everyday social democracy

creative campaigns camp - next steps

Posted on Saturday, June 27, 2009 No Comments
Labels: building skills, campaigncamp, creativecampaigns, organising campaigns, telling stories

Thank you for taking time out of your weekend to take part in Creative Campaigns Camp. It was a chance for all of us to step back from what we know and try out new ways to campaign using creative techniques.

Sign up for our next session

Thanks for the feedback about how practical the workshops were, how organically things came together for you to learn new skills and create campaigns and how we might improve.

Do you want to meet up so we can work out together what we can do next? Sign up here for our next session on Thursday 9th July at the amazing Whitechapel Gallery.

We can talk about how we can take forward the campaigns you developed, how you might like to contribute to our activities or even organise a Campaigns Camp where you are.

Sign up for our new website

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. It was amazing at how you all bonded and worked with each other so well.

Do you want to relive the different journeys of your campaigns as well as your experiences of the day? Sign up here for our new Creative Campaigns website where we’ll show all the videos we filmed of the day.

This will also give you the opportunity to not just find out about upcoming activities but tell us about projects you may be involved in, to upload your experiences and stories of campaigns and issues that matter to you.

If you have any queries or would like to chat further, feel free to contact us!

Noel and Ffiona

What will you pledge?

Sign up for our next session

Sign up for our new website

Forward this email to a friend

WANT TO CREATE A CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT THE RECESSION?

Posted on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 No Comments
Labels: campaigncamp, creativecampaigns

Come and join Compass Youth & Toynbee Hall at our Creative Campaigns Camp on

SUNDAY 21ST JUNE BETWEEN 11-5PM

Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LS (next to Aldgate East)

Just imagine if you could bring together people organising in their communities, getting their voice heard in the media and campaigning through through art, film or music.

We’re passionate about enabling you develop exciting ways to campaign, finding out how others are organising and creating spaces where you can make change.

That's why the camp will feature sessions for you to:

GET INSPIRED by Toynbee Hall's experiences of campaigning from the bottom up - from That Money Thing campaign on student debt to the Post Office campaign.

GET TOGETHER in workshops facilitated by film makers, vocal artists and animators and share their skills of turning people's hopes and fears into collective action.

GET INVOLVED to create on the day with other young people, new campaigns to fight the recession that we will support you to take forward together where you are.

DON'T MISS OUT, SIGN UP NOW!

BOOK YOUR PLACE - email noel.hatch1@gmail.com

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TOO - forward this to a friend.

Want to find out more? Call Ffiona on 02073922963.

treat yourself to a milky bar - is it time for a citizen's income?

Posted on Sunday, May 10, 2009 No Comments
Labels: developing ideas

In the recent Budget proposals, it was announced that children would get an extra £20 Child Tax Credit from April next year. The Chancellor highlighted that a third of a million families would get an average £35 a week more through tax credits. Given that nine in every ten families already qualify for tax credits, you could argue that’s good news. However, campaigners argue that amounts to an extra 38p a week to the three million children living in poverty – this was more a “milky bar budget” for them than a “people’s budget”…

So should we campaign for an even greater increase in tax credits then or would more of the same still prevent families climbing out of the poverty black hole?

We know that although financial equality doesn’t directly guarantee social equality, income inequality certainly aggravates other inequalities we face as The Spirit Level demonstrates. Despite the increase in tax credits, the proportion of wealth has fallen for the majority of us as much as it has risen for the richest 10% since the earlier 90s.

Up until now, the government has focused much more on opportunity much more than equality – it even has a name for it - “social mobility” and the most visible example of this is their approach to “getting people back into work”. The paradox though for the people that take this up is that they fall into a trap – they lose most of their benefits – housing & council tax as well as job seekers allowance while the rate of deduction of their tax rates rises significantly. This obviously discourages people from trying to get back into work, as well as the practical difficulties of being able to afford to get to job interviews or even broadband to search for jobs.

How will they be able to pay for the bills at the end of the month, not knowing how many hours their recruitment agency will give them to work and facing a sharp decrease in tax credits that takes place when you get a job?

