Petitions and open letters are a classic within campaigns and activism, as they can help you find out how widespread support for your campaign position is already, and can raise awareness of the issue and bring more people onside (if done in the right way).
Examples from St Andrews
- Students gained 1000 signatures to have dedicated staff working on the University’s sustainability goals (sent it with an open letter to Principal and senior management)
- Washstation open letter by the then-Association President, Jamie Rodney
Writing & submitting a motion for SRC
If you are a normal student who is not a Students’ Association officer, and you want to submit a motion to SRC, you will have to do so by petition. You will need 25 student signatures in order for the motion to be accepted. For more on SRC, see our dedicated SRC section.
How to create petitions
Friends of the Earth suggest you create a title that will hook people in. Start with a verb (an action word), name the target you are trying to influence, and what you want them to do. Titles should be short and snappy. For example:
- Call on the University of St Andrews to improve its sustainability credentials
- Tell the UK Government to increase student maintenance loans in line with inflation
Other verbs you might use could include:
- Create
- Carry out
- Increase
- Decrease
- Remove
- Review
- Reform
- Change
- Improve
- Urge
- Lobby
In the introduction to your petition/open letter, make sure you explain the issue you are writing about so that people know why they should care. You should also give some context about your campaign, its overall aims, and the purpose and intended next steps of your petition/open letter.
There are a few methods available for creating your petition:
- Online platforms like change.org or Action Network (the latter comes with a cost attached). This option is good for campaigns which go beyond just St Andrews students and staff, so that people outside of the bubble can respond.
- Microsoft Forms. This option will work well for St Andrews specific issues, as you’ll have free access to MS Forms with your University account, and it’s GDPR compliant.
- Clipboard, paper and pen (ask people to write legibly or print their names). This option is more dynamic as it will force you to get out and speak to people about your campaign and why they should be invested.
Whichever method you choose, if it’s a petition for St Andrews students only, get their name, matriculation number, and University email address. If it’s not solely for students here, ask for their name and an email address.
Some things to bear in mind
Petitions might be a great starting point, but they need to be coupled with other things to keep up momentum, like:
- An informational campaign on social media/through posters etc.
- Writing and speaking to decision makers
- Craftivism, either installations, stunts, or sending the crafts to decision makers/officials. You could even do your petition creatively such as by stitching the names of your petition signers and sending that in.
- Events to draw attention to or educate on the issue
- Protests
If your signers consent to it, you can send them information and updates about the campaign to ensure they stay interested. In an online form, you can link to the campaign socials or Linktree, and for clipboard petitions, you could take a QR code to the Linktree/socials with you.
For more widespread issues, you could sign and share existing petitions, the UK Government, the Scottish Government, and change.org, or other charities/organisations depending on the nature of the issues you are interested in, such as Amnesty and Greenpeace.
However, if previous, recent petitions didn’t work, you probably need to try something else.
You can read more about petitions in this Greenpeace article, this blog by Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira from LSE, and the OU’s Changemakers Guide.