How to plan your local Green New Deal campaign
How to plan your local GND campaign
Planning a campaign from scratch can be a daunting task, but there are loads of tools and tricks that have been tried and tested by campaigners before us to help us along the way.
In this slide deck, we’ll walk through the process of planning your local Green New Deal campaign using some of those tools and tricks.
We’d recommend working through these steps in a session with at least 4 - 6 members of your hub, working together to fill in your strategy planning template.
But political power without people power is vulnerable too.
What happens when a different politician comes into power? You only have to look to the US, and Trump’s rollback of Obama’s environmental regulations to see how this happens.
How do we win a Green New Deal
People power without political power is weak. In some ways we’ve witnessed this over the past couple of years as more people than ever take to the streets on climate but our politicians still fail to deliver.
We need the winning combination of people power and political power to win a Green New Deal. We can’t have one without the other.
The strategy development process we’ll use is based on something called the Midwest Academy Strategy Chart.
This tool has been developed by the Midwest Academy - a training organization in Chicago that has worked with hundreds of progressive groups around the US to map out successful campaigns for social, economic and racial justice.
The strategy chart identifies 5 key elements to creating a successful campaign strategy.
Goals
Organisational considerations → resources
Constituents, allies and opponents
Targets
Tactics
In this resource, we’ll run through each of these and how to identify them for your Green New Deal campaign. We’ll do that in a slightly different order to the Midwest Academy chart.
You can find a template table to populate with your group here.
Step One
Goals
We have already identified the three goals of local organising for a Green New Deal. Every Green New Deal hub should be working to deliver these goals.
Build political pressure
so that local politicians (MPs and local govt) are actively championing and delivering on a GND, or losing their seat because it’s what people want.
Build public support
at a local level to build a groundswell of support and communities ready to vote for it
Build and broaden the active movement
of people organising and mobilising for a Green New Deal (needed to create and public support and political pressure)
Our goals all feed into each other and we need all of them to win.
In order to build public engagement and political pressure we need an active movement of people doing the work.
In order to broaden our active movement we need more people to know about the GND and be supportive so we need public engagement.
Building Public Support | (About the level of awareness and support of a GND across different parts of your community)
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Building Active Movement | (About the size, scale, power and breadth of people activity campaigning on a GND)
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Building Political Pressure | (About the sort of political impact your hoping to have)
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You might find it helpful to get a little more specific with your goals to help plan your strategy and monitor your progress. .
Here are some examples of specific and measurable goals you could use in your area for each broad goal.
Exercise One: Goal Setting
You’ll find the broad goals already entered into your strategy planning template.
Review these with your group and consider whether you might like to add more specific and measurable goals to the broad goals, see the table in the slide before for details.
Step Two
CONSTITUENTS, ALLIES AND OPPONENTS
Next we need to think about the people around us and how much support and opposition we have in our community.
Who holds the balance of power? Is it you and your supporters? Or your opponents and their supporters? How do we tip that balance in our favour?
The spectrum of allies is a really useful tool to help think about this.
SPECTRUM OF ALLIES
The spectrum of allies starts with a simple idea. There are people who are actively with you. They are your people (your base, your group, your active allies - basically anyone who will join you in actively campaigning and calling for a Green New Deal).
Then there are the people who are actively opposed to you (those who don’t want to see a Green New Deal happen).
Campaigns make a mistake when they focus only on active allies and active opposition. Most people aren’t in either of those categories — but somewhere in the middle.
SPECTRUM OF ALLIES
The tool brings with it good news. Campaigns don’t succeed by getting everyone to agree with us! Most successful campaigns never get active opposition to change their minds. Let them go.
We build support for our campaign by moving people who are passive allies, or neutral allies, one step in our direction (for example, moving neutrals so that they become passive allies, moving passive allies to become active allies).
Already campaigning alongside you for a Green New Deal - a Labour for a Green New Deal group? Youth strikers?
Supportive of a Green New Deal but not actively campaigning for one - local environmental groups? Councillors? Trade unions?
Neither for nor against, likely haven’t considered a Green New Deal - trade unions? Civil society groups? Community councils?
Against a Green New Deal but not vocal or active e.g. your MP? High polluting industry figures?
Vocally against a Green New Deal - Politicians? Councillor? Industry figures? Car lobby?
Exercise Two: Spectrum of Allies
Goals | Constituents, allies, opponents | Targets | Resources | Tactics |
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Exercise Two: Spectrum of Allies
Step Three
TARGETS
TARGETS: Moving the rock
We’ve identified targets for public engagement and building an active movement. Now we need to identify our target for political pressure.
To win a comprehensive Green New Deal we need the Westminster government to act. That means MPs - present and future - are our ultimate targets. What you want your MP to do, will depend on their current position (see the slides that follow), but whatever it is, we won’t necessarily achieve it by going straight to them. We’ll likely need the support of the folks around us - the general public.
This is a useful metaphor to think about this:
Politicians are like a balloon tied to a rock, the rock being public opinion. If we swat at the politician they may sway to the left or the right. But tied down, they can only go so far. Instead of batting at them, we should move the rock: people’s social values. When we move the rock, it automatically pulls all the politicians towards us — without having to pressure each one separately.
TARGETS: Moving the rock
Our ultimate target is our local MP
But our primary target is the general public. By moving them, we move the MP
TARGETS: How to shift your MP
If your MP is… Supportive
Great news!
Your task is to get your MP to be publicly championing the GND inside and outside of parliament.