Those who suffer the most are families with children – they experience marginal deduction rates of over 60%. The only benefit which reduces child poverty and does not contribute to deduction rates is Child Benefit. On the other hand, those benefits which increase the likelihood of entering a “poverty trap” are Working or Child Tax Credits. The difference between child benefit and tax credits is that the former is paid unconditionally and the latter is means-tested. In these times of change we can believe in, we would normally look to Obama, but the US is so far behind in terms of social protection, that it doesn't make sense this time round to be inspired. What we surely need then are more unconditional and non-withdrawable and less means-tested benefits to tackle child poverty?

How about a citizen's income?

A “citizen’s income” pushes all these buttons, so should the government need to reduce tax credits to pay for a “basic citizen's income” to everyone or should it increase taxes for those who earn more or even introduce a maximum wage to pay a “living citizen's income”?

What are the overriding benefits of a citizen’s income?

The Citizen’s Income Trust argues that it’s unconditional, so it would also reduce the stigma attached to means-tested benefits. Its non-withrawable, so it would also reduce the stress attached to working out how much they would be left with at the end of the month. It’s redistributive as income is redistributed from people who are better off more towards those less so. Those who earn the least would get a quarter more in come than they currently do, while those who earn the most would only get a bit less. The rest of us would either get an increase in income or would stay in the same position as we are now. It's empowering as it would also encourage more flexible working, lifelong learning and retraining which is so important at the moment.

A survey amongst MPs shows that there is support expressed right across the political spectrum that everyone would gain from getting a “citizen's income”. If we don’t want to turn back on our pledge to reduce child poverty by half by next year, we need to do better than the “milky bar budget” we got a few days ago. Isn’t it time for a citizen’s income?

Thanks to Cliph for the photo published under Creative Commons

If I can't dance, I won't join your revolution

Posted on Monday, May 04, 2009 No Comments
Labels: organising campaigns

Many Labour activists see what’s going on like the end of a relationship with their party, no matter how much they want to relive the good times, they sense something is broken and it’s time to move on. .

Because like most people, activists too miss out on the happiness of seeing something they have shaped together and feeling empowered to do so. And despite being ignored and mocked by their own party for calling the government for fairer taxes and more equal rights, there are still many of them relentlessly trying to persuade voters that the government will deliver a better deal for them.

These activists are all that’s left to save Labour from itself. Those who have left can't see the point of saving a party that won't listen to them and took them for granted, thinking they wouldn't leave as they had nowhere else to go.

As a fellow activist said “I suppose I always had this illusion that my membership brought some influence. But when you realise that you cannot influence what happens, and you’re just supporting something you find insupportable … what do you do?”.

To paraphrase a cult socialist proverb, if you can't dance, why join the revolution?

You can cancel your membership and many of us have. You can complain and even more us do. Or you can campaign to try and get Labour to change.

You then might argue there have been so many proposals on how to reconnect disillusioned members to come out and campaign. Most efforts by the party have so far been more "pin the donkey", trying to attach the long tail of the grassroots to the skinny rigid body of its own structures.

Given how many young members are even more disillusioned with the party and how it has been virtually impossible for any "left" candidates to win any Young Labour positions, you'd be forgiven for thinking that campaigning for the recent Young Labour elections would be a lost battle.

But once we realised how many people wanted their party back and how we could contest democratic elections for Young Labour Chair, we knew this was an opportunity we couldn’t miss.

The campaign didn't start in Westminster, even less so in Victoria Street and not even in the narcissistic egos that so many candidates standing to represent young people get. We knew that as well as making change happen with other young Labour members in his region, with other young progressives, with other young people in his community, Sam Tarry really was the best candidate to make change happen in becoming Chair of Young Labour. He is probably the only candidate I know who had already delivered the promises he was yet to make.

But we didn’t just write the campaign on the back of a cigarette packet. Campaigning for apprentices to get a minimum wage isn't an issue Sam picked out of a lucky policy hat, it was an issue he'd fought for with other young people. "Your idea, your campaign" isn't some motherhood and apple pie concept he proposed to sound like Obama, we tried it out in workshops and through video.

That’s why “It’s not about me, it’s about you” was a message that Sam was keen to spread and helping run the campaign, I can assure you it’s so much more exciting to feel that your team is constantly growing and growing. Every day people bringing in new ideas, new skills and this is where your ears will prick up…new supporters.

