Author Archives: Jonathan Dearth

1. Kate Hudson

   11th April 2013 9:35 pm Leave a Comment

   

   General Secretary of  the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

   Apart from your current organisation, which other organisations that campaign do you admire?
   There are many organisations today that bring something positive and dynamic to the campaigning table. To mention just a few that I have a regard for: the Stop the War Coalition for articulating the views of the overwhelming majority of the population in an accessible and inclusive manner and facilitating the biggest demo in British history; the London Feminist Network for its youthful radicalism and reviving the Reclaim the Night marches; and Plane Stupid for its creative non-violent direct action approach.

   Who is the campaigner you most admire?
   Bruce Kent. Bruce was the key player in CND in the 1980s and was more or less pushed out of the catholic priesthood for his anti-nuclear campaigning. He was vilified by the right-wing press and Tory politicians for his exceptional leadership of CND but stuck to his principles throughout. He remains extremely active today on anti-nuclear and other issues. The best thing about Bruce is that he never looks back and expounds on how he did things in the past. For Bruce, campaigning is all about now and the future.
   What advice would you give to someone starting their career in campaigning today?
   They have to believe in the cause they are championing and it has to be more important to them than anything else. And there is no room for cynicism. Cynicism and campaigning definitely do not mix. Optimism is essential, with confidence in humanity and the belief that you can win.

   What three things make a good campaigner?

   • an understanding of the wider world and the overall political context in which you are operating, and how to put together alliances within civil society to bring about political change
   • a strategic approach to creating the conditions for achieving your campaign’s goals
   • a positive approach to your own campaign combined with respect for others

   Which of these three do you have most of?
   Well I like to think I have all of them, but maybe number one is my main strength.

   Which of these three do you think is missing most out of people who campaign or want to?

   Perhaps number one although people have many different strengths and skills.

   Generally are organisations getting better at campaigning since you began your career? If so, what’s changed?

   I wouldn’t really describe it as a career, but during my campaigning life perhaps! I don’t think that question is quite right somehow. It is really the political balance of forces in wider society that determine whether campaigns succeed or not, not just what the campaigns themselves do and what methods they choose. One of the most successful campaigns was the Anti-Apartheid movement, but apartheid wasn’t overthrown solely or even largely to do with AA. It was the struggle of the ANC, backed by progressive states and opinion world-wide. AA linked in with that in a very effective way and was able to play its part. There are many examples of success – and failure – at all points over the decades I have been a campaigning activist. I think methods and style have changed because of technological changes but the fundamental issue is getting the politics right and that can happen – or not – at any time.

   If you weren’t a campaigner, what would you be?
   I have only been employed as a campaigner since September 2010, because before that, as Chair of CND, I was an elected political officer but not an employee. So my ‘career’ has been as an academic – I am a historian by training, and taught, until joining CND staff full-time, at London South Bank University. I was fortunate to teach, research and write in my areas of political and campaigning interest, so there were obvious synergies between the two parts of my life. I plan to continue writing but campaigning is my great love – working to change the world for the better!

    

2. Margaret Thatcher

   1st April 2013 3:07 pm Leave a Comment

   I’m writing this just 3 hours after hearing that she died this morning. It’s strange feeling of trying to assemble all my thoughts about the death of Margaret Thatcher.

   When I was 7, I remember putting my hand up in class and answering a question about her becoming the first woman leader of the Conservatives.

   When I was 11, I remember getting free school dinners when my father, a steel worker in South Wales, went out on strike.

   At university, I recall the Conservative Association singing “10 more years” in 1989. And a year later organising a “Thatcher’s Gone” party the night she left office.

   And I’m sure I’m not alone in my uneasy reaction to the news of her death – she was so important to so many people’s formative years. Many campaigners in the sector have directly campaigned against her policies from 1979 to 1990. Others were motivated to dedicate their careers to campaigning whilst growing up while she was in power.

   When I started working for Shelter in 1993, under Sheila McKechnie’s leadership, a Conservative, or a Conservative who was “openly out” would not have been countenanced anywhere near 88 Old Street or even the EC1V postal sector.

   Slowly, since then, as the campaigning sector has expanded and as now the majority of charities campaign as opposed to only a handful 20 years ago – and also as the Conservative party has adapted and like other parties fight for the centre ground, then Conservative supporters are campaigning in the sector. And many do so and they genuinely have the right ethos for the campaigns that they represent.

   It isn’t the day to sum up the effect of Margaret Thatcher on the campaigning sector.  As it’s the day that an old lady, who has been very poorly in recent years has died. I’m sure we’ll hear more about her effective in the months to come.

