A campaign is an effort to achieve tangible change to law, policy, behaviour or practice through persuading and influencing others, sustained beyond a single activity or event.

Fundamentally, campaigning is about achieving change by influencing decision-makers. It is not mainly about raising awareness, though this is usually an important part of a campaign.

The decision-makers you need to influence will depend on the change you aim to make. If you want to change other people's behaviour, then the key decision-makers for you to influence will be those people whose behaviour you want to change. By contrast, if you want to change the law, the decision-makers to target will be politicians; if you want to change a University policy or practice, the key decision-makers will be senior managers in the University.

Broadly speaking, campaigns will use two different types of influencing: persuading and pressuring. Persuading is about giving the decision-maker new information, or showing old information in a new light. It involves convincing the decision-maker to make a change by showing, through storytelling or research, that the change fits with their interests or values. Pressuring, on the other hand, is about creating a new incentive for the decision-maker. These incentives are usually negative, aiming to create financial or reputational damage through, for instance, strike action, consumer boycotts, or demonstrations.

If you're reading our campaigns toolkit, you probably already have an issue that you're passionate about and want to campaign on. You might be thinking, "I can just skip this section..." Don't do that! You need to reflect on whether your issue is a good one to campaign on.

First, think about your issue: what is the problem you're trying to solve? Try to be as specific as you can.

Next, map out the causes of this problem: why does this problem exist? Who or what is responsible for it? Are there deeper-rooted causes which need to be tackled in order to solve it? Are you able to evidence this?

Finally, map out the problem's consequences: why do you think this is a problem in the first place? What are its negative effects? Who does it affect, and how does it affect them? What evidence do you have of this?

Mapping out your problem like this should give you a clearer picture of the issue you want to tackle, and how you want to tackle it. The causes you have mapped out should give you clues about what the solution could look like and who could plausibly solve it. The consequences you have mapped out should give you some pointers for communicating your campaign - these are the reasons people should be motivated to solve your problem!

Finally, reflect on a few questions about the problem itself:

• How many people are affected by the problem?
• Is it a problem which a lot of people are likely to feel determined to solve? (Does it arouse people's passions?)
• Is it a divisive issue? If so, are there ways which you could overcome those divisions?
• How likely is it that the key decision-maker will put up resistance? How difficult do you think it will be to win agreement from the decision-maker?

Your answers to these questions will give you a better idea of the kind of campaign you will need to run. If the problem you want to tackle is both widely and deeply felt, you will have more scope to bring pressure to bear on the key decision-maker. However, if it is not, you will most likely have to rely more on your powers of persuasion.

Try to set objectives for your campaign. Although they may change as your campaign progresses, having clear objectives helps to focus your strategy and gives you a framework for assessing whether you are making progress with your campaign.

Try to make sure your objectives are SMART:

• Specific
  Try to avoid being vague when setting objectives. Rather than “increase engagement with campaign”, specify who you want to be engaging, and how. For example, you may set the objective of increasing engagement amongst students in privately-rented accommodation with a survey about housing conditions.
• Measurable
  Try to create a metric for your objectives. For example, you might want to aim for a certain number of signatures on a petition. Setting a measurable goal means you can easily see whether your campaign is on track. This way, you can track your progress and make adjustments if you’re not hitting your targets. Don’t arbitrarily set targets, though - they’re only useful insofar as they are a real measure of progress.
• Achievable
  Your objectives should be achievable with the resources you have and in the timeframe you have set yourself. At the same time, though, don’t be afraid to be ambitious! Try to be realistic about the amount of time, energy, and resources you will be able to put into your campaign.
• Relevant
  This is about how well your objectives fit with other considerations, such as your broader aims, the political context, and your own expertise and connections.
• Time-bound
  Set a target date for your objectives. Deadlines help you and your campaign team to focus.

Place your allies and opponents on the spectrum where you think they sit in terms of support for the campaign and how active they are.