But we didn't stick to a structured plan of how we would engage young members, we adapted and innovated to make it as comfortable and empowering as possible for different people at different times in different ways to feel and get involved in the campaign.

Here are a few of the lessons I learnt in running communications for the campaign, I won't take up any more space on this blog, but if you click on the hyperlinks you can get a better idea of what we learnt.

empowering your activists to campaign for you

move it and shake it like they've never seen it before
name and frame the campaign
release the pressure of your team
join up the dots before jumping in

encouraging people to support you

start with your personal story
connect up your personal story to the collective story of your activists
go where the people are - adapt the messengers, not the message
track the causes and campaigns that matter to your potential supporters

developing your message

don't make deals with people you don't know, earn their trust
don't treat them as employees, treat them like your family
don't take them for granted, value them as people you couldn't do without
expect to be surprised by your supporters, they're the people you've been waiting for
understand what you're doing with the tools you've go
understand how your supporters can participate
share your success and they will commit even more to you

coping with your campaign

embrace the mess, you need rules for radicals not robots
focus relentlessly on the people you need support from
start with your instinct, be ruthless in your judgement
don't just make it blood, sweat & tears, give them leadership & a smile
don't just tell supporters what you stand for, get them to vote for you!

Don't just get people on your dancefloor, get them to run the show and they'll join your revolution.

empowering your activists to campaign for you

Posted on Monday, May 04, 2009 No Comments
Labels: organising campaigns

The first part of the campaign toolkit to get (s)elected is how to empower your activists to campaign for you. Move it, shake it, name and frame it. Read on!

Move and shake it like they’ve never seen before

Get on board the people you know who can mobilise others who want to help you win - “your movers and shakers”. They’ve organised for progressive candidates in similar elections or been involved in organisations or movements who are very good at building broad based support.

What they share in common is their passion for the politics you stand for and their understanding of building support from the bottom up. They will also be able to get you public support from people who others can identify with very easily as sharing your values – whether that’s young leaders or ministers.

Engage with closely those people who may be “non aligned” but are symbolically very important, because of the leadership they demonstrate. Think about what value supporting you will offer them and then work out how you can describe those benefits.

Don’t think for one minute that just because they haven’t publicly come out in favour of any candidate, that they will support whoever’s the highest bidder for their vote. Listen to them to understand why – it could be they can’t decide between the candidates, because everyone strikes a chord, or worse because none of you are listening to their concerns and hopes.

Name and frame the game

See how other candidates are campaigning but never try and systematically react to their issues as quickly as possible. Obviously when you stand for anything, you do need to explain what you stand against and why, but never “name” people who you feel represent the latter. Focus on framing the issues you stand for.

If other candidates or their supporters do attack your campaign – whether on what you stand for, or your lack of experience – make those attacks feel personal to you and to members and reframe them back to « they want to make it about me, I want to make it about you » (you may have heard that nugget before…) to the people you want to vote for you. If you are trying to convince them, they are unlikely to vote for you if you or any of your supporters “slander” people (even if other candidates provoke you into doing so).

Release the pressure

Listen to your supporters who don’t feel comfortable trying to mobilise other people. Be especially honest with people who volunteer but feel pressured to do so because they want to help you out, but don’t feel confident, ready or likely to lead from the front. This is a big responsibility you're putting on their shoulders so go through this with them so that you know early on whether they will “run for the hills” at the last moment. If they are supportive, they will be keen to help you out in other ways and this is much better for both of you than pressurising them and then finding out you have lost a supporter at the last minute.

See how other people who are neither supportive nor challenging you evolve throughout your campaign as they can become convinced by one candidate or the other, or “flip flop” based on their performances. If they are people you don't know and do become supportive and are keen to help you out, trust your instincts as to whether they want to genuinely help you out or want to sabotage your campaign.

Join up the dots before you jump in

Find out who is active. Find out if you have a mutual friend and ask them to recommend the campaigning you've done in the local area you’re standing in or on the issue you’re standing for. If you don't have that connection, engage with them at local meetings and campaigning sessions. Don't explicitly ask them for your support if you don't know them, but start touching on topics which can bring you onto talking about what you'd like to do to if elected.