3. The Hardest Jobs To Get In Campaigning

   8th March 2013 3:08 pm Leave a Comment

   Last month, we surveyed potential candidates who are working in the campaigning sector – you may well have taken part in it.

   We asked them which area of work their organisation focussed on and what type of organisation would they ideally like to work for next.

   Most popular type of organisation for their next role:

   1 International development/justice

   2 Social justice

   3 Human Rights

   4 Social welfare

   5 Health

   6 Environment

   7 Housing/homelessness

   8 Disability

   9 Other

   10 Animal welfare/Animal rights

   But perhaps more interesting, is assessing where people are working at the moment and where they want to go next – this brings in a bit of supply and demand, which
   shows which areas of campaigning are the most competitive to get into currently:

   Most competitive areas:

   1 Human Rights

   2 Social welfare

   3 Housing/homelessness

   4 Social justice

   5 International development/justice

   6 Environment

   7 Animal welfare/Animal rights

   8 Disability

   9 Other

   10 Health

   I’m surprised that Health has come so low down in terms of competitiveness, but I guess there a lot of campaigns working in this area. Human Rights being top is not a surprise. When we ask candidates where they want to work, top of the tree is human rights and international development. More people want to work international development than Human Rights, but as there are more jobs in development, then this make human rights more competitive.

   I hope this is a useful guide for you and may explain why you may find some job hunting harder than others.

4. Alison Goldsworthy

   2nd January 2013 9:42 pm Leave a Comment

   

   Head of Supporter Strategy and Engagement at Which?

   Apart from your current organisation which other organisations that campaign do you admire?
   I think WaterAid are brilliant. The emails they send out to their supporter network are always eye-catching and I’d be surprised if they don’t get a high action rate. I also really admire how they have managed to get the establishment to accept some of their issues but keep a radical edge. That takes some doing.

   Back home in Cardiff the Save the Vulcan campaign is a masterclass in local campaigning, with everyone you could imagine backing the campaign. It’s a great iconic pub, if you are in the city go and even if you can’t make it, sign the petition. If you are a guy, I’m told the gents toilets are well worth a visit.

   Who is the campaigner you most admire?
   Clarence Wilcock – who took a stand against ID cards in the 1950’s leading to their demise. It saddens me they are making a comeback.

   Vaclav Havel – the most tenacious campaigner against Communism in the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia as was) he never let up even against horrendous pressure and the led his country to freedom. Most impressively of all he worked out when to stop, stood down and let someone else take over.

   Is there a campaigning organisation that you would like to see the back of?
   There are some with whom I profoundly disagree, even hate, but I wouldn’t seek to deny their right to exist. Top on the hate list are The BNP, for obvious reasons. I don’t have much time for Christian Voice and Migration Watch either – I think they do a great disservice to debate with ill considered improper contributions that purport to represent people they don’t.

   What advice would you give someone starting their career in campaigning today?
   Find something that irritates you and try and change it – suggest a better alternative and bring others into your campaign. DO NOT ignore local engagement.

   What three things make a good campaigner?
   Tenacity, Audacity and people skills.

   Which of these three do you have most of?
   I’d hope people skills, but you probably need to ask those I work and have worked with.

   Which of these three do you think is missing most out of people who campaign or want to?
   Audacity: I think campaigners are often far too risk averse, for fear of breaking CC9 and getting in trouble with Charity Commission.

   Generally are organisations getting better at campaigning since you began your career? If so, what’s changed?
   A lot more professional, with best practice being shared. To me it’s the best thing about the sector.I’m especially pleased that more and more people are including user involvement in their campaigning strategies. Quite simply, I think if the end users don’t inform and shape your work, what legitimacy does it have?

   If you weren’t a campaigner, what would you be?

   Bored. And frustrated beyond belief.

5. 1992 – Right Said Fred, Eldorado, Robert Halfon and Me

   11th December 2012 3:11 pm Leave a Comment

   Robert Halfon is complaining about good and healthy organisations again – it’s like going back 20 years for me.

   Back then I was at the University of Exeter with Robert. I was Deputy President of the student union, he was Chair of the Conservative Association. His focus was then the supposed closed shop of student unions.

   Robert Halfon, who is now the Conservative MP for Harlow, told the Public
   Administration Select Committee that the Charity Commission had made “arbitrary
   decisions” about how much lobbying charities were allowed to do.

   “A charity should be about doing practical things,” he said. “Surely the
   real test of whether something is a charity is what it does on the ground.” 

   Halfon said that there were too many very large “Tesco charities” that spent millions of pounds lobbying in Whitehall.

   I think he was wrong and misguided in the early 90s about student unions. He just didn’t like the word union and the political connotations behind it, that was – left-wing and militant. And as a student, he was a member of a Union – which was repugnant to him. He tried to take a case to the courts in Strasbourg. He lost of course – student unions are just communities of students which have chosen to call themselves unions. And an inclusive student union was a practical and healthy community.