Use this to target your activity thinking about how much allies and opponents can be moved along the spectrum. As a guide, you should be aiming to move the most powerful or influential allies and opponents.

There may be community leaders who you know are passively supportive: you should aim to bring them into your team and get them active. (See “Building your team” below for advice on how to do this).

Active opponents won’t usually become your supporters, particularly not if your campaign aims are against their interests. You should try to neutralise these people through persuasion or public pressure

There may, however, be community leaders who would benefit from your campaign but, for whatever reason, are currently opposed. Try to win them round through persuasion.

The best way to build up your campaign team and recruit new members is through structured, one-on-one conversations known as “121s”. These conversations are aimed at agitation, education, and organisation. As a general rule, these conversations should be about 70% listening and only 30% talking.

The following steps for a 121 have been adapted from Jane McAlevey’s course material

1. Introductions. Introduce yourself and set the context for the conversation: you’re starting a campaign and you’re here to see if they’re interested in getting involved. Ask them, “Do you have half an hour to chat with me about the campaign to X?” Explain, very briefly, why you’re chatting to them: “The campaign is about student wellbeing and we’re keen to involve medical students in this - by all accounts you’re the person to talk to about bringing medics on board!”
2. Agitation - the issues. This means finding out the issues which motivate the person you’re trying to recruit, then have them acknowledge that these are problems which need to change. Use open-ended questions: “If you were made head of the University tomorrow, what would you change to improve the wellbeing of students?” “How do you feel about students’ workload?” “Do you think students are treated fairly by their landlords? Why/why not?” Try to link their answers back to your campaign and get them excited about making change.
3. Education - the vision. This next step is about raising the person’s expectations. People often have lots of things they don’t like, but find justifications for why things are the way they are. It’s your job, as a campaigner, to convince them that they deserve improvements, and they can win them. Sell them your strategy (make sure you have a clear strategy!): “What we’re going to do is organise a survey of students to build our case for improvements and build our engagement amongst students, and then we’ll ask all our survey respondents to join us in delivering our survey results, along with a set of demands, by hand to the Vice Chancellor’s office. What do you think the University would do if 500 students marched on Firth Court to deliver a survey completed by thousands?”
4. Organisation - call the question. Ask them to take a specific action. “Will you help promote the survey amongst medical students?” If they seem hesitant, wait. If they are reluctant to agree, turn back to the issues they raised earlier in your conversation. “You said you really care about exam anxiety amongst students - how do you think we’re going to change that?”
5. Follow-up. Set a date and time to follow up with the person on how they’re doing with the assigned action. “This has been great! We’re building power to really change things for student wellbeing. Would you be free to meet up again in two weeks time to see how you’re getting on with promoting the survey?” The action should be specific and the person should understand exactly what they have to do - talk them through it and make sure they fully understand what you’re asking them to do.

A core way to develop your campaign is to hold meetings. This way you can inform people about what you’re trying to achieve, gain support for your campaign, hear from people affected by the issue or delegate responsibility for aspects of your campaign. Hosting an effective meeting is important as you want it to be a productive use of your and the attendees’ time and you want attendees to feel supported and empowered so they want to come back.

• 💡 Book a room in advance and advertise it so you people know it’s happening..

  - It’s also important to consider the access needs of your attendees. It’s good practice to ask people about their access requirements in advance of the meeting and their specific suggestions for how to facilitate their full participation.

• 💡 Set an agenda and aims for the meeting - this way you can make sure that the meeting has a purpose and that you cover everything you intend to. The best way to do this is to make a list of points to cover and share this with the attendees before the meeting if you think it’s appropriate. This will also help your meeting stick to time.
• 💡 Introduce the meeting, what it's about, how the meeting works and what you will cover and then allow attendees to introduce themselves.

  - You could also encourage people to start with a 'pronoun round' where people say whether they'd like others to refer to them as she, he, they or another personal pronoun. (This question is because we can't assume a person's gender based on how they look and offering people the chance to specify can often help their feeling of inclusion in the room).