Next stop, encouraging people to support you, developing your message, and coping with your campaign.

Hope you enjoy reading and who knows, you may find the articles useful or even interesting! Please feel free to comment - I welcome criticism as much as compliments.

encouraging people to support you

Posted on Monday, May 04, 2009 No Comments
Labels: organising campaigns

And after empowering your activists to campaign for you, the next part of the toolkit on getting (s)elected is how to get people to support you in your campaign.

Start with your personal story

We used a variety of techniques to spread Sam’s personal story – social reporting, tweeting and blogging, to complement his website and manifesto. You may think that his story is so unique and powerful, from grassroots organising against tuition fees, the Iraq war and the BNP to campaigning across the country to get the Sustainable Communities Act passed into law. But many of you will have been involved in campaigning for issues that matter to you, whether it’s for civil liberties, abortion rights or for the planet.

Get a friend to film you talking to young people where they live about how you got involved in politics (i.e. use a campaign which will trigger people's memories of the issue without you needing to make it explicit or current), if they are facilitating a workshop or speaking from the floor at a debate. Get people to take photos of you out campaigning with their local activists and MP.

Connect up your personal story to the collective story of your activists

As important as your personal story is how you connect this up to the different stories that the campaign is telling through the work of your activists. Telling their story means they can really feel ownership of your campaign to get elected.

We asked people for their endorsements and then we asked them for what would be the top ideas they wanted to campaign on if Sam was elected. We wanted to show this wasn’t just about a candidate standing for election, it's about representing all the activists that don't get talked about, don't get on TV talking to ministers, don't work in Westminster, etc. Show how far you can reach out, not only geographically, but politically (from those who have always been on your side to those who are more “non-aligned”).

Go where the people are – adapt the messenger, not the message

Remember it’s not only about attracting supporters to come to your website or events, it's about reaching out to where they are. Reach out to the different activist groups & social networks you are involved in, but rather than just going yourself – identify allies who are active in those individual groups and get them to recommend you. For members of all of these networks, if they don't know you, they may think you are just doing the rounds.

Which is why for Sam Tarry’s campaign for Young Labour Chair, we only used microblogging when people started telling us they wanted to find out how Sam was campaigning on a daily basis. They wanted to know how he was explaining his proposals to people and how they were feeding them new ideas. It’s better to be honest about how you're trying to win people over than using spin to pretend you're not.

Which is why we only used videoing when people asked who Sam really was. As he wasn't the incumbent, most of them didn't know who he was and wanted to know what evidence there was to suggest he would make the changes he promised. That's why we quickly filmed a "who is Sam Tarry" vox pop with the man himself and produced a series of short videos to ask him the questions that people wanted answered about his different pledges.

Which is why we focused on texting only in the last few hours of the campaign, as we were keen to make sure all our supporters could get to the election venue. We wanted to reassure them that whether they were coming from Glasgow by train or walking down the road from Gillingham itself, we would meet them and go together to the conference.

Track the causes & campaigns that matter to your potential supporters

Identify progressive networks you are involved in and write an article about the issue that matters to them most – so that members of those networks can relate to you and trust that you will champion the issues they care about, but when up against your challenger, they can clearly identify you with that issue (which they themselves identify with).

Use these issues as a way of contacting your potential supporters and encouraging the most supportive & influential of these to endorse you. This will be far more effective than “cold calling” them out of the blue to vote for you & will get your message out on their mailing lists.

Build on your pre-existing campaigns & networks – especially if they haven't been actively engaged by the other side – they will prefer you championing them as part of your own candidacy.

Use each issue you’re standing on to show your campaigning capacity – only get involved or lead on the “low effort, high gain” activities which you can promote to your potential supporters (emailing them about the campaign, getting interviewed or on photo shoots which you can then share with them).

Identify progressive networks (particularly local) your friends are involved in and ask them to recommend you to their networks. Identify your potential audiences through general networks and “niche” networks on the issues you’re standing on.

Get a photo/video of you campaigning with your local party and with councillors/MPs/MEPs (these will be essential for those who endorse you, but also important for those who don't want to endorse either side, they are always happy to have their photo taken on the campaigning trail!).

