Common Problems with Campaign Strategy
This piece is an extract from the article “The Horizon of Possibility: Tectonica’s Method for Social Change Strategy.” Check out the full article here: https://www.tectonica.co/social_change_strategy.
Progressive movements across the world are failing - losing to a growing tide of right-wing populist sentiment, mired in electoral and advocacy setbacks to progressive policy advancement. Even well-resourced efforts are not achieving the change they seek. We believe that organizations, communities, and movements have the knowledge they need to turn things around.?
Why then aren’t progressives able to transform their collective wisdom into a winning strategy??
In my years of doing strategy, I’ve found that the wisdom organizations need to advance their causes is already there within the group and just needs to be teased out. One of the biggest challenges is that the organizations often struggle to move past everyday concerns and individual agendas to make a people-powered strategic plan aligned to their vision. It’s easy for campaign teams to get caught up in day-to-day frustrations, leave collective assumptions unquestioned, and set an ‘achievable’ policy goal as the focus without stepping back to check that this genuinely moves them towards their bigger vision. There are also likely conflicting pulls on the approach - preoccupation with ‘brand’ and fundraising, communications schedules, maintaining relationships with the department, team leads, funders, etc. All these factors and more prevent teams from stepping back to work out what victory would actually look like - defining the clear direction, they are going in and then working backward from that victory to work out how to win considering a proper analysis of the current (swiftly changing) context.?
In response, Tectonica has developed a solid process to facilitate strategy development, channeling the wisdom of the teams we work with and, more fundamentally, the strength of their base communities. We do this through a process of guided agitational exploration to develop a logic model - a strategic map - aiming for people-powered victory. In terms of strategy as a definition of a plan from point A to point B, I think it's key to first get everyone on the same page with what point B is and walk backwards from there. Our client feedback attests to this being one of our greatest strengths:
“The strategy process with Tectonica has allowed our senior team to step back from day to day operations and really focus on what it means to build a movement and why that is so crucial for our mission. Through the facilitated sessions, we’ve been able to align around a vision for how our supporters can play a crucial role in securing the change we want to see.” - Trish Murray, Director of Fundraising, Good Law Project
The development of a strategic plan is just the first step in actually winning change. The real power of strategy comes from implementing and adapting that change as the context shifts in real-time. If you’re looking for strategic support with your social change work, get in touch: https://www.tectonica.co/hire_us! Tectonica is passionate about good strategy, and we have an excellent track record in supporting our clients with this work.?