• 💡 Be conscious of everyone getting the opportunity to speak. It is important to draw out quiet people, limit over-talking and to not let anyone dominate the discussion.

  - You can do this by saying ‘Before we move on from this point, I’m aware that not everyone in the room has spoken - would anyone who hasn’t spoken like to add anything?’

  - If it is a big room, you could also consider breaking off into smaller groups so that you give people the opportunity to be in smaller, more comfortable situations to speak.

  - You should also remind people that the purpose of meetings is to hear everyone's opinions, and therefore hearing opinions even if they are in opposition to the rest of the room, are valuable.

• 💡 You may want to encourage someone to take notes or minutes during the meeting - in particular key decisions and actions (and who agreed to carry them out) so that you have a document of what was spoken about.

  - At the end of the meeting, it is good practice to go through what was discussed, and double-check the action points are agreed by the room.

  - If you are planning to have another meeting, you should bring these notes along with you so you can check in with the progress of the action points.

• 💡 Encourage action points to be shared. If someone is new or is not confident to take on a task on their own, pair them up with a more experienced member of the campaign team. This way workloads can be shared and new members can be skilled up; if someone needs to take a step back at any point, someone else will be able to fill their role. This is important for establishing the long-term sustainability of the campaign.
• 💡 If you plan on having another meeting, take down a list of the attendees and their email addresses. Make sure that you ask their permission to add them to a contact list first, and keep your list secure with password protection.

  - This way you can contact them with the details of the next meeting.

  - It is important that you keep interested parties in the loop about your plans, that way the support of your campaign will grow.

Taking effective minutes

Taking minutes is an important part of meetings and those who take the notes are often the unsung heroes of meetings. The aim of minutes is to capture what was discussed in the meeting, any decisions made, who was against or supportive of the decision, any actions for the future and the plans for the future meetings.

- Start by collecting up the names of the attendees.

Campaigning on an issue you care about should be rewarding and fun, but it can sometimes also be very tiring for you and your team. It’s important to understand that if you are fatigued then you will not be as effective so when you feel yourself getting too tired - take a break and if you have any urgent actions that need to happen, contact your team and see if you can delegate any responsibility. The same goes for one of your team members. If you notice that anyone is seeming tired out or emotionally drained, then see how you can work with them to help them pass on some of their responsibilities. If that isn't possible then re-evaluate your plans; you may need to scale down your ambitions or re-think your timescales.

If you plan to organise a protest, please contact Student Groups Support for help completing a risk assessment and more general advice, support and guidance. It is important that protests are well-planned to ensure as far as possible that participants are safe, are aware of the risks and understand their rights. You can find them behind the Activities Zone desk or at campaigns@sheffield.ac.uk

1. Find your demands

First, it’s important to find your demands. What do you want to achieve from the protest? It is often useful to highlight two or three practical demands.

For example, in a protest about climate change this might be ‘Carbon - neutrality by 2030’ and ‘Better public transport in the city.’

If you're unsure about this, you might want to look at the advice on choosing your issue in "Starting Out".

2. Set a date, time and location

Next you want to decide on a date, time and location for your protest. You want the protest to be at a time and place which will have the most impact. Reflect on the purpose of your protest, your target audience, and when your target audience will be most captive. Let this inform your decision.

For example, in a protest focused on sexual harassment you may want to march in an area where there is the most complaints, to empower survivors.

If you are planning to protest the ethical treatment of a group of people you would want to target the decision-makers who are in charge of implementing the changes or demands that you are making. In this example, you will need to consider choosing a time when these decision makers are most likely to be around so that you can deliver your demands and use your time most effectively.

It is paramount you also think about safety - make sure you feel safe and comfortable to protest in that area otherwise you could put yourself or your supporters in danger.

