Over the course of this year, I have been thinking a lot about how to support people as they set out on their journey seeking to campaign for change.

My thinking about this question has really changed over recent years. Thinking back to a decade or more ago, I was involved in running four day campaigning workshops in person for people across the globe. Those days now seem a very long way away and indeed quite a luxury!

I’ve also written a couple of books trying to set out my approach to campaigning as a way to help people get going or to re-energise their campaigning. I still think there’s a really valuable place for books full of practical advice supported by real life stories of both success and indeed failure.

But this year I have been more interested in how I can pull everything together in a very short and accessible document that gives people a really helpful entry point in thinking around some practical tools for their campaigning.

As a result, I have now published a new short pamphlet setting out my key campaigning tools. This pamphlet is now available freely to download on my website. It sets out the three key tools that I think are helpful if you want to campaign for change, together with a wraparound approach that brings everything together.

The other medium that I have been exploring, primarily due to the encouragement of one of my young nephews, is using the video shorts format as a way of communicating campaigning.

I was initially very sceptical at his promotion of TikTok as a means of producing video shorts. I really thought this platform could offer me nothing. But when I looked at the video package, it was incredible to see the tools on offer and how one can produce video shorts together with captions and other paraphernalia.

So, over the last few months I have been developing some video shorts mostly up to a minute long on my campaigning tools. These video shorts are available both on TikTok and YouTube and can be accessed via my website. I’ve also embedded them in the text of my campaigning pamphlet, so if it’s helpful for the reader they can then click through from the text to watch a related short video.

I am intrigued by both the power and the challenge of the one minute video. It can be quite challenging to condense an idea around campaigning to one minute, but it is also beautiful to be able to communicate it that precisely, which hopefully then encourages people to look into the idea in more detail.

So do take a look at this campaigning pamphlet, and I would be really interested to know your thoughts on both the pamphlet and on this use of video shorts.

To find out more about Jonathan’s work, do visit his website: https://jonathanelliscampaigns.com