1

TheCampaign

Toolkit.

2

What is aCampaign?

3

When people see or hear the word “campaign” they often think of demonstrations, placards with catchy slogans and a mass of people gathering to fight for a justified cause.While this can sometimes be the case, it’s not the only campaigning strategy.

A campaign may include Meetings with MPs or University Representatives; it might only involve the use of online media, printed news article or even a brief event that only lasts a day.While a campaign can be used to introduce, remind and reiterate or highlight an issue, its ultimate goal is to bring about a positive change.

This toolkit aims to guide and engage with both first time and experienced campaigners. It aims to motivate, inspire and encourage you to stand up for what you believe in as Students here at Warwick, and to provide you with the skills you will need to use your voice effectively.

There is no clear path to how to start a Campaign, it might come around from a discussion in the SU bar with your friends, or it might come about during a debate with your peers and academics during a lecture. As a result it can be hard to get started, and each individual likes to work in different ways, so while this guide breaks down the essentials into bite size chunks, you don’t need to follow it page by page or step by step, start where you feel comfortable and use the advice provided and then progress to the next.

What is a Campaign?

4 1Is a campaign essential?

Is a campaign essential?

Running a successful campaign takes a lot of determination, you will need to be focused, passionate and motivated about the cause you are fighting for.

You might find it hard at points but if it’s something you believe strongly enough in, it will be worth fighting through, and remember that the team at Warwick SU is here to help you every step of the way.

Be sure that the campaign is YOUR Campaign and not anyone else’s who might have an ulterior motive. If it’s not something you’re passionate about the campaign will never have the legs it needs to be a success.

TIP:

5

Step

1 Step

1

6

Step

2

7

A big part of any campaign and something you will need to consider is Researching the topic. Successful campaigns are built on a strong foundation of research and facts. No matter how passionate you are about a subject, or how driven you are to bring around change, if you have got your facts wrong your campaign will never succeed! The time spent doing this can only make you and your campaign stronger and give the cause credibility.

Some helpful advice to why research is vital in any campaign.

If you got it wrong, you will save yourself time and energy building a campaign around misinformation and false facts.

It can only make your case stronger, and give you more credibility when campaigning and talking about your cause.

Research can often lead you to a solution to the problem, and this can give you a goal to aim for.

Research will help you play devil’s advocate, it will give you the answer to any question that might be thrown your way, and you should never be caught on the back foot.

Research is Key!

TIP: Look at things from both sides of the argument. Some literature and research is often written with a bias towards one outcome, knowing both sides of the proverbial coin can help you make an informed argument.

Research can take many forms, such as carrying out your own through online surveys and opinion polls to gauge how a topic is affecting people directly, Reading newspaper articles, and other forms of media or literature to get down to the bottom of the cause or even holding focus groups with relevant parties to ask questions you want answers to.

Remember that your campaign needs to be measurable. Back up all your research with FACTS and FIGURES ready to make comparisons to any outcomes from your campaigning efforts.

Always use the research you have gained from the students that are helping you, it really gets them involved in the campaign and as a result, they will be more likely to offer more of a helping hand in the future.

TIP:

TIP:

8

Summarise theresearch.

Now the research is complete, try to summarise what you have discovered. Be sure to pull out any trends or patterns that have emerged from this and always highlight the obvious solutions or alternatives to help you fix the problem while you are at it.

And finally, be sure that your research is impartial. Take any political spin out as this can lead to people having less faith in your campaign and give the impression of a secondary political motive, detracting from what you are actually trying to achieve;a positive change for everyone.

Summarise the research

Step

3

Researching the issue might have radically changed your opinion on the matter. If that’s the case it might be worth taking a step back and having a rethink about the campaign. Is it still something you want to fight for? Is it a bigger problem than you originally thought? Is there a different outcome you’re now wanting?

TIP:

When setting your targets and goals you need to ask yourself three questions.

Is your outcome CLEAR?Is your outcome SIMPLE?Is your outcome ACHIEVABLE?

The most successful campaigns often have all three of these questions answered with a yes! If you can manage to keep them simple you will then find it easier to communicate your message clearly to the masses. It might be hard to start off with to think of a clear, simple and achievable solution to an issue, so try breaking it down into smaller chunks. Use these chunks as “Stepping stones” fixing the smaller issues one after the other can often be the best solution to the bigger problems.

And remember again, that the Warwick SU teamare on hand to offer help and advice on the best solutions.

Setting targets.

9

Step

4

Setting your targets

Try and sum up your campaign goal in one sentence. This will help you have a clear idea of what is really important and prevent you getting wrapped up in the less important details.