   In fact, in Exeter, they chose to call it a student Guild – which you would have thought was less militant and more cuddlier.

   And I think he is wrong today. His current concern about charities campaigning. Again, it’s not really the principal of them campaigning, it’s more that they are campaigning against things that he doesn’t agree with. His party is part of the current government and he wants to see charities weakened so that they can’t be so critical.

   In fact, I take the view that charities should campaign more to look to end or minimise the problem that they were set up to do. But some charities are not campaigning enough because of their concern of “biting the hand that feeds them” in terms of the funding from government they receive.

   In 1992, virtually the last thing I did as a Student Union representative was to win the vote at a general meeting against Robert Halfon on automatic membership of all, to the student body.

   I hope more of us who care about the charity campaigning sector will stand up and counter those who want to diminish the ability of charities to campaign and so lessen the chance of making our society or our world better.

6. Lucy Tweedie

   18th November 2012 10:03 pm Leave a Comment

    

   Whilst Director at Advocacy Associates

   Apart from your current organisation which other organisations that campaign do you admire?
   Friends of the Earth – for their wide public reach and outsider advocacy stance
   Oxfam – for their creative public presence and strong policy and lobbying
   Wateraid – for their impressive evidence-based advocacy work

   Who is the campaigner you most admire?
   Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty. She combines a strategic approach with very clear media messages on challenging areas of debate.

   Is there a campaigning organisation that you would like to see the back of?
   Migration Watch – for their negative impact on the public debate about immigration.

   What advice would you give someone starting their career in campaigning today?
   Select the organisations carefully and check that they have advocacy work embedded in policy and programmes rather than just fundraising.

   Work on an issue you feel passionately about.

   Gain experience in a variety of organisations particularly in relation to ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ advocacy and work out where you feel politically most comfortable.

   Base all your campaigning work on a clear strategy and objectives.

   What three things make a good campaigner?

   Strategic mind
   Creativity and instinct
   Ability to communicate with a wide range of people

   Which of these three do most campaigners have most of?
   Creativity and instinct

   Which of these three do you think is missing most out of people who campaign or want to?
   Strategic mind

   Generally are organisations getting better at campaigning since you began your career? If so, what’s changed?
   Advocacy with Southern partners in the case of International Development Organisations has been strengthened over the last ten years. Issues around legitimacy still exist.

   Coalition working has also improved the public understanding of campaigning

   Working in coalitions has led to considerable learning for the organisations involved.

   There has been a greater recognition of the need for advocacy and campaigning as a means for change across the voluntary sector.

   If you weren’t a campaigner, what would you be?
   Documentary maker

   If you’re a campaigner with at least 3 years experience, and would like to tell us your views, answer the above questions and email a photo of you to jonathan@therightethos.co.uk

7. Letter published in Third Sector 26th March 2012

   22nd March 2012 3:12 pm Leave a Comment

   It is disappointing to say the least to read that of the 30 staff who are at most risk of redundancy at Mencap are those in the campaigns, policy and communications teams. If this happens, it looks like “the voice of learning disability”  will become a little softer for a while.

   This proposal would be heading in the opposite direction of many other charities and  campaigning organisations who after a tough couple of years are in 2012 investing again growing in these areas. The marked increase in recruitment for campaigning and policy roles in the last quarter is producing a postive outlook at last for this sector for the rest of the year and hopefully beyond. And it doesn’f feel like it’s just a blip either.

   The reason Mencap is looking to cut campaigns, policy and communications roles was reported in Third Sector as lost funding from local authority contracts. I would have thought a loss of funding from this source would have meant a reduction in the charitable side of Mencap’s work rather the their work in gaining justice and long term change for people with learning disability.

8. Obstacles to effective campaigning

   2nd January 2012 11:32 am Leave a Comment

   Much of my writing and training on campaigning over the last five years or so has been around the theme of successful campaigning and I have tried to use my time to encourage others on what is possible for them to campaign about.

   But in recent months, I have begun to wonder if in fact by taking such a route I have ignored one of the biggest issues in ensuring effective campaigning – by which I mean spending time looking at the internal obstacles to effective campaigning.

   So what are those obstacles? Why don’t more people and NGOs run campaigns? What do you think? On a long journey recently I tried to list the obstacles that I had either experienced or heard of.

   I think that I could have stumbled upon a big issue here, and what I offer now is just work in progress – but what do you think? Have I missed any obstacles?

   Lack of research

   I have seen this happen so many times – people say we would love to campaign on an issue but we need more research. So the campaign stalls. While research is important, it can also be a huge reason for delay in starting a campaign.

