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► Planning a Campaign

Once you've decided you want to campaign on an issue and thought about what that issue is, you're ready to start! To ensure your campaign is as successful as possible, it's important to consider these 2 main questions;

1. What do you want to change?
To attract volunteers to a campaign, it's important to recognise why change needs to happen and how you want to do it. Think about the central element of the issue which is unfair, unjust or discriminatory and what you'd like the ideal outcome to be. It is so important to have clear, achievable aims to communicate to others. Ensure you understand the issue, do your research and make a plan of how the campaign is going to progress. Try and sum up your campaign in one sentence. We are always here to help you with this.

2. How are you going to do it?
Once you know what you want to change, think about how you're going to do it. Getting organised is the principle cause of success of campaigns.

• Who might be able to help?
• Which campaign techniques are you going to use?
  These issues will be addressed in the Campaigns Contacts and Campaigning Techniques section of these pages.

3. How are you going to motivate others to join you?
Successful campaigns are based on inspiring and motivating volunteers. Here are some key tips on how to get organised and get people involved;

• Relate the issue directly to the people you are trying to attract - think how it effects students - instead of assuming everyone is as passionate about the wider issues as you are.
• Put in the hard work – hold stalls, post flyers advertising a public meeting, make your campaign as visible as possible so that people cannot claim to not know it was going on.
• Hold regular planning meetings in an inclusive, social venue to encourage people to come along. Always allow room for discussion on how best to proceed.
• Give volunteers a defined role - helping to design leaflets, flyering, booking venues for events etc - this way they will feel as though they have a stake in the success of the campaign and are more likely to stick with it.
• Focus on the end goal – volunteers will continue to help out if they feel as though progress is being made. Constantly stress the intention of your campaign and how you are moving towards it.

These are just some basic tips and you may find some more helpful than others. However, always remember the basic principle - get organised! - and hopefully it will be a great success.