Keep in mind the old “Fire Notice” tactic. Once you have broken down your goals the fire notice is a good way of communicating the problem and solution to the relevant parties. They outline the issue in the first line “In case of fire” and then provide the solution “Break glass”. A very simple and effective campaigning tool. If after this you are still unsure on what you are trying to achieve or you think you have bitten off more than you can chew, it might be worth going and looking back at the initial issue that sparked you to start this campaign, and try and focus on one key area.

TIP:

TIP:

All campaigns need support, while doing your research you can find out if people are interested in helping out with the campaign. If it’s a local campaign ask fellow students, talk to us in the SU for advice and useful contacts, approach social enterprise groups in the region or any union societies that might be interested in helping and any other contacts you might have that can help.

Drum upStep

5

some support

10

Drum up some support

11

If it’s a wider, national or even global issue you are campaigning on, look for similar groups, either in the area, at other universities and SU’s or even global campaigns groups such as Greenpeace, NUS or Oxfam to name a few. If you are struggling to find support for anything we are here to help you through it and advise you where we can.

Publicising your campaign is crucial in gaining more support and building momentum. There are several ways to publicise your campaign and each one has benefits and drawbacks, and some might be more relevant than others depending on the stage the campaign is at and who the target audience is. Below are a few you might want to consider using:

You will need to be smart here to try and persuade the person in charge that your campaign is a worthy cause and worth covering. Look for quirks or something that makes your campaign individual and special compared to the rest, so be creative when presenting your case.

TIP:

Remember these links you are building up to help publicise your cause, you might end up needing them again in the future.

TIP:

EDITORIAL:This sort of publicity covers newspapers, radio and TV coverage, whether this is student run or external on a local or national level. Consider your target audience when choosing who to talk to regarding your campaign, who are you trying to motivate, mobilise and engage with? There would be no point in going to a national paper over a topic that’s locally based and only affects the students at Warwick University! Getting an interview on a local radio station or putting together a film with the student run TV Company will help you reach a wider audience!

612

Drum up some support

Ask yourself is the Flyer or hand out to drum up more support or is it to update people on developments that have been made from your hard work? As useful as flyers can be, they can also become white noise and a nuisance when they are dropped or handed out too much. Keep in mind other forms of publicity before resorting to flyers and hand outs where you can.

TIP:

Making a good quality video is time consuming and takes some know-how to produce and create a big impact. Come in and talk to one of the SU team and we will put you in contact with someone with the knowledge and skill set to give you that wow factor!

TIP:

The best advice that can be given for promoting your campaign would be think outside the box and Be Creative. The more inventive and fun your campaign the more people will want to get involved and take notice.

TIP:

PRINTED PUBLICITY:Flyers and booklets are useful, but only if they are designed correctly and aimed at your target audience. Be sure to keep in mind what you’re trying to achieve and what your budget is for printing these things off, a professional flyer can often cost a lot of money, and a poor quality home made one can undermine the message you are trying to make.

VIDEO:This is one of the most powerful and influential forms of media when it’s done correctly. It can be linked into any Facebook, twitter and online media accounts that are also running. The down side is it can be very time consuming to make a good quality video, but the impact a well-made and produced video has can often be worth the work that is put in!

INTERNET:Social Media is a huge tool, group pages on facebook, twitter accounts and tags and even video blogs on youtube are a brilliant and easy way to get your message out to your target audiences and the wider community. Keep things up to date and people will keep checking back and it will keep people stimulated and actively wanting to help where they can. A bonus of this sort of media is it’s easy to maintain, cheap, if not free, to run and you have complete control over what is published.

136Campaigningtactics!Ask yourself what Action are you going to take to achieve your goals? A useful way to do this is to keep in mind three simple things:

How will it define your message?

What activities do you think best illustrate what you stand for?

What will get people most inspired to help?

The activities that you chose at this stage need to be relevant to your campaign and the targets you are aiming for. For example, if you have decided that you want the Vice Chancellor to back your campaign and help bring around change, organising a demonstration would be ill advised. You would be better spending the time lobbying the university instead.

What is Lobbying you ask? Well, Lobbying involves influencing a key decision maker via an informal meeting. You have to be organised, prepared and have all your research at hand ready for any question that might be thrown your way to try and sway a person’s decision. It would be wise to attempt this first, if this does not work out, then you can move onto the more active forms of campaigning.

Step

6Campaigning tactics

Always keep asking the question “What is your campaign doing?” this will prevent it from losing momentum and help you keep up the progress your campaign is making.