Get in touch with people you know who are active in the media – whether its up and coming journalists or bloggers – and see if they can talk about your campaign. Feed the links to these articles back to the delegates from your region to show you can get the regional young Labour voice heard in the media.

Get in touch with friends or relatives who aren't involved in your party or campaign group but can help you with areas of your campaign which either demand greater resource (designing a flyer/website/video, ringing people up, etc) or show the direct impact you can have (organise or heavily promote one local campaigning activity to your potential supporters in your area and then invite as many local friends as possible). You can then promote this story.

Encourage bloggers who support you to place articles, banners or even just a link to their websites. This enhances the debate, attracts support, provokes publicity and spread links. You need to ensure everything you write about links back to your blog/website.

Thanks to Hannes Treichl for the photo published under Creative Commons license.

Next stop, developing your message and coping with your campaign.

Hope you enjoy reading and who knows, you may find the articles useful or even interesting! Please feel free to comment - I welcome criticism as much as compliments.

developing your message

Posted on Monday, May 04, 2009 No Comments
Labels: organising campaigns

And after having encouraging people to support you, the next part of the toolkit on getting (s)elected is how you develop your campaign - deals on wheels, family values, caring & sharing - sounds like a 1950s film, but really it works.

Don’t make deals with people you don’t know, earn their trust

If you want to encourage people to vote for you, you need to build relationships and earn their trust. Even the committed activists who leaflet whatever the weather – ideologically and well…literally! They are not necessarily supporters of the status quo just because they go out campaigning and don't engage in debate.

Don’t treat them as employees, treat them like your family

Even when you are trying to encourage people to vote or campaign for you, you need to explain clearly what is on offer and what is being asked of them and what they stand to gain from campaigning and voting for you. This can take time to work out, but it is well worth the effort. If you don’t, they may become anxious and frustrated, which in turn could lead to them backing out from voting for you and being disillusioned from the whole process.

Don’t take them for granted, value them as people you couldn’t do without

When your supporters do decide to get involved and give freely of their time and energy, you need to recognise and value their efforts, however small. This can be as simple as thanking them regularly, buying a round of drinks or getting them to lead parts of your campaign.

Expect to be surprised by your supporters, they’re the people you’ve been waiting for

The best ideas for your campaign and manifesto can be found in surprising places, and this shouldn't be a linear process of you publishing a manifesto and stopping there. There should always be space for your supporters to bring in their new ideas.

Understand what you’re doing with the tools you’ve got

Using as many web channels as possible won’t work unless they are clearly connected to what you’re doing offline. Your website doesn’t only need to be updated regularly, also think about who will use your website – both your supporters who will link to it, and your audience who will be directed to it

Understand how your supporters can participate

Remember you are not looking to get as many supporters as possible, you are looking to get very specific supporters to commit to doing different things. You need to understand this in terms of when and how these different people contribute.

Share your success and they will commit even more to you

You need to think about why you are standing and who you are standing for – this means you need to accept to share in whatever success you get with the people & networks that have supported you (even if you don't necessarily support everything they individually stand for). They will be more interested in spreading your message if their ideas have helped shape it.

Thanks to madamn flick for the photos published under Creative Commons license.

Next stop, coping with your campaign.

Hope you enjoy reading and who knows, you may find the articles useful or even interesting! Please feel free to comment - I welcome criticism as much as compliments.

coping with your campaign

Posted on Monday, May 04, 2009 No Comments
Labels: organising campaigns

Now that you've developed your message, the final part of the toolkit on getting (s)elected is how you cope with (sorry, I meant manage) your campaign.

Embrace the mess, you need rules for radicals not for robots

The start of any campaign is inevitably uncomfortable and confusing. You need to allow for this, as people move closer to your campaign. If you try to move too quickly to a rigidly planned campaign, your target supporters won't feel a sense of ownership in this.

Focus relentlessly on the people you need support from

It is easy to forget that your existing & target supporters will have important insights to contribute on how you could really convince them to come and vote for you on the day.

Start with your instinct, be ruthless in your judgement

Experiment and then reflect. Your campaign will never be 100% perfect, so go with what you feel is best at that particular time and then carry forward what's worked well and discard what hasn't.

