be rigid, nor does it need to be memorized, but it should provide the core concepts and talking points to serve as a guide for your spokespeople.
- explain the problem/need that currently exists or the situation that you are working to change
- specify what your campaign is working to accomplish
- describe how you recommend addressing the need or problem, along with specific actions that decision-makers need to take
- explain the result that a campaign victory will have and how it solves the problem you noted at the start
- keep repeating the risks of rising sea levels, wildfires, floods, drought, extreme weather, glaciers, coral reefs - people put it out of their minds after every conversation
- current action far too inadequate
- commitments under Climate Change Act 2008 and Amendment 2019 not backed up by policy or trends
- CO2 levels still rising, carbon budget for 1.5°C GW limit almost gone
- all positive news doesn't disguise missing action plan
- on track to miss 1.5° & 2° targets, 3° cannot be acceptable, and isn't inevitable
- lack of ambition from leaders, nationally and internationally
- US recalcitrance and UN ineffectiveness
- Fighting the second wave of climate denial #NewClimateWar
- widespread belief that Paris targets can be met without rationing through carbon taxes, pricing mechanisms and regulations
- pro-fossil-fuel propaganda no longer denies, but pushes for delayed and reduced action without altering business-as-usual
- rationing is a government intervention in a state of emergency (normally war) to ensure that the population is guaranteed a fair allocation of scarce commodities
- in an emergency to control supplies, a government would step in and in most cases this is accepted by the populace e.g. WW2, COVID-19 & free movement
- it is considered a severe intervention, heavy-handed, a blunt instrument to deliver a necessary and unpleasant change to everyday life
- carbon rationing in form of carbon allowances + currency policy is neither blunt nor unpleasant
- introduction of TCR
- fair and equitable
- commitment - less risk of failure / interference / roll-back
- creates psychological "in this together" narrative
- swift economic response to changes in degree imposed, most likely policy to bring about exponential rise in the rate of decarbonisation once introduced, due to the way it would permeate everybody's consciousness and impact every facet of the economy just as fossil fuels do
- allows personal freedom to choose where to make carbon savings
- comprehensive coverage of all emissions sources e.g. shipping, aviation, international trade, public services
- innovation through increase in citizens' carbon literacy - not just new 'salvation' technologies, but more ways of doing business and transacting in a low carbon way
- the citizen consumer is catered to - a carbon label on everything via CO2 emission cumulative supply chain summation per product or service - built-in carbon calculator, dynamic, product specific carbon pricing - stimulate low carbon economy
- less unexpected results
- clearer understanding amongst citizens
- puts responsibility for carbon calculations on vendors, so purchasers don't have to spend so much time checking the data https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-13/over-90-of-firms-aren-t-measuring-emissions-correctly-bcg-says no complex low-accuracy assessments of built-in emissions for long supply chains
- cleans up the carbon offset industry
- clearer future
- unexpected outcomes have less impact
- undesirable outcomes can be tackled via govt ration subsidies or financial spending without legislation
6. Manage Your Campaign
- Timelines
- Metrics
- Outcomes
- Victories
7 Rules for Persuasive Dissent
How to persuade people to take a different direction - the narrative for the carbon currency system https://hbr.org/2022/07/7-rules-for-persuasive-dissent
- Demonstrate how your work has benefitted the team - your contribution has precedent
- Pass the group threat test - illustrate that you have the best interests of the group at heart
- Consistent messaging - what triggers and holds curiosity is expressing the same message in different ways
- Lean on objective information - label what is subjective opinion and what has supported evidence, earn an audience’s trust by anticipating their questions and already having answers ready
- Address obstacles and risks - transparency boosts persuasive appeal
- Encourage collaboration - you possess a work in progress and the audience will offer guidance in designing the next, better iteration.
- Get support - healthy relationships allow us to believe that more is possible and act with bravery
From Chris Rose chris@campaignstrategy.co.uk http://threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org/?p=2414
In campaign terms [UCCs as a carbon currency] is a Level 2 idea (Level 1 would be something like “the economy should not make climate change worse” or “the economy should stop climate change”). By Level 2 I mean ideas or actions, which if they happened could/would solve the problem. Level 3 is a sequence of activities and events which can be made to happen, to bring about a Level 2 idea (ie actualise it).
