What is the best way to achieve meaningful change and advance social justice? Is it working for governments, where power is concentrated? Or in campaigning organisations, which can leverage popular pressure? What of the media, where your reach is wide? Or academia, where you can speak truth to power? These are hotly debated questions and simple answers are hard to come by. Each has its merits, and most have their drawbacks.
I have been a professional campaigner for a long time. I currently work for WeMove Europe, which seeks to build people power to transform Europe for future generations and our planet. Prior to that I was campaigns director for Walk Free – the ‘movement to end modern slavery’, an influential player in the anti-slavery field. In this piece, I aim to reflect on certain key, behind-the-scenes considerations underpinning strategic choices for organisations like those I have worked for, which attempt to harness people power via online mobilisation and offline organising. I want to be open about what we do and why, so as to contribute to a wider conversation about how we and our allies might do things better.
Key questions for digital campaigners
These are the questions we ask ourselves when conceiving, planning, and managing campaigns.
