Citizen Works - Tools for Organizing

There is a basic structure to campaign planning. Let's start with a few definitions and then use the following three sample campaigns to illustrate these definitions:

· A campaign for a living wage for all of the workers in your town.

· A campaign to take over your student government with a slate of progressive student senators.

· Your state's part of a national campaign to win a key air quality initiative in Congress.

Goal: a concrete, measurable end that you want to reach

There are two kinds of goals:

The first is the final goal.

· Get the City Council to pass a Living Wage Ordinance

· Win a majority of seats in your student government elections

· Have your Senators vote for the air quality initiative

And secondly there are specific, tactical goals.

· Collect 5000 petition signatures to give to your City Council.

· Build a coalition of 20 student groups who will support your progressive slate.

· Get stories on television stations in two cities in your state on the air-quality bill.

All of your planning must be with your final strategic goal in mind - which you (hopefully) accomplish by reaching your tactical goals.

Target: the person, organization, or body that you are pressuring

You cannot simply pressure the "powers that be" - there must be a person, body or organization that you are asking to do something concrete.

· If, for example, it is your City Council determines the wages of city workers, you will need to target them. This is a case where you can get even more specific. If there are 7 members of your City Council and you already know that Councilwoman Stanley and Councilman Higgins will vote against any living wage ordinance, and Councilwomen Jones and El-Wafi will vote for it, they shouldn't be your targets. You have to focus your attention on the other three Council members who are undecided and could swing either way. These three members are your targets.

· Here your target is the student population that will be voting on the student government. You can get more specific if, for example, student social groups are powerful on your campus, you may choose to target the leadership of these groups so that they endorse your slate of candidates.

· Obviously, here the target is the Senators from your state. If you already know one will vote for the bill, then the other Senator is your target.

Tactic: a specific mechanism or technique used in a campaign

· Tabling to get petition signatures

· Speaking at the meetings of other campus groups and asking them to join in supporting your slate of candidates

· Holding a press conference talking about how air pollution affects the health of a community

Strategy: a systematic set of tactics arranged to influence a specific target towards a specific goal.

· Demonstrate overwhelming support for a living wage ordinance among citizen voters in your town by running a gigantic petition drive and publicity campaign.

· Systematically lobby student social groups by doing a campus-wide visibility campaign: send speakers to student group meetings and get them to endorse your slate. Then use their power to influence the student body as a whole to vote for your candidates.

· Embarrass your state's Senators and hold them accountable for air pollution problems in your state by systematically having press conferences covered on local news programs in cities across. Make sure that the coverage ties your state's dirty air with the bill in Congress that could help solve the problem.

Be sure to think strategically about your campaign so that your work will actually succeed in reaching the goals you want to see fulfilled.

Once your group has carefully chosen your new campaign, you should choose a special meeting time--different than your normal meeting time because this one may take a while--and spread some butcher paper across the floor to begin mapping your strategy, targets, goals and tactics. Be sure to make a timeline, and make it as down-to-the-day as possible. Your plan is bound to change, so be flexible, but remember that the more detailed it is, the more you'll be able to monitor your progress and hold yourself accountable.

Campaign planning can be among the most interesting and intellectually engaging parts of organizing. Enjoy!

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