TIP:

Planning and Organisation

Step

7

Planning your campaign is crucial, without a clear plan things can quickly become confusing and difficult to stay on top of. On the same vein it can be very difficult to come up with a solid plan of action for a campaign, as this might be your first step or it might be in fact your last step towards completionand achieving your targets.

These next few pages try to break down how to build a plan.

Try outlining the arguments for and against the main body of your campaign and highlighting the interested parties.A campaigns map might help with this:

Planning and Organisation

1

14

15

Against For

A list of parties arguing against the case

A list of parties arguing for the case

The Problem

8Planning and Organisation

16

Now you have outlined who is involved and what potential parties have vested interest, you can look who to get on board! This links into Step 5.How are you planning on getting all those who believe in the same cause as yours together? As a general rule, don’t expect people to come and find you, you have to bring your campaign to their attention

For more advice on this read point Step 5.

Baring in mind that people won’t tend to come and find you, think of ways to get others involved. If you know of a society or club you want to get on board, approach the Club captain or Society President and ask to attend a meeting with their team, and rather than getting them to join your Facebook group, join theirs.This makes it easy for them to be involved and they will be more inclined to help.

TIP: You now need to consider what tactics you are going to implement to help influence and bring about this positive change; remembering that there are many different forms of campaigning and what your message is. Try to think what would best portray your message.

Refer to point Number 6 of this guide.

2

4

This point of the planning stage is to identify what or who are your goals and targets.You can start by looking at the different groups listed in your Campaigns map; have a look at each person’s motives and reasonings for where they stand on the Campaign.

Refer to Steps 2 and 3 of this guide for more adviceon this.

3

After these four steps, you should now have a clear plan of who your targets are, what your goal and outcome wants to be, how you are going to achieve them and how you intend to get people involved and promote your campaign. Easy…wasn’t it?

8Resources.Some campaigns carry no costs at all and can be a success with no financial backing, but it might be useful to your cause if there was access to some funds, so that’s why Warwick SU has a pot of money set aside for just this reason.Be clear on when and what you want the money for and come and talk to one of us, we will see what we can do for you to help your campaign reach itsnext level.

Space also comes at a premium, so again ask us here at the SU if you can use one of our venues to hold a meeting, or conference or even an event to help raise awareness of your campaign and the things that you are doing.Simply pop in and talk to a member of thevenues team.

17

Resources

It would be useful at this point to look back at Number 5 of this guide if you haven’t already done so. It will provide support for you to think of creative and individual ways to promote your campaign; this can help you get the resources you need

If you don’t have the resources you need maybe you need to look back at Number 7and your plan. If you are being too ambitious with your ideas or maybe you need to scale things up a bit to fulfil your campaigns potential at this point.

TIP:

TIP:

Step

8

EvaluationStep

9

18

Evaluating your Campaign is the final step on the path to success. You might be asking “Why do I need to evaluate what I’ve done?” The answer to that is simple, if you don’t evaluate it, how do you know your

campaign targets were achieved and how will you learn from any mistakes you made?A useful tip to help you with your evaluation is to make reference to the below diagram:

Did your ‘Action’ createthe reaction you wanted?

Did the ‘Reaction’ create a positive outcome and give you the desired effect?

Has the end ‘Result’ had the desired effect for your campaign goals?

Has the ‘Effect’ of your campaign results changed things for the better?

Action Reaction Result Effect

Evaluation

19

The last step is to provide feedback to everyone, whether or not if they were directly involved in your campaign.Let them know what the end result and effects were of the work you have put in. You can do this by contacting one of the team at Warwick Students’ Union and we can post it to our website, and includeit in our mail out, we can also put you in contact with the student paper and radio stations if you like.

Also don’t forget to update your own online media sources such as Facebook and Twitter so all your followers know what their efforts have achieved.

If you are still looking for advice and tips on Campaigning, please contact:

jack.mason@warwicksu.comorwelfare@warwicksu.com.

Alternatively, come into the office to talk to one ofthe team.

Ben SundellWelfare & Campaigns Officer

Jack MasonCampaigns and Policy Coordinator

20

WARWICK STUDENTS’ UNION is a charitable company registered in England and Wales

Company number: 7297865 | Charity number: 1136894 | Registered Address: SUHQ, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7ALVAT number: GB 705 3184 57

STUDENTS’ UNION SERVICES WARWICK LIMITEDRegistered in England and Wales

Company number: 02197761 | Registered Address: SUHQ, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7ALVAT number: GB 705 3184 57