Don’t just make it blood, sweat and tears, give them leadership and a smile

All campaigns need a mixture of inspiration and perspiration. You need to display a certain degree of charisma to galvanise your supporters, even and especially in the most stressful moments. But you need to accompany this passion with empathy and listening to empower your supports to carry the campaign forward.

Don’t just tell supporters what you stand for, get them to vote for you!

You can’t sustain your campaign until whatever elections you’re standing for just by getting people to sign up and get involved in your campaign. You need to put in hard work into getting this commitment, but if you don't, you will have hundreds of people signed up to your mailing list, but this will be useless if you can't get elected. If you get a maximum number of people who can vote for you, you will be confident of being with a very strong shout of winning.

Hope you enjoy reading and who knows, you may find the articles useful or even interesting! Please feel free to comment - I welcome criticism as much as compliments.

if you lost your home, who would help you?

Posted on Monday, May 04, 2009 No Comments
Labels: organising campaigns

What an amazing way to organise by Crisis! They're launching a new campaign tomorrow to help prevent people becoming hidden homeless. We all know someone who's been down that road and some of us have been there too.

The recession isn't just about big bailouts and bonus bandits, most of the people who are feeling the full fury of the crisis are not the Fred Goodwins of this world or even those who will have to pay an extra five percent of tax.

It's the people who are waiting for their turn in the jobcentre queue, the people trying to pay back their debts or the people sleeping on friends' and families' floors, hostels, B&Bs or on the streets. Not the silent majority, the hidden majority.

Let's not get depressed about this, let's dance about this...Not to celebrate but to campaign for all these people to be noticed by the government and, well, by all of us to be honest.

You could get to see the best bands - like Hot Chip and...Dodgy ("staying out for the summer" anyone?). You also get to see how precarious hidden homelessness is - now that Crisis won't be revealing where the venues will be held until the day before the gig.

It is important that everybody possible is saved from homelessness, and in the recession we are particularly concerned for private tenants. Please write to your local MP and urge them to sign EDM 1154 calling for proper protection for the hidden victims of the recession – private tenants.

What can you pledge?

Get your bells on and buy tickets for the gigs here

Sign up to get involved with Crisis

create your campaign

Posted on Sunday, April 05, 2009 comments (1)
Labels: building skills

After the amazing success of our workshop with Progressive London where you told us what you wanted to improve young people's lives in London, we know want to tell you about an exciting activity where you can put together creative campaigns for London, as we always listen out to the pulse of the Compass Youth membership. As Laurie Penny says

"We may not have the kind of arts you want us to have, but this generation is creating more art, more music, writing, performance and brilliant new ideas than ever before, most of it cooked up with pirated equipment in the privacy of our own bedrooms and disseminated over the internet....We are creating. What most of us want now is a chance to combine creativity with real social progress, a chance to turn our imaginative brilliance to dreaming up a new world for ourselves, where our arts and our ideals have real relevance."

This is why we are working with Toynbee Hall in their "Creative Campaigns Day" taking place on Monday 6th April.

Aged 16-25? Your chance to get vocal about issues that you care about!

Create a campaign in either film, music, theatre, photography or spoken word with the help of industry professionals.

Explore future campaigning opportunities with organisations. Perform your campaigns in an evening showcase.

To find out more or register send an email to ffiona.rowland@toynbeehall.org.uk or call Ffiona on 07828 696 759.

Compass Youth will be exhibiting its campaigns so come and join us and Toynbee Hall's Active Citizenship programme!

"It is projects like “Pin The Pits” and projects which Compass Youth seek to actively support and promote that can bring people like us together, each with their own political voice, to listen and to be heard, like with the “Pin The Pits” campaign which united people under one roof, in the very place where to be heard, there is every hope of real change, where politics, expression and opinion have so much power in this country, where dreams can become real and change can become possible."

What will you pledge?

I will take part in the Creative Campaigns Day (contact ffiona.rowland@toynbee.org.uk)

I will showcase my campaign with Compass Youth (contact noel.hatch1@gmail.com)

I will sign up to Compass Youth e-updates to get involved in more of these activities