You mention the odd bit which might make some of the many things that would be required to make it happen but basically it’s a lot of assertion and a priori argument – and you may well be right – but it’s a collection of ideas not an actionable proposition. It gets worse as you go on because you take a swing at some of the people/institutions that you might (in some pathways) need to have onside in order to have a chance of getting it made a reality. Eg IPCC scientists. In this it is similar to the doomed theories of XR (Roger Hallam, version 1) --- you’ll need to resist the desire to be proved right as opposed to do what’s needed to be effective.
Contextually I’d forget trying to influence COP26 or those engaged in it. From a floating-big-new ideas perspective the time to do that is when your intended audience is scratching it’s heads and thinking “do we need to do different?”, ie after COP26 has failed to deliver in one way or another.
So far as I understand the gist of your argument, it’s an economic idea. On that basis I suggest you need to find not scientists (and climate scientists frequently get desperate/ despondent and sign up to things they now little about such as calls for political or social change or technological policies) but economists, or at least people who either economists pay attention to when it comes to ideas, or who can actually trial your idea.
In that respect I suggest looking for a subset of the climate problematique/ issue where there are already some of the right elements in place. Eg aviation. The quota allocation and resale of quotas by those who don’t want/need them would be ‘progressive’ and it could be politically attractive as it could ‘square a circle’ - satisfying the must-fly rich who get to continue flying more than others, while not ‘taking away the right to fly’ from anyone, except those who opt to cash in their quotas, plus it could be the start of a ceiling on flying. Politically that’s a lot more feasible (because the aviation market is highly regulated, controlled and traceable but also very small compared to economies in general and therefore lower risk and more manageable).
The two main heuristics used in political decision making esp by governments are (a) is it easy, doable and (b) is it popular. In the case of flying, even though most people don’t fly or hardly ever, they tend to reject someone taking away that ‘right’. But lots of evidence suggests (eg how farmers or fishermen handled transferrable production quotas) that a lot of people would opt-out, especially if it was a regular issue (so they might opt in again later, by which time the quota cap could have shrunk – see this I wrote about flying and carbon - http://threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org/?p=2414 about how that sort of system could scale up finance of carbon capture (the basalt type))
So … I suggest ditch the treatises, narrow and reduce the focus and claims, don’t try to anticipate lots of what-if’s, rein in the wider critiques, find some champions and most of all identify a way it could get trialled and work back from that – who would need to do what? Who can help make that happen? How can I reach these people ? Why is it in their interest to do this?
Otherwise it sounds to me a bit, not just like Aubrey’s contraction and convergence a great idea but politically unsaleable but Stafford Beer’s eudemoney.
Of course I am probably wrong in various respects but without you finding a budget to pay my time so I can get more educated about it, we won’t know how.
If you can find someone who might get Mark Carney to give you his thoughts, that might be useful.
You might also try running it (but in a much shorter form) by Chris Goodall who is an economist and writes Carbon Commentary – but read his newsletters first. The most recent one had interesting things to say about shipping and carbon pricing. Attached.
On aviation there are lots of people but you might try Leo Murray at We Are Possible and Transport and Environment in Brussels. Maybe carlos.calvoambel@transportenvironment.org
I mean my advice is to work out what the selling point is of your idea – it fixes problem A by doing B – here are the benefits C. You need to recruit support on that basis. Avoid – and it will also do this if, and others are wrong because of that etc – ie expanding on it. Saying more than you need to runs the risk of losing people who at first thought it was a good idea.
Nobody has used [DAC-only flying to campaign] so far as I know so feel free. My feeling is that even if we shut down all emissions now (some people are trying to model this) we would still want to take carbon down, and that plus the realpolitik of politicians running scared of aviation means something like this is unavoidable. Too bad if it means flying is no longer cheap during the interim – but it could be cheap again if it was zero emission. I am not bothered about George’s views to be honest – he is not along but it’s if anything a weaker proposition and has been mooted zillions of times. As to finance – this would place the onus on the aviation industry itself.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/24/climate-crisis-machines-sucking-co2-from-the-air
https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/co2-capture-a-cost-curve/
https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/climeworks-direct-air-capture-breakthrough/