Why do people and organisations campaign?
The universal reason is to change something that is proving painful for the parties affected. Campaigns are often in for the long haul, and whilst the initial problem is not one to celebrate, as the campaign gains traction, a considerable bringing together of campaigners and community spirit happens, especially when progress is made.
Campaigns can be global, as in climate change or the TTIP controversy, at a country level, as the famous 38 Degrees campaign against the last government to prevent the forests selloff, or specific, to undo a financial injustice, rescue a treasured building, or to get a government to change a point of view. One could be forgiven for thinking that it takes huge numbers of people to effect a change. Whilst this is clearly the case in the global campaigns, where it is a specific issue it is surprising how effective a small number of well informed campaigners can be to bring about change.
Evidence is everything.
In any campaign against organisations considered to be acting unethically, the first thing that disappears is the evidence. That is the best clue that they have questions they don’t want to face up to. Make Public specialise in ‘as found’ evidence retrieval to academic and forensic standards, dating and time stamping the sources, discovering where possible the stakeholders, and what their objectives might be.
Depending on the campaign, this evidence is then published in plain sight, along with lists of contacts, interested journalists, notable commentators on the social web, and a templated action plan ready for campaigners to come together and use. You can see an example of this on The Evidence File page.
We prefer to work with special issue campaigns, for group financial redress, seeking to change a specific political position, or remedying an issue affecting a certain group or set of organisations. We are nonpolitical although it is fair to say we are unable to help such organisations as payday loan companies, speculative developers, and the financial sector ‘sin’ stocks.
More on financial redress campaigns
Those campaigns where a successful outcome is more likely normally has at least one large organisation with a regulated public trust or set of compliances to observe. A legal and campaigning partnership is usually likely, and actually much easier to organise than you might think. Unfortunately, we can’t help those where a significant group have invested in an unregulated investment, and may have used unregulated advisors. These groups need to involve the fraud authorities at the earliest possible moment, and the outcomes are frequently not good.
Building and running your campaign
We use surveys, statistical evaluations, and first person stories to build analysis and help the campaign. We borrowed ideas heavily from the US tobacco and climate denier organisations, firstly because they clearly work, and second these tactics are often repeated by present day organisations who campaigners complain about. By knowing how the other side will operate, we can design and facilitate campaigns which are much more likely to succeed.
Our role is to bring campaigners together, to facilitate their organisation or steering group, and create and guide powerful activities. We design and put in their operational systems, and provide campaign messaging guidance, create paying membership campaigns, manage the programme and measure the results. Where legal action is required, we help create an agreement with a preferred group action solicitor group with successful expertise and whom we have worked with since 2011.
Can you afford us?
Probably. We operate a scalable membership-based approach with our campaigns. Your campaign steering group becomes a recognised society organisation, and members paying a moderate amount of money per month or per year to pay for our services plus further resources to help your campaign.
For longer-haul campaigns there are set up costs for dedicated websites, and often the approach is for the most strongly motivated campaigners to step in with repayable loans to get started. This method is common to many other campaigning organisations. We can provide you more information about this on request.
If you have a specific problem, and you feel a campaign approach is the way forward, get in touch for a discussion soon.
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