Business has money, government has law but campaigns have only public support. Communication is the campaigners’ instrument for change, not simply a way to publicise an opinion. Campaigns use communication to gather support, create pressure and exert influence. For most non governmental organisations (NGOs), their only resource to secure real change is public persuasion

These will include an introduction to campaign tools and techniques, issue mapping, framing, values and heuristics, communications factors and proposition-making, visual language, the history of campaigning and the differences between campaigning and advocacy.

It will also touch on values modes: how the differing values people hold results in different behaviours and results in different types of messaging appealing to them. This is especially important in 2017 since the political outcomes of Brexit, Trump's election and beyond have revealed societies that seem deeply divided while NGOs have traditionally only appealed to those who already agree with them. Applying values modes to messaging helps go beyond personal and organisational bubbles.

Agenda

Preparing

Participants will be invited to complete a short questionnaire about themselves and what they’d most like to get from the day, prior to the event.  This is not obligatory but will help Chris in planning the final content.

Similarly, it will help the session on motivational values if the group all complete the CDSM online values questionnaire so we can produce a group map – this should make the session more interesting.

Information will be circulated about both of the above.

It is not essential but may be useful if participants have also looked at, if not actually read (!) two of Chris’s books   -  How to Win Campaigns: Communications for Change Edn 2 (Taylor and Francis/Earthscan 2010) and What Makes People Tick: The Three Hidden Worlds of Settlers, Prospectors and Pioneers (Troubadour 2011).   The author can bring copies to purchase on the day, if anyone is interested, at a discounted price of £15 and £12 respectively.

You can also get an idea of some of Chris’s work from visiting www.campaignstrategy.org

Finally, all participants are invited to come armed with a simple 2 minute presentation of a campaign they are working on, worked on or would like to work on, so that it can be used in the sessions where helpful for exercises.  Just a verbal description will do, although it will be useful to sketch it out on a flip chart sheet on the day.  If you bring something ready-prepared, please keep it simple !