   Nervous leadership

   Here the campaigners are ready, but the organisation’s leadership is nervous and the campaign stalls.

   Resources

   This is a classic. The argument goes – we would love to campaign but we need a full-time campaigns post. And that nothing is possible without such a post. Really?

   Lack of shared values

   This is a sad one. The obstacle to campaigning comes down to not having a shared value set within the organisation.

   Lack of common understanding of advocacy campaigns

   This is another classic. With almost all of the advocacy campaigns consultancy work that I have done over the past 5 years or so this issue comes up. The issue of a common definition within the organisation is so important. I often find myself saying I don’t care what your definition is, but I would like you to share the same one within the
   organisation.

   Lack of a theory of change

   Have you seen this one? I know I have been guilty of this. So much effort goes into producing the research report and maybe getting some media coverage and then you just collapse exhausted with little idea of all this action happening so that something else happens. But without your theory of change at least sketched out, there is a good chance that your report will just be filed or thrown away and all momentum lost.

   Individual agendas taking over

   Here campaigning is undermined because individuals have their own agendas and seek opportunities to develop their agendas.

   Internal disharmony

   This is another sad one. Here the team or organisation is undermined by internal conflict. Sadly this can be a problem specially in small NGOs and it does so undermine effective campaigning.

   Lack of a common goal

   What is the point of your campaigning? Is it policy change? To recruit new supporters? To raise your profile? To raise money? What is your goal – effective campaigning needs focus and a clear goal. And agreement on the goal is so important.

   We are too busy to campaign

   Have I left the best until last? I see this so often – we are so busy delivering services to meet the need that we can’t campaign. So that nothing ever changes so that you stay busy. I just get excited by those smaller NGOs who can both deliver services but also embed their campaigning into the soul of their organisation. They do both activities because they know they need to do both – but one fits seamlessly into the other – they see these actions as being on one continuum.

   So that’s my initial list. I am sure that I have missed loads. What do you think? It would be great to hear from you with other obstacles and we could then publish them in a fresh blog. And I will try next time to tentatively suggest some answers to these obstacles.

9. Campaigning in Somalia

   21st December 2011 11:32 am Leave a Comment

   One of my recurrent themes for this blog over the years has been my fascination and amazement at the fact that the language of campaigning is truly international.

   I recently put that theory to the test again by undertaking an assignment for Saferworld in Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland.

   Over a five day period I ran a two day advocacy course followed by a three day train the trainers’ course so that the participants could take the training out to their communities and inspire advocacy action.

   The audience was representatives from the three non-state actor platforms in Somaliland (SONSAF), Puntland (PUNSAA) and South and Central Somalia (SONSCENSA). These platforms consisted of member organisations ranging
   from community groups to business associations.

   On my trip out to Somaliland via Nairobi I did feel somewhat apprehensive. This was one of the most challenging environments for advocacy campaigning – would my messages resonate with them?

   But my feelings of apprehension were soon swept away as a focus on problem and solution, evidence, messaging, allies, influence trees, using opposition and a theory of change seemed to work with them.

   Even the elevator pitch – 15-30 seconds to convey your key campaign message – seemed to work although we struggled for a while with the Somali translation for elevator pitch.

   Then the train the trainers section proved to be inspiring to me as the platforms began to construct their own training in their own words so that they could take the training out themselves.

   But above all I was left with an overriding impression of passionate and committed people driven to promote the role of civil society in making a difference to people’s lives and futures and committed to using advocacy methods to achieve this change.

   Advocacy campaigning really is an international language.

10. Holding out for a hero with The Right Ethos

    1st December 2011 3:14 pm Leave a Comment

    Earlier this week I tweeted:

    “Help for Heroes is non-political and non-critical, we simply want to help” – that’s suitable, but means that they don’t have the right ethos

    Help for Heroes have just recently won an award for being the Most Admired Charity and this comment about being “non-political and non-critical” struck me and realised that with that attitude they will never be a client of The Right Ethos.

    All of the organisations we work with are critical. And most of them get involved in the  political debate to a greater or lesser extent. Personally, I’m glad they do. Because the aspirations of our client organisations are, I believe, higher. They work to change our world or our society for the better. They campaign for justice.

    There’s certainly a place for charities who simply want to help out. And I wouldn’t be sniffy about them. They can provide a valuable safety net. Or provide activities that you wouldn’t expect to be paid for out of our taxes.

    My award for Most Admired Charity 2011 would go to one that campaigns and is critical and often supports political behaviour to gain permanent change.

    To show that we don’t wish any bad will, many of the Christmas cards sent out by The Right Ethos this year are in aid of Help for Heroes.

    Season’s Greetings