But the role doesn’t stop here. Even if your MP is supportive, it’s their electorate that needs to be supportive and hold them to account.
The bulk of your work therefore (potentially working with your MP) is to build public awareness and support across as broad a range of people in the community as possible, and make that support as visible as possible. This can both embed the idea in your community, and contribute to the national conversation.
TARGETS: How to shift your MP
If your MP is… Not yet supportive, but potentially winnable!
This is a nice challenge, you need to get them onside.
Your task is to build public support in your community. Build up support for a GND in all sectors of your community so that your MP realises it’s something the community cares about. You can also think particularly about reaching those communities that your MP listens to or cares about the most.
They may be wary of supporting something they feel their constituency isn’t supportive of - so that’s your challenge! How can you build a sufficient public engagement, and a large enough active movement that your MP can’t miss you.
TARGETS: How to shift your MP
If your MP is… Currently opposed to a GND
The most interesting challenge!
Your primary task is to build public support in your community. In the long term, you want to be in a position to elect a GND supporting MP in the next election. In the immediate term, focus on identifying elements of the GND that your current MP could support e.g. green jobs or nature preservation, and build public support for those. This is an opportunity to set the tone, achieve some wins, and build your movement.
Who does your MP listen to in the community? How can you get them on board and advocating for a GND?
As ever, the most important work is going to be building support from as many sections of civil society as possible, including building unlikely support and allies.
Exercise Three: Targets
Goals | Constituents, allies, opponents | Targets | Resources | Tactics |
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Exercise Three: Targets
Step Four
RESOURCES
RESOURCES: Mapping what you’ve got
It’s important to map out what you’ve got at your disposal to run your campaign and influence your targets.
Exercise Four: Resources
As a group: Discuss what resources you have ( people, time, skills, connections, physical resources), and identify your gaps.
Add these to the resources column in your strategy planning template.
Goals | Constituents, allies, opponents | Targets | Resources | Tactics |
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| What have we got? What do we need? | |
Exercise Four: Resources
Step Five
TACTICS
TACTICS: Join our national campaigns
Across the year, Green New Deal UK coordinates campaigns and activities for all of our hubs to take part in.
For each of these, we’ll provide tactics that are designed to deliver against our national and your local goals - reaching our targets, winning over allies and helping to build resources.
We would encourage all of our local hubs to prioritise taking part in our national campaigns, where our combined efforts will have maximal impact. If you’re not sure what activities are currently happening, or what’s coming up, get in touch with us on organisersupport@greennewdealuk.org
TACTICS: Start with a petition
Alongside national campaigns, we also encourage all local hubs to set up an evergreen petition for your community to call on your MP to support a Green New Deal. Petitions are a powerful and simple tactic for any group for two key reasons:
As a Green New Deal hub, you have access to Action Network - a campaigning platform that makes it’s easy and secure to set up campaign actions like petitions and events, and to contact your supporters. This video training and accompanying resource provide a 101 guide to using Action Network, setting up your evergreen petition and sending out emails.
If you need any help with Action Network, or your petition, just get in touch with us on organisersupport@greennewdealuk.org
The next slide contains a non exhaustive list of lots of other tactics to get you thinking!
TACTICS
Outside of the national campaigns, and alongside your petition, you’ll want to plan and deliver tactics that help you to deliver your goals, move your allies up the spectrum, reach your targets and make the most of your resources.
Here you’ll find a tactics bank which has loads of ideas in it. But the list is infinite - it’s only restricted by your imagination! Some important things to think about when deciding on tactics are
Keep referring back to your spectrum of allies exercise and thinking about who you're trying to reach - what do they care about and what tactics will feel most relevant to them?
Some more things to consider when planning your tactics
TACTICS: What are you going to do
(some examples)
Public stunt
Blockade
Attitudinal survey
Spoof website
Reclaim the Streets
Media campaign
Advertising
Hang a banner
Rally
Mass lobby
Community consultation
Consultation submission
Leafleting
Door Knocking
National day of action
Petition
Community alliance building
Fundraising event
Take legal action
Freedom of information request
Letter-writing campaign
Public meeting
Celebrity endorsement
Graffiti
Tshirts, stickers and stencil art
Sit-in
Video storytelling
Community education
Community art
March
Exercise Five: Tactics
As a group: Review the tactics bank, and brainstorm your own, considering your goals, allies, targets and resources.
Use the structure below to assess and rank potential tactics,
| Analysis of tactic (on a scale of 1-10) | |||
Tactic | Power it SHOWS | Power it CREATES | Energy it TAKES | Energy it CREATES |
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Goals | Constituents, allies, opponents | Targets | Resources | Tactics |
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| What have we got? What do we need? | How is it showing our power? How is it building our power? How much or our energy is it taking? And is it worth it for the energy it's creating? |
Exercise Five: Tactics
As a group: Complete the final column of your strategy planning template.
FINAL STEP: Sequencing your plan
Now that you have all ingredients of a strategy, all that’s left is to map your tactics out on a timeline. When thinking about sequencing your plan, think about:
You should now have a local Green New Deal campaign strategy and plan!
Once your plan is set, please share it with us on the Green New Deal slack so we can all learn from each other. If you’re not already on the slack channel then let us know at organisersupport@greennewdealuk.org and check out our guide to using it
Don’t forget that effective plans can only be delivered by effective groups. Our guide to structuring and organising your local hub has loads of practical advice on setting up and maintaining your group.