In this chapter, we explain what a campaign strategy is. We show various examples of different types of campaign strategies that activists use, and we provide you with workshops to help you write your own.
With a good campaign strategy, your movement or campaign makes more impact. In the articles below, we help you define what exactly the change is that you want to achieve, and what steps you need to take to get there.
Before you can start to define your strategy, you need to get a group of likeminded people together and organise yourselves. After you have defined your strategy, we recommend you to browse through our list of tactics to get inspiration.
¶ Other strategy guides
¶ Improve this chapter
You can make this chapter about campaign strategies better!
Some potential new sub-pages:
- Interventions: things your movement can change about society/in a community (see more in ‘types of strategies’)
- problem analysis (a workshop style article?)
Chapter organisation:
- Add link to ‘power mapping’ guide on ‘stakeholders’ page
¶ Search keywords
People are searching for:
| Keywords | Monthly global searches* | Relevancy |
|---|---|---|
| strategy activism | 0 | high |
| activist strategy | 70 | medium |
| activist strategies | 160 | high |
| campaign strategy | 2.7K | high |
| forms of activism | 330 | high |
| types of activism | 1.3K | high |
| How to deal with opposition | 140 | high |
| problem analysis | 6.6K | low |
| root cause analysis | 90.5K | low |
| 5why analysis | 14.8K | low |
| How to be an effective ally | 30 | high |
| How to run an effective campaign | 20 | medium |
| How to make your activism more effective | 0 | high |
| power mapping (overlap with irrelevant ‘power outage map’) | 9.9K | medium |
*According to Semrush
¶ External resources
¶ Creative Commons resources
- Campaign Strategy: Start Here by Commons Library
- Collection: Developing a Strategic Plan by Community Tool Box
- Developing Strategic and Action Plans by Community Tool Box
- Collection: Assessing Community Needs and Resources by Community Tool Box
- Collection: Analyzing Community Problems and Solutions by Community Tool Box
- Collection: Deciding Where to Start by Community Tool Box
- Collection: Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions by Community Tool Box
- Strategy by The Change Agency
- Systems Thinking and Campaigning by Nicky Ison
¶ Copyright resources
- Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action [Book].
- Thwink: Root problem analysis
- Video: Root Cause Analysis
- How to Move from Vision to Action by Mary Joyce
- Choose Your Own Activism Strategy Adventure by Mary Joyce
- Developing Strategic Campaigns: An ITF Manual for Trade Union Activists, Educators and Organisers by International Transport Workers' Union
- The People Power Manual by The Change Agency