3. Assess the risk

It's important you do a risk assessment if you are organising a protest. While most protests are peaceful, they can be unpredictable: you may encounter heavy-handing policing, aggressive members of the public, or disruption from people attending the protest. It's important you have thought about the possible risks and put in measures to mitigate them. A risk assessment shouldn't stop you doing a protest; it's there to make sure you're fully prepared for all eventualities so that your protest can run as smoothly as possible.

You can see an example risk assessment for a protest here.

4. Let the council or police know

If you’re planning to host your protest somewhere in the city, it may be advisable to contact with the council so they know you’re going to be hosting it. This can avoid any unwanted clashes and ensure that your protest runs as smoothly as possible.

If you are organising a rally or other protest at a particular place, there is no legal requirement to tell the police in advance that you are going to do this, or who the organisers are. However, if you’re planning to march from one place to the other, there is a requirement under section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986 to inform the police at least six days before the procession is going to take place and to provide them with the following details:

• The date when it is intended to hold the procession
• The time when it is due to start
• The proposed route
• The name and address of the person (or one of the persons) proposing to organise it
5. Promote your protest

The next step is to promote the event. This is the most important part: you want there to be as many people as possible at your protest!

Think about who you want to attend the protest, and how you can best advertise the key messages of why, when and where you are having the protest. Those are the core bits of information to include.

• 💡 Use social media. Create a Facebook event, shareable graphics for Instagram, and a Whatsapp broadcast list. Do a countdown to the event, with staggered announcements about speakers, to build a buzz about your protest.
• 💡 Create posters and flyers which are colourful and eye-catching, but don’t forget the most important information: why, when, where. Your eye should be drawn immediately to this information. Canva is a popular website for designing posters for free.
• 💡 Take advantage of existing networks of people. Approach societies and clubs to endorse your protest: you could ask to speak at one of their events or ask that they advertise the protest through social media and mailing lists. Go along to events where there might be an interested audience and hand out some flyers before or after.
• 💡 Build a contact list for the event, which you can use to educate people about the protest issue, increase your publicity’s reach, and build excitement for the day of the protest. Consider using a Whatsapp broadcast or mass texting rather than email - though whichever platform you use, make sure to get people’s permission first!


6. Invite speakers

   Next you might want to think about getting speakers in to talk at the end of the march known as the rally. The purpose of having a rally is to gather together to publicly share ideas and thoughts. It’s a good idea to consider having a few speakers who have a particular interest or expertise in the topic. Make sure the speakers know what you want them to focus on and that they understand the core messages behind your protest. You do not want speakers to alienate your supporters.

   If you are hosting this on campus, and want someone from an external organisation to speak, you should fill out an external speaker form three weeks before the event is set to take place.

7. Invite the press

   A good way to draw attention to your campaign is by inviting the press along. You can do this by writing a press release. You can send your press release to local newspapers, websites and blogs, and to other organisations that may support your message.

   If you’re a Students’ Union society or committee, your press release will need to be approved by the SU President in advance. If possible you should submit your press release to the Campaigns Coordinator one week in advance.

   You can see a template press release here.

8. Organise a banner-making event

   Banner-making events are good for getting together ahead of the protest, bringing in new campaigners, and creating an eye-catching aesthetic for the day itself. Buy bed sheets for banners (make sure you get flat, not fitted!) and sticks and A2 card for placards. Use waterproof paint, too - in case it rains. You can use the Activities Zone in the Students' Union for your banner-making session.

   
9. Take photos

   Remember to take photos of the protest and share them on social media; you may even want to consider finding a sympathetic amateur photographer, or hiring a professional, to take some high-quality pictures. At the very least, designate someone in your campaign team to be the photographer so everyone else can concentrate on other responsibilities.

10. Enjoy the protest!

    Resistance should be joyful: don't forget to have fun on your protest! Put together a sheet of chants, hand out megaphones to organisers, and consider inviting the samba band or brass band to play. The Campaigns library, in the Student Groups Support office (behind the activities desk) have lots of equipment you can borrow including a PA System, a megaphone and whiteboards. Just pop in and they’ll sort them for you.