What is a campaign?

The Commons Social Change Library defines campaigns as “sustained efforts at a specific social justice goal.” The Activist Handbook defines them as “strategic plan[s] devised to reach specific objectives within a specific time frame.”

Campaigns will have different specific goals and will use various tactics depending on subject matter, audience, intention, and what the campaign leads think is the best way forward. At St Andrews, we’ve seen a number of campaigns over the years, including the Save Our Scottish Universities campaign, and the yearly Sexual Assault Awareness Month campaign.

If you’ve seen a problem in the University, Government, or wider society, which you want to push people to fix and/or you want to draw attention to/educate on, then starting a campaign might be an option for you.

This guide has been compiled based on similar guides from other students' unions and  activist websites.

Getting started

Consider these questions before you start:

• Why is this a problem?
• How big is this issue?
• What are the causes of the problem?
• What are the consequences, and who is affected?
• What information/research/data do I need to support my campaign?
• What strengths do I have that I can call on when I campaign?
• Where might I need help or the expertise of others to make this successful?

Campaign aims

Once you’ve identified answers to the questions above, you can start thinking about what specifically you want to achieve through your campaign. Do you want to improve the diversity of reading lists in your School? Maybe you want the University to change its investment policy to improve its sustainability. Perhaps you want to lobby the UK Government to improve its policy around international students, graduates, and visas in a specific way. These are aims as they are an overall idea which you will work towards.

Campaign goals

Once you’ve decided on your campaign aim, break it down into smaller, more manageable and specific goals. Doing this ensures you stay motivated, rather than letting your whole campaign seem so big it’s impossible. It also means that you can update anyone following your campaign on small wins along the way, rather than waiting for a massive win at the end (which may be a long way off, or may not come at all). To do this, you can use frameworks like SMART or GROW.

• Specific - The goal is clear and focused so you know what you’re aiming for, rather than being a general idea.
• Measurable - You’ll be able to know when you’ve completed the goal, to help you see progress. Your goal might also be measured in terms of impact (such as how many people are aware of the issue, a total amount of fundraising, attendance at an event etc.)
• Achieveable - Goals need to be realistic rather than so big that it will be impossible given your current skills, time, resources etc.
• Relevant - It needs to support you to reach your overall campaign aim.
• Timebound - It should have a target date so you can stay motivated to keep working toward the goal.

If your aim was to improve the diversity of reading lists in your School, an example SMART goal could be: To collect student feedback on reading lists with representation from at least one-third of mandatory modules across each level of study in your School within 3 months. It’s specific because it’s clear, quantifiable, possible to achieve, relevant to your overall goal, and a timeframe is specified. 

You might also the find the GROW model useful to help you decide on the steps you’re going to take toward your aim:

• Goal
  • What overall aim are you trying to get to?
  • What would you like to achieve?
• Reality
  • What is currently going on with that issue?
  • What have you tried so far to get to your aim (if anything)?
  • What steps have been taken by others on this topic?
  • What steps have been successful?
  • What steps have been unsuccessful?
• Options
  • What options do you see to achieve your aim?
  • What problems might you face? How will you move past these?
  • Who could you speak to or involve in this process?
  • Which option(s) do you think will be most effective?
  • What information do you need to help you achieve your aim?
• Way forward/what Will you do?
  • Which options will you try in the short and long term to help you get to your aim?
  • How will you know when you've reached your aim?
  • What timeframe are you looking at for completing smaller goals and your overall aim?

Campaign message

As part of your campaign, it will be important to have a clear message that you communicate to your allies, casual observers, and to people you hope to get on-side.

Your message should be:

• Short, sharp, and simple – too long and it won’t be remembered, it needs to be a phrase, not a sentence. It also needs to be simple so that it’s easily understood. This will make it quotable, and ideal for social media, posters, and banners/signage.
• Powerful and emotive – your message needs to capture people’s attention, and potentially emotions depending on the campaign topic.
• Relevant – it needs to be relevant and make sense to your campaign topic and aims. For example, if your campaign was about housing and your message it made no reference to housing in any sense, it won’t be powerful or memorable.
• Call to action – your message could include some sort of call to action so that your audience know what steps they can take to support your campaign and make things better.
• Consistent across modalities – whether you are using social media, banners at protests, or lobbying in emails, your message needs to be the same so that the identity of the campaign is consistent.

Some examples include:

• “Votes for Women” – often seen on placards at women’s suffrage marches/events.
• “Black Lives Matter” – a political campaign name, but also seen on signs etc at protests.
• “#EverToExtort” – part of CASH St Andrews’ campaign.
• “Yes We Can” – Barack Obama’s presidential race.
• “Where there’s a Will there’s a way” – Barry Will’s Association President campaign 2023.

Building a campaign team

If you are working on a larger-scale or longer-term campaign, you’ll need support so you don’t overburden yourself. If you’re part of a subcommittee or group already, this may not be as much of a problem. If you’re an officer without a subcommittee or you’re a student who hasn’t been elected, this is going to be more important!

Once you’ve started to get a group together (even if it’s just you and two others), you can start sharing out tasks and responsibilities. When deciding who’s going to do what, make sure to ask them about their skills and interests so you can match tasks accordingly. For example, if someone loves graphic design, you can ask them to be the lead on social media. If someone is really detail-orientated, you could ask them to lead on research efforts. People who are outgoing might be perfect for stalls/tabling, as they won’t be self-conscious about speaking to people.

Be realistic about your expectations of your team members and of yourself. Ask them to be honest about the time and effort they are willing to give to the campaign, and respect that they have lives beyond this.

If you are the campaign lead, it will be important to ask people for their opinions on actions and for you to have oversight of what’s going on overall. However, you should be able to trust that your team are capable of good work without you micromanaging their every move. There may also be times where you need to make a final decision where there are differences of opinion. Make sure to communicate this, and accept that members of the team may not agree with your decision. Give everyone space to share their opinions on big decisions. Respect everyone’s thoughts and feelings, even if you disagree and want to go in a different direction.

Power mapping

Power mapping is an exercise where you work out the most and least influential, and most and least supportive people and groups linked to your campaign. This exercise will help inform who you can build support from, who you will need to try and bring on side where possible, and who has the power to make the change you want to see. It will help you focus your efforts, rather than spending time gaining support from people with limited influence, or trying endlessly to get support from people who will continue to oppose your aims. You can do it as a written task as shown below:

Depending on your campaign and its aim(s), you might include:

• Students’ Association (i.e. specific Sabbatical Officers, subcommittees and officers, SRC, academic representatives, societies, specific staff)
• University departments (i.e. specific Schools/Faculties, Units like Student Services, Student Conduct, Principal’s Office etc.)
• Specific University staff (Principal, Proctor, VP People & Diversity, specific academics, specific staff in Student Services etc.)
• Specific businesses and their senior staff
• External charities/groups or subject matter experts
• Your MSP or MP

Once you have your matrix, you can consider their relationships between each other, for example:

• Certain people/groups often work together or are working together on a particular project
• Line management relationships
• If certain people sit on the same committees

Focus your time and energy on those groups or individuals who have the most influence, and who are likely to be more supportive – you are more likely to get better results. Consider what you might need from each of these people, and be mindful of the limits of their power or role. People can offer different things, from expertise and advice which will support your campaign, right up to decision-making authority to make the changes you want to see. Once you’ve identified the people/groups you’re going to focus on, you can consider which tactics are most likely to achieve your goals.